Guest post by Elisabeth Buford of PacketTrap.comIn September 2008, PacketTrap Networks launched Perspective, providing network discovery, monitoring, and alerting including traffic flow (NetFlow, Sflow / J-Flow), VoIP and wireless modules; application monitoring; policy-based remediation; and advanced visualization and reporting. Perspective is fully integrated with all the tools available in the pt360 product suite (i.e., Cisco configuration management, switch port mapping, traffic generator, scanning utilities, etc.). With a next-generation visual interface, Perspective provides drag-and-drop dashboard functionality and a single pane of glass for tasks which typically have network engineers flipping between multiple screens and applications. Perspective contains both a thin-client and a browser-based interface.
Key Benefits
The following are the key benefits of PacketTrap Perspective.
- It’s simple – load and go. Perspective’s “time to productivity” is very short. The solution takes roughly fifteen minutes to install, configure and customize so it can be in operation very quickly. Discovery is a simple three-step process with the average time for sub-net discovery being approximately two minutes. Smart Policies are automatically assigned and users can simply overwrite them using an intuitive straight-forward interface.
- Eliminate “false positive” problems. Once the exclusive purview of much more expensive solutions, Perspective allows for rolling baselines for alert thresholds, trending back up to four weeks. Checkboxes allow for grouping of baselines so that Monday morning log-on and e-mail rushes don’t create false positives, for example. Alerts are delivered as SMS or e-mail messages and provide in-depth information about the issue at-hand.
- Taking action is easy. Perspective allows for on-demand, scheduled and automated actions to be taken with the ability to restore services when a failure occurs, including restarting applications and windows services, or rebooting servers, automated reset of alerts as appropriate, or escalation of the issue. E-mail alerts are generated following policy rules, allowing for quick communication to impacted IT personnel.
- Everybody gets a peek. A read-only drag-and-drop dashboard allows all levels of the organization to get a context-appropriate view into the application and network activities. The dashboard allows for Top 10 lists (i.e., the top ten most active applications), and customized tabs allow for large amounts of disparate data to be managed from a single, clean interface. Perspective also includes built-in security measures to ensure only authorized users are allowed to access their assigned areas of the network.
- Flexible reporting. Reports can be generated graphically or by lists with real-time or historical views. The easy-to-use reporting interface allows for exporting to PDF formats or emailing links for executives to view the reports live from the Perspective.
No legacy baggage. Unlike most of its competitors, both large and small, Perspective is built on true next-generation platform without all the kludges and workarounds inherent in older products. For this reason, Perspective’s performance outpaces its rivals.
To download FREE Network Management Tools, please visit http://www.packettrap.com/download/index.aspx website.
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[Update]I downloaded a copy of pt360 Tool Suite , registered and it will expire year 2029. This is really cool. Well, let's see how it easy to use this network management tool.
I've installed IPSwitch Whats Up Gold and pt360 Tool Suite, both for my first time use. I easily configured them without a problem. The amazing part is I can see my network activity (Dashboard) within 15 -20 minutes after installation.
Without looking further, I prefer to use pt360 Tool Suite to manage my network to save $ in my IT budget.
I'm not stopping here, I will continue to assess these tools and compare them for you.
Thank you,
EM @KING.NET
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