A new breed of solution has been born that simultaneously provides the precision of packet-based analytics with the speed of flow-based monitoring (at a reasonable cost). Here are 3 more reasons to use these new NPM/APM analytics solutions.

Start with 6 Reasons Every NetOps Team Should Use a Packet-Based Analytics Solution - Part 1

4. Reduce tool sprawl

Teams are sick of adding more and more tools. The new NPM/APM solutions consolidate key functionality and offer flexible new dashboards that allow teams to monitor the information that matters most to their organization and team. For example, monitor key applications like Office365, WebEx and Salesforce in a single dashboard that includes application performance, network performance, transaction quality and VoIP quality; metrics that in the past required several solutions from several vendors to achieve the same level of visibility.

5. Get an integrated packet view

It's not enough to just be notified of abnormalities and problems. When these happen, you need immediate access to the packets that matter so you can troubleshoot and remediate. Also, NetOps needs information on the worst-performing parts of their network. Many products only calculate and display averages of network metrics like latency, utilization and VoIP quality, which can obscure problems that only affect a small number of flows. For example, a typical network will have thousands if not tens of thousands of HTTP flows at any given moment. If only a few exhibit poor network latency, and the dashboard shows the average network latency for all HTTP (which many dashboards do), the few flows that exhibit poor network latency will be masked by the good performance of all of the other flows. This example illustrates the absolute need to be able to pick the worst flows, out of millions, at any given moment to make sure critical issues are not overlooked.

6. Monitor SaaS SLAs

Whether you're offering a service or using one, being able to validate the agreement is critical, especially if problems arise. Packet data doesn't lie, which means if you have that information, you have what's needed to ensure SLAs are being delivered. Using today's modern dashboards, you can set your SLA thresholds for network latency, application latency, transaction quality and VoIP quality, and let the software constantly monitor millions of flows and let you know when even a single flow exceeds your SLAs.

As mentioned above, there's real cost associated with any kind of operational downtime, so avoiding or at least minimizing these issues is a NetOps priority. Therefore, it's critical to maintain a high-quality end-user experience for employees and customers. The powerful new analytics tools available today allow IT teams to anticipate network and application performance problems and react in real time. Rather than waiting for complaints, it's now possible to monitor every aspect of network traffic and performance at an incredibly granular level, making network problems much more visible even as the speed and volume of network traffic rises dramatically. The vision of network continuity all day, every day, across the entire network, is finally here.