VistaOne Webinar Series: The Traffic Shaping Toolbox

VistaOne continues its monthly webinar series comparing different traffic shaping solutions with our second episode, “The Traffic Shaping Toolbox” tomorrow, February 28, 2012, at 2pm Eastern time.

Join us for a brief overview of the control mechanisms available to manage traffic with Exinda Networks’ Unified Performance Management, Procera Networks’ PacketLogic, and Blue Coat’s PacketShaper.

All the details and registration can be found here.

Questions? Can’t make it but want access to the recorded version later? No problem! Just send an email to dave.inman@vistaone.com to request the link.

VistaOne Webinar Series: Your Network Through The Eyes of Your Shaper

In case you missed our webinar last month—here’s all the info and where to view the archived version.

What kind of view do different traffic shaping products - Blue Coat PacketShaper, Exinda Networks UPM and Procera Networks PacketLogic - provide into your network? How do those views compare?

Considering upgrading a current shaper or the purchase of a new product? How do the different traffic shaping appliances classify applications and protocols? How do they identify uses and hosts? How do they track traffic patterns over time? And what do they have to show about the health of my network? Explore these features in this VistaOne Web tutorial led by our Senior Systems Engineer, Jim Dixon.

Following this brief technical exploration, you will:

- Understand how each of these devices classifies application traffic and how each provides tools for creating your own custom traffic classifications.
- Learn about the options available for directory integration and host identification and how they impact shaping policy.
- Distinguish the views each device affords of historical data and how each different device allows for the retrieval of specific data.
- Recognize what metrics (RTT, packet loss, etc) each device uses to measure network health and what features each provides to track network and/or application health.

This session presents technical information as a service to current VistaOne customers and those considering the purchase of a traffic shaping appliance. Find out which network visibility features are most important to you and and which would have the greatest impact in your network environment

How important is visibility in your network? View the recorded webinar here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/551673297

Riverbed releases new Branch-office-in-a-box solution! http://bit.ly/xktNuj And “Granite” makes true storage consolidation possible.

Riverbed RiOS 7.0…to upgrade or not to upgrade, that is the FAQ

By Steve Evans

Riverbed is always adding new features.  Given their position in the magic “squares”, I’d expect them to be leading innovation.  But with such frequent upgrades, do you upgrade or not?  The new RiOS 7.0 has some stellar features that one could very well take advantage of.  And that really is the answer.  Can you take advantage of the new features?  If not, maybe you should wait.  Riverbed maintains several “tracks” of code so you should never be compelled to upgrade to a new major version just to stay current.  Your current major version is also being kept up to date with bug fixes and minor enhancements.  The following are all currently maintained major RiOS versions: 6.5, 6.1, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, and 4.1. 

Although I’ve had some recommend upgrading to the latest code, I prefer the more conservative route of upgrading to the latest code in the current release unless you are looking to gain access to features of a new major version.  Below is a list I compiled of the new features for 6.0, 6.1, 6.5, and 7.0 to help you decide if you would like to jump up to one of the newer versions.  If you are not interested in taking advantage of any of these new features, I recommend the latest RiOS version at your major release level.  If you would like some help deciding whether you need to upgrade, feel free to contact us and we’ll do a personalized assessment for you.

How about those engineering releases?  Are those safe?  Unlike the “Official Release” versions, the engineering releases have not yet undergone extensive Q&A testing.  However, usually they are worth considering due to the bug fixes they provide.  In my conversations with Riverbed engineers, I’m always encouraged to upgrade to the latest engineering release if it is available. Although I’ve never yet had a problem upgrading to the latest engineering release code, if you’re not currently having any problems, it’s probably best to stay on the “Official Release” version which has been extensively run through their Q&A process.  However, if you do upgrade and have an issue, don’t forget that the Riverbed allows you to easily boot back into the previous version.

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How Different Traffic Shapers Prioritize Data

By David Mackey

NAC can be simple, unobtrusive, up-to-date and inexpensive to operate

By David Mackey

Impulse Point calls their NAC solution Safe•Connect. It accomplishes the same objectives expressed by the well-known brands: role-based user and device authentication that audits for proper malware protection and software security updates, quarantines non-compliant endpoints and automates remediation. It just does it in different ways—ways a growing number of EDU network managers believe are better.

A pre-configured appliance and software bundle, Safe•Connect installs into an existing multi-vendor network infrastructure in hours (not days) without touching anything—no network upgrades or changes; no continuous manipulation of network switches. Its software-based architecture creates a vendor-agnostic NAC solution that scales easily.

Layer 3 (network path) operation with Layer 2 (physical addressing) quarantine
Operating out-of-band, the Safe•Connect Policy Enforcer sits on premises connected to the organization’s existing Layer3 switch/router. Active only during authentication, it passes traffic as a bridge or router after admission. It doesn’t introduce latency, create bottlenecks or cause maintenance-driven network outages.

Endpoint devices connecting to the network are intercepted, authenticated, presented with the network’s acceptable use policies, and issued a lightweight software Policy Key. The solution provides continuous policy assessment and delivers real‐time Layer2 quarantine isolation while allowing the quarantined device to communicate with the remediation services needed to restore network privileges.

Simple centralized management
A single Policy Enforcer can manage network access policies for more than 10,000 endpoint devices. Additional units can be added as needed. The entire system is managed centrally through the Safe•Connect Policy Management Console. Connecting remote offices and locations to manage LAN access policies from a central point becomes plug-and-play.

Administrators can select from a series of pre-configured policies on authentication, anti-virus or anti-spyware protection, patch maintenance levels, and peer-to-peer file sharing, or create their own using the custom policy builder module.

The Policy Management Console displays real-time status reporting to provide valuable insight into group or individual policy compliance. The help desk can immediately view the security posture and login status of any device on the network by searching IP, MAC address, or user name. It also provides historical data for trend analysis, compliance auditing and archiving.

With Impulse Point, support is a complete managed service
Impulse Point covers Safe•Connect with the industry’s only Managed Support Service. They monitor the health of the system from the Impulse Support Center and the company takes responsibility for delivering all necessary hardware and software maintenance, problem determination and resolution, and feature enhancements for the first year as part of the purchase price.

While competitors offer workarounds, Impulse Point vigilantly maintains up‐to‐date support for the most current device operating systems, anti‐virus applications and other endpoint security software. They guarantee customer updates within 48 hours. Maintenance also comes with lifetime hardware upgrades.

VistaOne now has a knack for NAC
When you look at the whole package, you can see why we think Safe•Connect delivers the best value of the NAC appliances. The next step, in progress at Impulse Point, is integration with your traffic shaper. That marriage will allow you to control beyond what individual users can access to how much in the way of resources they can consume with what applications and devices.

Get started now. You can replace your existing NAC solution with Safe•Connect and get the remaining balance of annual maintenance PLUS an additional year of maintenance at no extra cost through January 31, 2012.

First things first. Ask us for a personalized demo of Safe•Connect and find out how simple NAC can be.

Riverbed Leads the Pack in WAN Optimization.

By David Mackey

You already know Riverbed has long been the WAN Optimization leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.

Now they sell more appliances and virtual solutions than all their competitors combined.

The above graph is part of a larger report by Gartner. Contact Riverbed for the complete report.

Riverbed doesn’t dominate the field because they have the most magnetic marketing or the most efficient channel or the best financial backing. They lead because they demonstrate results. They say they can improve throughput to 7x and cut bandwidth consumption 90% and then prove it time and again.

Riverbed’s Steelhead products provide the most comprehensive approach to application acceleration and disaster recovery for any organization’s WAN. They go beyond simple optimization to help make IT infrastructure run faster, better, and more securely — in the data center, at a branch office, on a worker’s laptop, and in public and private clouds.

No stranger to the cloud, Riverbed’s Whitewater provides organizations with a fast, secure and cost-efficient method of integrating cloud storage into their existing backup infrastructure and disaster recovery strategies.

Riverbed Cascade provides application-aware network traffic management that enables end-to-end visibility into the performance of critical business applications. Cascade integrates end-to-end monitoring with deep packet capture and packet analysis for proactive alerting and robust network troubleshooting.

In fact, you could make a solid case that Riverbed understands packet capture and analysis better than any other company. They’ve brought together the three leading innovators in the field – Steve McCanne, co-creator of TCPDUMP, Loris Degioanni, inventor of WinPcap and Gerald Combs, creator of Wireshark – to continue the advancement of network performance management.

Riverbed’s most recent acquisition, Zeus software, helps enterprises to deliver fast, secure and available applications across any combination of physical, virtual and cloud infrastructures with a single point of application delivery control and monitoring. Zeus Traffic Manager will deploy on an enterprise’s own hardware or hypervisor, or in public, private, or hybrid cloud environments.

VistaOne proudly represents Riverbed as a value-added reseller, service provider and authorized training partner. Contact VistaOne for Riverbed products,services, and training.

Tired of Service Calls about Network Access (NAC) Problems?

By David Mackey

Your network access controller (NAC) shouldn’t cause more problems than it solves. If fact, once policies have been fully established, you shouldn’t have to think much about it at all.

We’ve heard complaints on quite a few campuses and read the gripes on the forums.

“The college uses the ‘Bradford Campus Manager’ as its new DHCP server, and it doesn’t use the right kind of flag for Vista.”

“Apple based systems are currently getting placed into a ROGUE status on the resnet network. We are working to resolve this issue but in the meanwhile please submit a problem ticket to register your Mac.”

“The requirement the agent lists is ‘Windows Updates XP’ and doesn’t provide any other information. I’ve updated my Office and everything (and) installed every update, optional or high priority and have had no success. My network administrator has been inaccessible for a period of time and hasn’t responded to my queries after they were stumped on the issue.”

“We Cisco customers are growing increasingly tired of buying equipment that is end-of-lifed in a very short space of time. It’s looking like we paid over $20K for a failed beta product from Cisco, AGAIN.”

VistaOne has partnered with a company called Impulse Point because they demonstrated that NAC can be simpler and faster with a lower total cost of operation.

Their Safe•Connect™ network access control (NAC) solution provides endpoint security policy enforcement for large, diverse environments with myriad personally‐owned, non‐managed, mobile computing devices. With real-time problem determination and resolution, Safe•Connect truly automates user authentication, device compliance scanning and out-of-band quarantine and remediation.

Its ease of installation and scaling, independence from other network functions and track record of reducing help desk calls all contribute to lower total cost of ownership and fewer headaches.