Thursday, November 30, 2006
by Joel Trammell
Microsoft released Windows Vista (along with the new Office suite and Exchange server) to business customers today.
From a networking perspective, there have been several changes in the networking stack in the move from Windows XP to Windows Vista. We’re doing a fair amount of work, because we understand what Microsoft says they did, and we’re doing a fair amount of work to find out if that’s the way things actually work in reality. There’s testing that needs to be done, once network engineers understand the new Vista network stack, changes in the way that network engineers need to think.
For a networking person, I think Vista’s a pretty big deal, whereas some of the other Windows upgrades, maybe from a pure networking perspective, weren’t. You’re going to see some changes because of it. We'll have some details about how networking is different in Vista on this blog soon.
Joel Trammell is the CEO of NetQoS.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
by Ed Tittel
The ISO/OSI Network Management Reference Model is usually rendered as FCAPS: Fault management, Configuration management, Accounting management, Performance management and Security management.
This model fails to give full weight to the impact of performance. Performance drives perception, which means that, from a user's standpoint, the source of poor performance doesn't matter as much as the fact that performance is, in fact, poor. According to Denise Dubie at Network World, network managers and engineers are being increasingly tasked to prioritize performance and user experience:
"Distributed IP networks and complex real-time applications have forced a change. Now network managers need to be in the know from the start about application performance, helping developers understand what will work on a network, spotting poorly performing applications before users feel the effects and delivering LAN-like performance over the wide area to remote and branch offices."
In other words, it's not just about monitoring devices anymore. It's about delivering services, at a reasonable cost, in a reasonable amount of time, where users are increasingly asked to decide what's reasonable, time-wise. (For more, see Network World's "User experience is key".)
Continue reading "Nobody's Fault: Taking the "F" Out of FCAPS" »
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
by Ed Tittel
Everybody knows the benefits of migrating to MPLS: better reliability, increased performance, and lower costs. (A primer podcast is available here [MP3], via Hill Associates, and we've developed our own whitepaper on the subject.) The downside is low visibility and access into the MPLS cloud. How can you be certain your carrier is delivering consistent levels of performance when traditional measurement techniques such as trace-route and ping offer no help, and probes are costly and difficult to maintain?
Try utilizing the flow statistics that are captured by almost all current routers. The most common format for flow statistics is Cisco IOS® NetFlow technology. While originally developed as an advanced packet-switching technology, it has become the de facto standard in flow-based data collection, not only for Cisco devices but throughout much of the networking industry.
Continue reading "Routers Hold the Key to MPLS Network Performance Measurement" »
Monday, November 27, 2006
by Cathy Fulton
For any technical mistake, there’s usually a technical solution. Losing time while a problem persists is embarrassing, but you can recover from such delays. Much bigger problems occur when you try to change the workflow of the people who use the software. That’s when IT projects become difficult.
It’s extraordinarily difficult to get people to change the way they’ve been doing things. If you deploy an expensive piece of software in the expectation that people will automatically change the way that they normally do their jobs as a consequence of the switchover, you will greatly reduce your chances of success.
Continue reading "Perspectives on What's Missing in the Field of Network Management" »
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Network Performance Daily will not be posting on Thursday, November 23, or Friday November 24 due to the holidays.
To those in the U.S., we wish you a Thanksgiving weekend with friends and family, and to those in Japan, we wish you a pleasant Labour Thanksgiving Day.
To the rest of the world, we wish you a happy Thursday.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
by Carol Schiraldi
I’m not a gamer myself, but the recent launch of the PS3 and Wii consoles (podcast from Gamingbits available here) makes this a good time to discuss game programming and the idea of performance in the enterprise.
Austin is a big center for video game development – NCSoft, Midway Studios-Austin and Retro Studios are all located here – and I know many game programmers. I think that game programmers are some of the best programmers out there, and a lot of performance enhancements are coming from gaming.
If you code for gaming, there’s a different mindset. Emphasis on performance is included (and essential) by design.
Continue reading "Performance-Driven: Why enterprise developers (generally) use Java and game programmers (generally) use C++" »
