Monday, January 29, 2007
By Brian Boyko
Back in November of 2006, (which seems like such a long time ago,) Network Performance Daily published a column by Carol Schiraldi about "why enterprise developers use Java and game programmers use C++."
We published this for a number of reasons - but the main one was that typically, enterprise developers are programming for function first, reliability, second, and performance over the network, if it's even considered at all, is a tertiary thought.
What this means is that applications, developed originally for the LAN environment, often take up valuable network resources unnecessarily when placed into a WAN environment.
[Full disclosure: NetQoS sells network performance management software which diagnoses problems like "chatty apps," and we want you to buy them. Anyway…]
But one area where this isn't a significant problem is in game development, which was the thesis of the original column. Game developers, who realize their games have to perform well over the Internet, typically build with performance in mind first.
This was confirmed when we had a chance to talk to Timothee Besset, a game developer at ID Software, developers of the famous Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake series of games. Here's what he said about this issue:
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Continue reading "ID Software Developer Timothee Besset on Network Performance in Games" »
Friday, January 26, 2007
By Brian Boyko
If you spend some time poring through RFC documents (something I don’t recommend for the 99% of the population that is still sane) you’ll find tons of improvements, modifications, case-specific optimizations and alternatives to TCP, the workhorse of networking transport protocols since the 1970s.
Seth Noble, President and Founder of Data Expedition, Inc., believes that he can do one better. His company claims that their proprietary transport protocol, MTP, for “Multipurpose Transaction Protocol,” provides a scalable alternative to TCP that uses bandwidth more efficiently. According to Mr. Noble:
“TCP's 1970's data model makes dealing with this problem more difficult than it needs to be. TCP was created with the assumption that packet loss would "rarely" occur, and so it is rather fragile in our modern, congested networks. A lot of very smart people have tried for many years to patch TCP and help it cope, but it still carries its 30 year old legacy with it.”
“MTP/IP was designed from scratch to operate in congested environments where packet loss and other network problems are common. As a result, MTP/IP does an exceptionally good job of quickly AND correctly identifying whether or not data has really been lost and then recovering that data with little or no disruption.”
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Continue reading "Proprietary MTP: an alternative to TCP?" »
Friday, December 15, 2006
Compiled by Brian Boyko
We (and many other experts) believe that there needs to be an industry discussion between developers and networking groups, because it seems that people - at least the people we come in contact with regularly - talk often about how applications designed and tested to run over a LAN perform horribly over a WAN.
Because this dialogue doesn't seem to be happening much yet, we've decided to try to take the initiative and help jump-start the discussion between appdev teams and networking groups.
Despite the fact that this blog deals with network performance, and as such would most likely appeal to IT managers, network engineers, and the occasional CTO/CIO, this blog's earliest success was an article by Carol Schiraldi speaking about games programming. That article made it on the front page of DZone - it's kind of like Digg for developers. While getting a developer audience was entirely unexpected, that article is what convinced us that we were starting to produce some compelling content, and caused us to set our sights very high. Over the past week, we've received over 15,000 unique visitors; which is not bad for a site that has been up less than 6 weeks!
On the other hand, some members of DZone had complained - fairly, in my opinion - that much of what we wrote didn't really affect developers. Although we got back on their front page again with an article by Russell Wilson regarding UI development, DZone has mostly remained a bit aloof to our offerings - and who can blame them. So we asked one of their editors, Lowell Heddings, how we could better serve the DZone community (and by extension, the developer community.) He had this to say:
"My main question for network engineers is... aren't routers boring? =P"
I'm pretty sure he was trying to blow us off. But he's got a point. Aren't routers boring? So I actually posed this question in a company-wide e-mail. Here are some of the best responses:
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Continue reading ""Aren't Routers Boring?" the developer asked." »
Monday, December 04, 2006
by Chandra Hosek
Dr. Cathy Fulton, NetQoS’s chief technology officer, will be at the Computer Measurement Group’s (CMG) 32nd annual conference in Reno, Nev., on Thursday, discussing the trials and tribulations of achieving and maintaining optimal application performance across enterprise wide area networks.
In a session entitled “Best Laid Plans: Enterprise Network Performance Case Studies and Lessons Learned,” Cathy Fulton will share real-world case studies that demonstrate how well-intentioned network and systems engineering efforts can sometimes produce unexpected results - and how to avoid these mistakes - drawn from her years as a leading network engineering consultant and her in-the-trenches experience working in large enterprise network environments. Examples will include the results of implementing caching devices to improve application response times for remote users, improper application of QoS techniques, active agent monitoring software running amuck, and others.
NetQoS will also present a vendor training session at the CMG conference, from Dr. Steve Fulton, our director of product management, called “Why Utilization is not a Proxy for Performance.” Many IT professionals monitor utilization as a proxy for network performance, but modern techniques are proving this is not the best approach, especially with the advent of WAN optimization technologies. The most meaningful performance metric is end user response time captured by measuring real user transactions which, when combined with traffic flow data and traditional device statistics, enable network managers to optimize performance and accurately assess infrastructure needs. In his presentation, Steve will provide best practice examples that illustrate this new approach.
Ed Tittel, contributor to Network Performance Daily, has provided a rundown of events from the CMG 2006 conference at NetPerformance.com.
Chandra Hosek is Public Relations Manager at NetQoS.
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++" »
Monday, November 20, 2006
by Cathy Fulton
Monitoring business transactions over the network has never been more critical to operational efficiency. Yet, there’s much confusion over methodology.
The implementation choices consist of different deployment strategies (client-site or server-site, agent or appliance) and distinct monitoring technologies (active or passive). Each of these options has individual strengths and weaknesses. This series of articles discusses industry best practices for effectively monitoring business transactions in a global environment.
Part 1 of 2: Deployment Strategies
One of the most important decisions is the deployment strategy for the business monitoring solution. Should monitors be deployed at the client sites or should they be deployed at the data centers? Should software agents or hardware appliances be used? While this may seem like a minor matter, it has the most serious ramifications from both an immediate “headache” and long-term recurring cost standpoint.
Continue reading "Best Practices for Monitoring Business Transactions, part 1 of 2" »
Friday, November 17, 2006
By Steve Harriman
NetQoS VP Steve Harriman is attending the Gartner Enterprise Networking Summit this week in Las Vegas. It's the first time for the event since the industry downturn in 2001 and NetQoS is exhibiting there because we feel that the role of Networking has been elevated in importance to the point at which it warrants an executive focused event. And, Gartner events are always very educational and well-attended. It's the right place to be.
In addition to Dr.
Malone's keynote and NetQoS's Solution Provider Session, I also went to a talk by Thomas Shelman on the second day of the Summit.
Shelman is CIO of Northrop Grumman Corporation, the second largest defense contractor in the world. As you might imagine, he runs a very large IT organization. Seven CIOs from different business units report to him.
He said his greatest challenge and most rewarding experience, although devastating too, was leading the organization to restore computing and networking infrastructure and services after Katrina pounded two key Northrop Grumman facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi.
The two NG data centers in La. and Miss. were fully configured for redundancy with hot fail-over between systems in both locations. To ensure both data centers would not be affected by “traditional” disasters, such as local power failures, flooding, accidents, etc., they were located 150 miles apart. Unfortunately, the destruction of Katrina was more than 150 miles wide and took both data centers out. (Northrop Grumman put out a
press
release describing the devastation they encountered.)
Continue reading "Notes on the Gartner Summit in Las Vegas, Part 3" »
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
By Steve Harriman
NetQoS VP Steve Harriman is attending the Gartner Enterprise Networking Summit this week in Las Vegas. It's the first time for the event since the industry downturn in 2001 and NetQoS is exhibiting there because we feel that the role of Networking has been elevated in importance to the point at which it warrants an executive focused event. And, Gartner events are always very educational and well-attended. It's the right place to be.
It is worth noting that one of the key themes of the first day is that Network professionals should move beyond the plumbing and be part of the solution to the application delivery problem. The idea that network professionals need to look at response time and focus on end-to-end performance is a message NetQoS has been trying to spread. Here are a few details from the first day keynote to put this into context:
Continue reading "Notes on the Gartner Summit in Las Vegas, Part 1" »
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
NetQoS has opened a 5,000 square foot office in Durham, N.C., to advance the company’s network and application performance technologies.
The Research Triangle Park area afforded NetQoS the opportunity to add a well-balanced team with experience across the gamut of a product lifecycle, including planning, engineering, and documentation.
The facility serves as our second development center in the U.S. and is being staffed by 10 new employees with an average of 15 years of experience building commercial-ready software products. Comprised mostly of software engineers with backgrounds in IP network and system management products, the Durham team will focus on adding features and introducing new products to the NetQoS Performance Center suite.
More information can be found in our press release.
