The Packet Scoop

Network management systems are not much different than cell phones, digital cameras, and video cameras. Many of these devices are overkill on features that only a very small fraction of buyers use. When was the last time you used all those advanced features on your digital camera?

Network management is no different. Needlelessly complex, hard to install, over-featured, and non intuitive network management systems are the rule in our industry. The net result is a costly implementation of shelfware that collects dust and rarely gets use.

Recently, fed up with video cameras, my wife purchased the Flip from Pure Technologies. All it does is record (saves up to an hour), and zoom in and out. It’s the size of a small digital camera. It has a USB device onboard, so you just connect the bugger to your computer and your memories are saved instantly. So simple, none of the extra features that 95% of us don’t use, and priced right.

PacketTrap takes guidance from these laws of simplicity. Check out Perspective when it comes available soon, I think you’ll get the picture (err, no pun intended).

Steve

We are please and proud that over 30,000 users are seeing value in our pt360 Diagnostic Tool Suite. You may have seen the release this morning that we have registered over 1 million runs of our network management suite. For a product that was released less than six months ago, we are happy that we’re on the right track, and that users are coming back to the product time and time again.

I recently had lunch with a friend who said that the mantra of his company is to “build products that people lust for.” While at first it sounds a bit corny, when you apply the ramification of that statement into your product analysis, design and development process, it starts to make a lot of sense.

Why would a network engineer lust for our product? First, it needs to solve a pain point that is specific and quantifiable, and it needs to save the user either significant time or money. Second, the interface must be intuitive, simple, and easy to use. Believe it or not, the top feedback we get is how easy our products are to install, configure, and use. Not only does this keep users coming back, but it also provides a user experience that is differentiated in the market. It’s amazing how many products on the market are “designed by network engineers for network engineers”. However, our user community knows all too well that they’re better at building and managing networks than creating the most intuitive GUI and product workflow.

So, as a company, as my friend said, they concentrate less on keeping up with the competition feature by feature, instead they talk to customers in a continuous feedback loop, and ask them what products and features will they lust for. In this age of rapid software development and deployment, feature differentiation is no longer a leading competitive edge, but if you build products that users lust for they will continue to come back to you. Seems subtle, but it’s not.

We are looking into implementing a lust factor into our process here at PacketTrap. Every feature we build should have a lust factor. But it’s not just the feature; it’s also the workflow, the interface, and the overall experience.

Rather be corny and make our customers happy, then just build another network management product “designed by network engineers for network engineers.”

Steve

Great article today by Andy Moon at Tech Republic. It’s clear that video streaming is a straining factor on the corporate network and handling it is becoming a larger and larger challenge. I’m not speaking just about YouTube, I’m really referring to the streaming of live video where workers watch news, dramas, and, this summer, the Olympics.  What will happen when all 3,000 employees in your company want to watch Michael Phelps go for his 8th Gold Medal live?

Network Management Software is critical to helping you understand what’s draining your bandwidth. Our Netflow Listener solves this problem in a graphical format so you can pin point which IP address is streaming video.�

It’s absolutely shocking to me that the number one complaint we hear from customers about software vendors is support. In a vacuum, you would think customers would complain about new features, bugs, and pricing models more often than support, but it seems that software companies continue to miss the mark.

When we started PacketTrap several years ago we decided to put support ahead of everything – ahead of marketing programs, ahead of product management and engineering, and certainly ahead of sales efforts. If you talk to our customers and partners I think you will find that we set the bar for customer support in Silicon Valley. But that’s just words, specifically what do I mean by support?

Here is what I mean:
1. Sales: First, there is no such thing as sales in our company. It’s called Account Management. It may sounds like semantics, but it’s really not. Sales implies hard core in your face sales. Our company doesn’t work that way. We build strong long term relationships with every customer we work with. You will have a direct phone line to your Account Manager. You will not be thrown into a phone queue. Account Managers can answer just about all of your questions during your evaluation and trial process. We are here to answer your question. Our products speak for themselves.

2. Support: Second, there is no such thing as Support in our company. It’s called Relationship Management. Once again, it may sounds like semantics, but it’s really not. We are not only here to support you, we are also here to make you more effective in your job. Similar to Account Management, you will not be provided just a number to call into. You will be provided a direct line to your Relationship Manager – Jonas, Bryan, Elisabeth, Steve, Patrick, etc. These people are technical. They can solve your technical questions, help with configurations, and also point you to other IT resources that PacketTrap may not be able to provide. You will know this person by first name. You have a question, just call Jonas. We wont waste your time asking you to press 1, then 5, then 7, then telling you that the next support rep will be with you in approximately …….twenty-six minutes.

3. Access to Product Management and Engineering: You need to speak with someone in Product Management about our roadmap or have a question that only a very technical engineer can answer? Your Relationship Manager can put you in direct touch. Unlike most Silicon Valley companies, our product management and engineering teams are not insulated from customers, in fact they are actually customer facing.

4. Access to Leadership: It’s another shock that in many technology companies I’ve worked for the CTO, VP of Engineering, and VP of Product Management have such little contact with customers. You want to speak with a senior member of our team, just phone in. While they may not be available at the moment (they usually are), they will get right back to you.

I really hate clichés, but it’s actually true for PacketTrap. Our customers do come first. They are the most important part of our company; in fact they are an extension of our company. We view our customers as partners. We help our customers manage their IT networks and our customers help us build better products. It’s just so surprising that all companies aren’t this way.

By the way, the direct line policy applies to everyone in our company. You can reach me anytime at 415-348-0700 x112. You won’t get an admin, that’s a direct line. You may get voicemail, but if you’re a customer (err partner) I’ll get right back to you.

steve goodman | ceo | steve@PacketTrap.com | w: +1 415 348 0700 x 112
http://www.PacketTrap.com
Visit our Blog: http://www.PacketTrap.com/blog/

PacketTrap Perspective™ is a comprehensive and affordable network management and application monitoring solution for single and multi-site networks. It solves the problems associated with bandwidth, appliation, database, and network performance, and general connectivity and allows you to take back control of your network. We are seeking beta users (see below). Perspective:

• Monitors and analyzes real-time network performance metrics for routers, switches, servers, applications
• Provides a customizable interface that supports multiple views by user and department
• Enables advanced alerting for correlated events, sustained conditions, and complex combinations of device states
• Scales to accommodate growth and management needs
• Analysis of NetFlow traffic and monitoring of VoIP performance, wireless devices, applications and servers

PT Perspective™ auto-discovers system resources and their metrics, including hardware, operating systems, virtualization, databases, middleware, applications, SaaS (i.e., Salesforce.com) and services. Perspective™ allows an IT department to view the network from any users “perspective”, thus helping the IT network engineer or system admin to troubleshoot and repair bandwidth and connectivity issues.

Pricing and Availability

PT Perspective ™ starts at $1995. General availability on August 4, 2008 but SEEKING BETA USERS NOW. To help pioneer this networking revolution, click here to complete a survey and register.

Networks are complicated; network management doesn’t have to be.

Steve

As mentioned in this blog on more than one occasion it’s the clear opinion of PacketTrap that commercial open source is a dying business model. You’ve read our rather opinionated posts that commercial open source exploits the free and good faith efforts of great software developers to make a profit.  And of course our friend David Rosenberg shot back, albeit a little personal for him. 

PacketTrap, on the other hand, is a pure commercial company. We integrate with already installed open source, but we are a proprietary network management software company. We are huge supporters of open source projects of course, but believe the business model of commercial open source is inherently flawed.

It seems that others are starting to spend more time thinking through these issues. Specially, in this blog, it was posted:

“When a Forrester Research representative emailed with the following survey highlights, I was more than a little surprised:

Forrester released data today analyzing trend lines in enterprise open source usage in 2007. Among the key findings:

Seventy percent of decision-makers responded that they don’t have interest or have no plans to adopt open source software; Only 23 percent of respondents said expanding their use of open source software was a priority; Security is the main concern around adopting open source software. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said it was an important or very important concern.”

The data is from 1,017 decision makers in North America & Europe. The survey was conducted in Q3 2007.”

And the conversation goes further in this blog by Roberto Galoppini.

Most importantly, what does it mean if you’re an end user in a IT department? If you work with commercial open source companies either these companies will start to look like regular commercial companies or they will go away (which could be a challenge for you, the consumer).

Are users on your network sucking bandwidth with YouTube videos? Do your users know your email server is down before you do? Are there connectivity issues in a remote office? The PacketTrap Netflow Listener solves these problems and more.

Today we released Cisco Netflow support in our pt360 Network Management Tool Suite. Just click Help | Check for Software Updates in your pt360 Tool Suite.

As mentioned before our Netflow Listener is a bandwidth monitoring tool that helps optimize networks for peak performance. By providing in-depth visibility into network traffic and its patterns, the PacketTrap Netflow Listener gives IT system administrators / engineers knowledge of real-time network behavior and how traffic impacts the network’s overall health. Specifically, Netflow Listener actually provides a snapshot of packets of data as they traverse through the network - and the type of data (i.e., http, video, voice, etc).

One of the key issues in network management is knowing the origin and type of traffic. NetFlow Listener gives detailed information on network bandwidth usage pattern for traffic analysis, capacity planning and making policy decisions. By drilling down into the specific applications, IT network engineers are able to determine the exact source of spikes and bursts and therefore able to proactively monitor, control, and make informed decisions.

It is available via a 21-day trial as part of the pt360 Pro. At US $495, you will find no other toolsuite on the market as robust for an affordable price point as the pt360 PRO.

Networks are complicated; network management doesn’t have to be.

Steve

With the recent release of our Switch Port Mapper and our soon to be released Cisco Netflow feature, we’re confident that you will not find a more robust set a capabilities in a Network Engineer’s Tool Suite that’s as affordable as ours. But don’t just take my word, download it today and take it for a test drive.

Of course there are competitors, SolarWinds has their Engineer’s Toolset, and of course IpSwitch is out there, but when you compare the PacketTrap pt360 to anyone else on the market, there really isn’t even a clear second to our solution. For $495, you get:

• Application Monitoring (SQL, Exchange, Active Directory, etc)
• Cisco Configurator
• Cisco NetFlow
• Device Monitoring iGoogle-like Dashboard
• Device Groups / Favorites / History
• DNS Audit
• Encrypted Credential Store
• Enhanced Ping
• Graphical Ping
• Integrated Tools w/ Data Flow
• MAC Scan
• Network Discovery
• Network Inventory
• Open Source Integration (Nagions, Cacti, MRTG etc)
• Ping Scan
• Port Scan
• SNMP Scan
• Switch Port Mapper
• Syslog Server
• TFTP Server
• Trace Route
• Traffic Jam (Traffic Simulator)
• Wake on LAN
• WHOIS
• WMI Scan

And several of these tools are free, including the TFTP Server and all the ping scans. Out with the old, and in with the next generation. Take a look and download today. It’s the reason why Oracle, Boeing, and 30,000 plus other compaines big and small rely on PacketTrap.

Steve

Interesting post this morning by Rick Vanover in Tech Republic. Managing virtual machines is only going to become more complex as new and interesting ways to implement and exploit the technology are discovered. One area where network management software needs to do a better job is in managing virtualized environments.

When thinking through a virtualization implementation you need to take account of not only the physical and logical structure of the network, but also how to manage it. Our solution coming out in August, PacketTrap Perspective, includes a rather robust capability to manage virtualized environments.

It’s our continuing goal to make your life, as a network engineer, less complex. After all, networks are complicated, network management doesn’t have to be.

Steve

In a few days we will release our Cisco Netflow Analyzer feature as part of the pt360 ToolSuite. Netflow Analyzer is a bandwidth monitoring and capacity management tool that helps optimize networks for peak performance. By providing an in-depth visibility into network traffic and its patterns, the PacketTrap Netflow Analyzer gives IT system administrators / engineers knowledge of real-time network behavior and how traffic impacts the network’s overall health. Specifically, Netflow Analyzer actually provides a snapshot of packets of data as they  traverse through the network - and the type of data (i.e., http, video, voice, etc).

What problems does it solve?

One of the key issues in network management is knowing the origin and type of traffic. NetFlow Analyzer gives detailed information on network bandwidth usage pattern for traffic analysis, capacity planning and making policy decisions. By drilling down into the specific applications, IT network engineers are able to determine the exact source of spikes and bursts and therefore able to proactively monitor, control, and make informed decisions. For example, is a user on the network sucking down too much YouTube thus impacting bandwidth? Is my email traffic slow for some reason? Are there connectivity issues in a remote office? The PacketTrap Netflow Analyzer solves these problems and more.

It will be available via a 21-day trial as part of the pt360 Pro. At US $495, you will find no other toolsuite on the market as robust for an affordable price point as the pt360 PRO.

Below is a sneak preview screenshot of the feature.  It’s just our commitment to making your job easier.

Networks are complicated; network management doesn’t have to be.

Steve