Thursday, April 29, 2010

7 Key Considerations for Managing Exchange Server Health and Status

In my experience application problems are often a factor in downtime making monitoring mission critical. Trying to resolve application performance issues is no easy task. Troubleshooting requires that you test and validate the different application layers and dependencies like the network, server and application performance to determine the cause of the problem and solve it. For applications like Exchange server, there can be a fair number of items to evaluate. Here are some of the items you want to evaluate when troubleshooting Exchange Server or monitoring its health and status.











Application Monitoring in dopplerVUE 2.1 Available Soon
In early May the new release of dopplerVUE 2.1 will be available with application monitoring capabilities. In a single window it will display system responsiveness, application services, server and application utilization and alarm conditions. An early preview is provided below with a screenshot. The screenshot shows Exchange monitoring displaying average delivery time in milliseconds and queue size at zero with more metrics in the same window.
Be on the look out for an email letting you know more details about the release and its availability.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Interop 2010 - Video Conferencing and Blazing Fast Switches

It’s that time of year again. I’m in Vegas for Interop reviewing all the new technology and emerging trends. Thought I’d share a few insights from the show.


This year, I’m struck by the number of video conferencing vendors that are at the show. The quality of the technology is incredible and both the service and the equipment are getting more cost-effective. If your company has multiple offices it’s definitely worth considering. On the tech side, there are new blazing fast switches that have been built to keep up with the increased load from the usage of video on networks. Very impressive stuff.

The best booth so far has to be Xirrus, primarly because of the live boxing (picture below). They did a great job getting me to pay attention to their pitch and not mind it one bit. Huge crowds and well it was fun. Kudos to that marketing team!

Friday, April 16, 2010

The Changing Face of the Network: The User and IT Perspective

Is 2010 going to be a year of huge change for the network? With the increasing use of video conferencing, web 2.0 and other emerging technologies, will users demand that the network and IT better support these performance hungry services?


Loudhouse Research, a UK based firm thinks so based on a survey of 152 IT decision makers in companies with 1000+ employees. The trend would tie the business to the network and the network engineer to the user more closely than ever before. The key question – is the network ready for these services? The user and IT perspective on the challenges with the network today can be viewed in the chart below.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
An interesting difference of opinion is in terms of performance which is at the heart of the network and new services.


I agree with the trend that Loudhouse points out is coming, but I’m not as sure about the timeline. What do you think? Do you see these changes in your organization?

We do know that the network is constantly changing, so it’s always better to be prepared. In my experience I’ve found it to be helpful to use tools, such as dopplerVUE to manage the network to make sure users are satisfied with performance and that IT is aligned with the goals of the business. There is a free 30 day download available if you’re interested in trying it for yourself.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Network Management Becomes Critical for Smart Residences…

I’m sure you hear it all the time – we are becoming a more network centric world. Is this just hype? I don’t think so and a recent customer example, I think proves the point.

Used to be only really large organizations worried about network uptime and cyber security. These days the network is so critical to revenue and productivity that mid-sized and smaller organizations are facing the same issues.

Now the network is even vital in high-end residences. As more residential networks pop-up and data networks are joined by home security and advanced audio video systems -security and uptime become a much more serious issue.

A great example is Certified Cyber Solutions (CCS) a company that provides a product SAM (Secure Access Manager) that helps installers and resellers of residential systems that employ IP networks, such as audio/video, home security and “smart home” systems to protect their customers from cyber threats.

CCS is using dopplerVUE as their network monitoring platform to enable their SAM product (screenshot below). dopplerVUE’s unique architecture allows maximum flexibility to customize data collection and data display, making it uniquely suitable for CCS and other hardware and software manufacturers who need an uptime monitoring, diagnosis, cybersecurity and compliance component to their products.


















With predictions that there will be 215 million IP enabled devices by 2012, it’s clear that network monitoring will become a more critical activity for the mainstream. Seems like the world is becoming more network-centric one device at a time. Do you see the trend as well?