OptiView XG [EOL] Reviews

• Network discover: We use it for fiber testing, for checking all the packets that are going in and out, availability, bandwidth, etc.
• We don't necessarily use it every day, but every time we have some issues with the network, we use it. This could be once a week, twice a month, or three times a month.
• I usually have it turned on all the time just to scan the network for problems.

There are a lot of improvements depending on the situation. We have a lot of tools that we can use. If we are in the field and we have OptiView, it is our first line of defense. It is very easy to do the troubleshooting right away. It's an issue of portability.

It does the inventory of the network. I was using the current version, but the device died. I am just looking for a replacement.

It just saves time. We have run into situations where contractors come in, and they plug in a WiFi device that is handing out DHCP addresses, which affects the rest of the network. To be able to quickly identify from where the problem is originating, you need a network tool that can identify the device that is doing this. It just brings into clear focus the exact issue when there is a problem or outage. 

When there is a crisis and you've several people wanting to know an estimate of when things are going to be back up and running again, you need to have answers. I have been at places that didn't have a tool like that. I know one place that had an outage for almost a week, and it was craziness. It turned out to be just a bad cable. That's all it was. They were having trouble with their email server, which was an on-premise email server, but emails were taking six hours to appear. The whole problem was because of a bad network cable. When I plugged in the Fluke analyzer, it analyzed and told me immediately that there were transmission errors on this one port from one switch. It told me this within 10 minutes. It is an incredible product.

The 10 GigE connectivity and ClearSight are the most valuable features for us.

It helps us with troubleshooting. For example, we have a lot of 10 GigE connectivity in our data centers, so we can inject it into the switches, scan the ports and it enables us to capture that data.

The packet capture feature is valuable when there's a troubleshooting issue. Since this is a data center, there are thousands of servers/users.

When there is a performance issue, we do the sniffer capture on the OptiView XG, and then we analyze the captures. If it helps to determine what the problem is, then it improves the server or application performance.

Packet sniffing - it allows us to see where there are communication errors between devices.

We had two devices that we didn't know what was wrong with them. Communication wasn't working and the graphical interface actually allowed us to see what traffic was being sent to which device. We were able to find out that there was actually double acknowledgments coming from one of the devices. We were able to share that with the coders and ultimately get it fixed.

The most valuable feature of this product is the sniffer, where we can troubleshoot user connections by identifying the source and destination, to try to get to the root cause. I'm in the operations role, so I'm always trying to get to the root cause.

I don't use it that much, maybe once or twice, so I can't really say whether it has helped the way my company functions much. I want to. The challenge is getting the experience with the product to use it successfully. I think that's one of the areas where Fluke (now OptiView) probably needs to step up and make it available to end users so they would use this product more often.

We are leveraging it with the Wi-Fi analytics software, and also Wi-Fi survey and design software. Specific to my group, we're responsible for Wi-Fi design. Those are the features that we use primarily.

We use it for all of our predictive Wi-Fi designs. We get standards reports, so we're able to do more of the designs, more quickly, and more consistently.

• All of the wireless applications
• The packet sniffer

This product helps troubleshoot problems, find issues and fix them.

On the wireless side, when users say that they have trouble connecting to the wireless network in a certain area, I take the Fluke up and I use the analyzer to see the signal strength and if I need to add wireless access points in that area.