We have used it for 10 gigabit performance testing. Originally, when we first got the device, for about the first three to four months, that was exclusively how it was used, in a heavy-use environment. We had some new 10 Gb equipment that we were stress testing, but we also wanted to confirm that things were working. We had just gotten the nXG product in our hands, so what better use of it?
After that point, we have used it a lot for wireless, day-to-day operations, and troubleshooting. We've used it for some specific Linux server test-bed scenarios, with different functions tied to it. We've done wire surveys and troubleshooting as well.
We have definitely used it for the last six to nine months, regularly, as our proof that when we turn up at a new customer, everything's working.
There are four of us, including me, using the device in our company. I'm the most advanced engineer and have been using these products the longest. I've got another engineer who has used it for specific tasks that I've pointed him towards. I also have a technician who uses it fairly frequently for basic testing and troubleshooting and certification. And our NOC manager, who is more a peer of mine — he's more technical than the other two, from the years of experience — was the one who used it for the first three months on the 10-gig. It has a pretty good range of direct uses.
We used it on multiple devices and pieces of equipment, all fiber, and used it pretty heavily in the lab environment. That environment has now gone to production because of that success. Without this device we would have been blind to a lot of things. It didn't necessarily diagnose or point out any problems at the time, but it definitely helped prove things were working well. That was well worth the peace of mind.
Also, the few times things didn't work, it gave us the opportunity to troubleshoot them and to fix our mistakes. It was never the device [giving us trouble], it was always something in our configuration of the new equipment.
We create test profiles so that we can turn it on, tap one icon, and let it go through the cycle. After a few moments we can look at it and it confirms that everything's green and good to go. Or, if there's a problem, it pinpoints which specific devices are a problem and it helps us know, extremely quickly, if it's something we need to call our NOC for, or if it's something that I or my team needs to address and fix, or if we ultimately have a bigger problem.
It's been priceless because it's one of the devices we carry onsite with us to pretty much any new customer and it's one of the very first things we use. We plug it straight in to our equipment, hit go and make sure everything's green, and then we can start plugging in new stuff.
The unit is easy to use for less skilled staff but with deep diagnostics for experts on staff. That's definitely a benefit I have seen. There's a time and place for an expert — an expert is still going to be needed in certain scenarios — but he isn't needed every time. This particular device has a nice market niche where, if you're an expert, great, you know how to do certain things. But you can have a level-one technician go out and collect data and either upload it to the Link-Live Cloud Service and that way the expert can be remote, or he can save it and review it later, easily. We have technicians and field techs and NOC guys who, when something comes up in the middle of the day, ask a few questions on what makes the most sense and, based on that, I give them a specific product and quickly show them how to use the specific function they need. They go out in the field and they do it.
It has also provided visibility into networks that I could only get by using many other tools. Instead of one tool, I'd have to use two or three or more. Anytime you have to have more than one device and/or specialized training involved, there's a cost to that.
When it comes to the device reducing troubleshooting time, it could be anywhere from 10 percent to 90 percent, because it depends on the case. In a specific case, it might save 90 percent of the time because it's all-in-one, versus [needing to use] several [products]. However, if it's just one specific scenario, it may only save 10 percent. There's a wide variance in between. It depends on what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what you need; how much of an expert needs to be behind the wheel; dispatch versus non-dispatch, etc.
In general, it has made our networking staff more productive. Since we use it kind of sparingly, it could save two to five hours a month. If we used it more regularly and had more need for it, that would be a much higher figure. In my previous job I worked at a university, and this one device would have been saving significant hours a week. In that scenario, I could see having a device in four different peoples' hands and it would be a very large savings very quickly.
