TruView Reviews

Like many companies in the financial services market, our bank has grown significantly in recent years through a careful strategy of acquiring and merging with other banks. Combining the networks of these separate organizations with overlapping and often completely different hardware, applications and third-party service providers requires us to have a deep level of understanding about how applications and services are behaving on the network and how users interact with them.

The network we manage is fairly typical of a company in an industry with a lot of merger and acquisition activity. It’s a mixed bag. We inherited some smaller networks that were not up to our overall standards, we have some aging equipment, and we also have state of the art platforms including a lot of virtual desktops and servers running on Citrix.

With a wide variety of service offerings for customers, we require a number of hosted and cloud-based applications. This large stable of applications presents a challenge when evaluating usage, rationalizing support and executing ongoing management.

We are also in the midst of opening a new data center in Birmingham, Alabama. This creates a major new challenge: identifying users that rely on specific applications in order to make the migration process as painless as possible. While we have a list of all the applications running on our network, we don’t know who is running them and when. We just want to be able to give users notice when we need to shut down their applications in order to move the servers that are running them into the new data center. But, without an easy way to see this data, the migration process has the potential to create a lot of problems.

The most common complaint that our network team gets is about a “slow network.” Users experience delays in opening applications and files or accessing data, and assume it is a network performance problem. Some problems were consistently occurring at the same time every day for weeks or months. I knew that these problems could just as easily be utilization issues, with applications creating large amounts of traffic simultaneously or at the wrong times. Unfortunately, our team lacked the ability to easily analyze utilization information.

We selected Visual Performance Manager from Fluke Networks because of its combination of capabilities, price and its ability to be a turnkey solution for a wide variety of visibility issues. This was something we needed yesterday, and Fluke Networks was clearly going to be able to come in and get us up and running quickly.

I was familiar with VPM from using it with a previous employer and knew it was the right tool to help us solve our challenges. In particular, VPM could play a key role as we consolidated networks and applications from a collection of separate and overlapping organizations.

One of the main reasons we purchased VPM was to give us visibility into applications and connections. We need to be able to map out an application to user connectivity and vice versa so that we were not blind to what was on our network. When we go forward with the consolidation of all of our applications, we need to ensure we’ve identified all of the users who are using each application so it’s seamless.

We saw the benefits of using VPM within days, as it was able to identify some unexpected disk-to-disk replication that was causing a network slowdown. In another case, VPM helped to uncover storage replication traffic between three branch offices that was also affecting network performance. The replication was supposed to occur over night during non-business hours, but was taking too long and bleeding into the business day where it impacted users. After using VPM to find the source of the slowdown, we were able to apply some QoS policies to the replication traffic to address the problem.

As we bring more of the responsibility for managing our network in-house, VPM’s ability to generate utilization reports is extremely valuable. In some cases, VPM can create reports that third-party vendors cannot. And with a small team – we have just 4 people managing the network across more than 100 locations – the ability to remotely identify and diagnose problems saves on time and travel costs.

By using VPM, we have been able to discover a number of utilization issues that affect network performance. It turns out that many “slow network” complaints are actually the result of things like traffic from automated updates to Microsoft Office applications and virus definition downloads. VPM allows us to identify those issues and apply policies that control when they happen.

And, VPM has helped me get a handle on the circuit optimization problem. By taking a close look at application and user behavior with VPM, we believe that we can significantly reduce the number of broadband circuits they require. In fact, the savings will be so great that I expect we will have payback on the purchase price of VPM within 6-8 months based on circuit optimization alone.

Looking ahead, I see VPM playing a key role in managing and optimizing our entire network infrastructure. We want to use application fingerprinting to ensure that business critical applications are consistently performing within target parameters and not being slowed down by network latency or server response time issues. We want to create an automated reporting system that will alert them if packets are moving to and from a server in a timely fashion. With a growing base of users and locations, we also expect to use VPM to uncover trends that will allow us to proactively add circuits to sites that are trending toward overutilization and better optimize key financial service applications.

Down the road, we also plan to bring some application development in-house. We plan to use VPM as part of the application testing and network validation process. We even envision an automated help desk process that would use VPM data to quickly identify whether a problem is network, application or server related.

VPM gives us a level of insight we previously didn’t have and will allow our team to work more collaboratively to solve IT challenges. It’s already proven itself as an indispensable system and the go-to resource when evaluating problems, planning changes or taking the pulse of the key systems.

With a team of just three engineers and a network spanning the country, we required a solution that provided support for each location’s specific data centers, servers and storage without requiring a vast amount of engineering support. With hundreds of people on the network at any given time, identifying and troubleshooting end-user delays was an important and time-consuming issue for our engineering team. We needed visibility into each data center and the ability to quickly identify and segregate network issues from application problems.

With such a small team of engineers managing all the networking needs — from plugs, to wiring, to power — it was challenging for us to dedicate the required amount of time to troubleshooting end-user issues, especially with a user base spread across the country. It was nearly impossible for us to tell where an issue was coming from; was it a network problem? A smaller location based issue? We just didn’t have the visibility we needed to fix issues efficiently and still have time to dedicate to our other pressing projects.

In addition to normal internal network issues, we utilize many different applications throughout our three data centers, including a newly implemented video over IP capability that allows our geologists to stay on site and still participate in key company meetings. Because of the large number of internal and external applications running at any given time, in any location, our engineers were tasked with solving issues without any clear knowledge of the origin – whether network or application based.

Often problems would arise in Tulsa that had to be diagnosed and fixed from a different location. A large building and hundreds of different devices connecting to the server at any given time hindered the troubleshooting process and often non-vital issues were left unresolved and became the new normal end-user experience.

Our team also faced the challenge of managing third party, subscription-based applications that weren’t always performing up to standard. Conversations with vendors yielded few results and most users were left dealing with a slower, less efficient process.

We chose Fluke Networks OptiView XG to begin monitoring our biggest data center, located in Tulsa. The OptiView XG allowed our engineers to track the normal network use levels and establish a benchmark to compare degraded performance to. Currently, we use the OptiView XG mainly as a diagnostic tool, running continuously and conducting network assessments, validating new infrastructure and devices, testing service provider SLAs, and troubleshooting problems from end to end.

After our success using the OptiView XG, we expanded our Fluke Networks’ product line to include the Visual TruView. With TruView’s Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Network Performance Monitoring (NPM) combined capabilities, we are able to identify, test and resolve issues across LAN, WAN or Cloud environments and across multiple data centers.

The entire team tested several different product solutions initially, but Fluke Networks provided the visibility we needed to make a discernable difference in our network performance and engineer time management. With the TruView, we’re able to identify an issue, zero in on the location and solve it quickly.

With the TruView and OptiView XG helping to streamline our networking troubleshooting process, our engineering team now has the ability to remotely identify, diagnose and resolve our connectivity problems.

Using Fluke Networks TruView and the OptiView XG together allow us to shed light on issues that pop up when managing a cross-country network. It gives the entire team insight we’ve never had before and enables us to differentiate between normal traffic and bigger problems. It’s a great tool for not only day-to-day network monitoring, but also troubleshooting and effectively leading us to issue resolution.

In one specific example, my team was called in to deal with an application problem reported by a group of users in Tulsa. It turned out the users were all on the 14th floor of the same building. The IT team first used the OptiView XG to eliminate some obvious potential causes with the network on that particular floor and then used TruView to see how the performance on that floor compared to other floors. With the network ruled out as the cause of the issue, TruView helped to identify a file server that had been configured improperly after a power outage.

In addition to dealing with our own internal network issues, Fluke Networks’ tools have allowed us to help identify and resolve third-party application issues as well.

In one instance, using the OptiView XG, our engineers were able to log into an end user’s machine, take a packet capture then decode it using Fluke Networks ClearSite Analyzer software, which showed specific metrics around application performance.

The data showed an application problem that was a surprise to the vendor. While they were able to fix the problem and improve the end user experience, without the conclusive data provided by the Fluke Networks tools, we may have been lost in an endless cycle of back-and-forth between the internal team and the application company.

Without Fluke Networks, we just wouldn’t have the same visibility. It’s an essential part of our network infrastructure.

We have more than 25 dispersed clinic locations connected through a central data center and we run hundreds of critical applications. One of the largest software applications is Epic, which is a huge multi-tiered application suite that includes several smaller applications that all bounce from server to server, gathering data requests from different sources and funneling back responses to our clinical and administrative teams.

Visual TruView uses key data sets (including packet storage, application response time, transactional decode, NetFlow and SNMP) to measure performance of hundreds of applications and then report the results through a single dashboard. The comprehensive overview of both network and application performance provides us with a clear picture of performance and, when issues arise, helps us quickly identify the root cause.

We also use TruView to evaluate top talkers (i.e., applications) on the network, identify unknown applications, identify the most-used at any moment, and measure other indicators of network health. TruView delivers this information via simple graphs and alerts that trigger when minimum performance thresholds aren’t met. It helps immediately narrow down the scope of performance problems, so we can do further analysis on a specific node or server.

For example, when we used TruView to identify which applications were affecting network performance the most, we were surprised to find a marketing screensaver as the main culprit. The screensaver (which runs on hundreds of computer screens and is displayed in every patient room) was not deployed properly. Instead of caching information from each individual computer’s hard drive, it was pulling high-resolution images and marketing materials from remote servers and serving them to desktops. This created a huge amount of traffic every single day. We used TruView to identify this unnecessary bandwidth-intense application as a problem.

TruView helps us tell right away when a problem happens and the scope of the issue. If something is slow, we can tell the location or application affected. When it’s a multi-tier application, we can see which element is the problem and don’t need to involve the vendor – it’s eliminated a lot of the troubleshooting frustrations we used to have.

We develop our applications in-house to address our organization’s specific mission and operational needs. The data housed within these applications are critical to us, as evidenced by a spike in incoming technical support calls immediately after any network, application, or database outage.

Application and network issues would inevitably arise within our infrastructure. These issues, no matter how minor, were hard to troubleshoot since each application integrates with multiple data sources. We evaluated multiple network monitoring solutions. Visual TruView was selected and deployed to solve our IT challenges and resolve the ambiguity associated with technical support calls.

As TruView processes network performance analytics, it time correlates the results, which helps cross-functional IT teams—such as network engineering and application development teams—work more collaboratively and solve problems faster than before without the usual finger-pointing. The effort is centralized with a dashboard that tells us whether the problem is database, application, or network related so we can assign accountability and get to a solution faster.

The ability to see across our network and monitor each node along with all applications and databases is of great benefit, it helps us immediately identify the problem’s root cause so we can bring in the appropriate service team to solve the issue.

Deployment was rather simple, but did require quite a bit of time to configure since our applications are so complex. But, once we got it up and running, the results were almost immediate.

It also provides ongoing monitoring for external and third-party applications as well. TruView can easily pinpoint problems, letting us know if the issue lies internally or with the external application provider.

For example, we used TruView to troubleshoot a third-party application that was performing slowly over the VPN connection. The application used specific protocols for querying data from multiple sources. We reviewed all data transactions – one after another. In each transaction, data took no more than 30 milliseconds to process. Some of the files, however, exceeded 15 MB in size. These larger data calls required several minutes to process over the VPN. Because we could isolate the specific data call culprits, the system could be optimized to solve the issue quickly and effectively.

Recently, our government moved forward with a plan to combine two separate county councils into a single entity. One of the more complex tasks involved in the merger is the creation of a single, unified IT infrastructure for the county’s services and public-facing websites. The €1.8 million IT consolidation project includes the creation of a primary data center and disaster recovery site connecting to 57 remote county offices and sites over a variety of connections (point-to-point, VPN, private DSL, MPLS, etc.).

When completed, the network will include a mix of internal applications, public-facing websites and portals for services such as housing, water, roads, environment, planning and other key local government functions. In addition to standard business applications for communications, productivity, CRM and financial management, the network will also host some bandwidth intensive GIS and mapping applications. It will also support remote access and a variety of mobile services and applications.

Creating a single unified network across all of our county is a major undertaking. All of the merged authority’s back-end infrastructure will be located in the North of the county. As a result, all WAN services from the Southern part of the county are being relocated and re-terminated at a separate head end. Major sites in the south of the county will send traffic out through a switch core, up the point to point link to be dropped off in the primary data center core. About 800 users will be connecting to services hosted in the data center, of which approximately 450 will be from the southern part of the county.

The technical complexity of merging existing systems, applications and data was just one of my major concerns. We are especially conscious of the fact that users from the Southern part of the county are sensitive to performance issues in light of the division of labor and responsibility for the unified network. Being able to remotely diagnose and solve network and application problems is a priority.

We need a tool that can give us a complete picture of what is happening with applications, servers and the network across the entire county. Right now, we’re still building the network. But in the medium term, it’s important for us to be able to isolate the source of performance issues so we can get application problems on the desk of the applications team and network problems to the network team so they can address them quickly.

We chose the Fluke Networks Visual TruView appliance to provide the application and network performance monitoring we need. TruView leverages key data sets such as stream-to-disk packet storage, application response time, transactional decode, IPFIX (NetFlow), and SNMP to present analytics through a single reporting interface. As TruView processes analytics from these data sets, it time correlates the results providing cross-functional IT teams such as network engineering, application, and server teams with a new found ability to work more collaboratively and solve problems fast. We deployed TruView directly in our data center core.

With TruView you can get a high-level overview of what’s going on with a particular site or a particular application very quickly. It’s very easy to interpret. We can see which applications are having or causing problems. With our previous solution, it took much longer. And, of course, with TruView you can drill down into the data when you need to take a closer look.

I’ve been a user of Fluke Networks products for more than 12 years. We even had one of the earliest OptiView portable network monitoring devices which was extensively used across the network. So when it came time to choose a performance monitoring solution, I knew Fluke Networks could deliver.

We had no identified budget for a TruView appliance this year, but we could clearly see the benefits we could realise from deploying the solution. We managed to identify savings and re-prioritise some other projects within our budget in order to fund purchase of the TruView. We chose the TruView because it offered better value than the other performance monitoring solutions we saw.

Before deploying the TruView, performance monitoring was fairly manual. We’d used and were very familiar with NetFlow. With TruView, we have a much better view of application performance, particularly from the user perspective.

For example, we had an application response time issue with Exchange. TruView helped to isolate the particular server that was the root of the problem. As the launch of our unified network approaches, TruView has helped my team find “bits and pieces” of things that might have impacted application performance had they gone undetected.

Another recent example of practical use was an issue in which slow user logins were being reported from the southern end of the network. Using the TruView, within minutes we eliminated the point-to-point link, server side performance and end user response times and firmly diagnosed the issue to be local to the southern end of the network. This is exactly the type of scenario we knew the TruView could help us with. Prior to this it would have required an exhaustive search to figure out what exactly or where exactly the issue was.

As the launch of the new, unified network gets nearer I see TruView becoming even more useful. We’re looking forward to seeing how much more it can do. I don’t think we’ve taken full advantage of it yet.

Fluke Networks is a well known name when it comes to network testing hardware and devices. That being said, their Visual TruView monitoring software is top notch and one of the best SNMP/monitoring solutions I have seen.

I have used the competitors products in the past, namely WhatsUp Gold and others, and they don't even come close to offering what Fluke does with their product!

The way that TruView presents its information, via a HTML5 front-end applet with the visual and textual renditions of the data is superb, the dashboards are full featured and make it easily readable to even the entry level IT professionals. It helps you narrow down the problem areas quickly and efficiently, and drill in to fix the issue with little to no downtime.

From what little I've used this solution (I've only deployed it twice), it has quickly become my "go-to" for my clients when their in house IT needs a management solution, and especially when I am doing the management myself!

Due to the nature of our business, we require continuous operations with zero tolerance for network performance delays or downtime. Performance expectations are high for our IT team and network.

We rely on optimal network response times to our auction applications and databases to present, track, and sell plants and flowers as quickly as possible. As soon as one product is sold, we need to be able to showcase the next item immediately. Time is of the essence, and we can’t waste it with unnecessary troubleshooting steps.

In an auction clock environment, plants and flowers are brought into a room to be bid on by both in-person and online buyers. A database pushes information to the clock, which displays the product, quantity, price, and time left at auction. Bidders push a button to purchase flowers based on the price displayed on the clock at that particular time. As soon as the product is sold, a new product is displayed as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, we recently encountered a response time delay between the database and the auction clock. The delay slowed the clock display information by up to two seconds between each auction, which is far too long in our environment. We needed a mechanism to pinpoint the issue and determine if the root cause lay with the database, application, or network. That was easier said than done at the time, given our organization’s complex, homegrown databases and applications.

A delay of even a few seconds is unacceptable when we’re auctioning more than 50 million items each day to on-site and international bidders. Time literally translates to money, so we do everything possible to mitigate delays.

We evaluated multiple technologies before implementing a Visual TruView unified network and application performance monitoring and troubleshooting solution from Fluke Networks. We deployed Visual TruView to monitor and troubleshoot both our backbone and marketplace networks. The backbone network is made up of two core switches, two connected server switches, and five distribution switches. This infrastructure powers the organization’s home-grown applications and databases. The backbone network is connected to the marketplace network, which powers all auction bidding through numerous connections to in-person bidding devices and online bidding applications.

Visual TruView uses key data sets (including packet storage, application response time, transactional decode, NetFlow and SNMP) to highlight performance metrics through a single dashboard. The comprehensive overview of both network and application performance provides us with a clear picture of where issues originate across both our backbone and marketplace networks.

TruView tracks the networks and devices for all auction activities. It doesn’t make any difference what the issue is or where it originates, giving us immediate access across our entire infrastructure. The response-time savings are phenomenal.

We used Visual TruView to troubleshoot our delays between auctions. The solution monitored performance from the application data query across the network to the database and back. TruView immediately identified the database as the root cause, taking an extra second or two to process the query and respond. We optimized the database and fixed the problem without wasted effort scrutinizing the entire network and application since the issue was isolated immediately.

Visual TruView provides visibility into the our network, applications, and databases from a single solution so we don’t waste time unnecessarily pinpointing where issues originate. The result saves us two hours of accumulated delays each year, equaling €200,000 in annual savings, along with an improved image for our operations.

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