Network management

Desktop and client management suites, network analysis tools, network configuration management Products, network modeling wares, network performance analysis software, WAN/bandwidth management products

By Christine Burns and Keith Shaw, Network World, 02/28/05

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Winner: Opnet Technologies' IT Guru 10.5; Rendition Networks' TrueControl 3.0

With two products in distinct categories separated by only 0.02 points on the score chart, we had to declare a tie. Opnet's IT Guru 10.5 and Rendition Networks' TrueControl 3.0 both deserve Best of the Tests distinction in network management. IT Guru 10.5 took the Clear Choice Award in our recent network modeling tools test with an extremely impressive 4.85, while TrueControl scored an equally remarkable 4.83 in our test of network configuration tools.

IT Guru

Network-modeling tools let designers or operators test changes to network topology before they get implemented in a production network. Lab Alliance member Jeffrey Fritz found IT Guru to be the most accomplished of the tested products, as it could scale easily to accommodate just about any production enterprise network and offers powerful tools for analyzing network issues.

The key for network modeling is the ability to match the generated network model map to the real network topology. Events such as link failure, link changes, device failures, load changes, route changes and link overloading should be as accurate as possible. IT Guru handled these with aplomb - it could implement changes on the fly, and we could modify factors such as Open Shortest Path First link costs and OSPF timers and see results immediately.

IT Guru, a Best of the Tests winner last year for 9.0, is flexible, scalable and highly customizable. From a GUI, users can drag and drop several kinds of network topologies, creating a product that is sophisticated, powerful and complex. During testing, we found ourselves overwhelmed (in a good way) by its rich features and complexity.

TrueControl

Update Opnet THE PRODUCT: IT Guru 11.0, which became generally available in December 2004, adds an open product architecture that supports several new third-party integrations and enables capacity planning for distributed systems and mainframe environments. System workload and performance information now can be imported from tools by BMC Software, Concord Communica­tions, HP, IBM and NetIQ, and from XML, Opnet says. THE COMPANY: In October 2004, Opnet ac­quired all assets of Altaworks, including two commercially available software products. Through the acquisition, Opnet gains ad­vanced correlation and analysis technologies. Rendition/Opsware THE PRODUCT: TrueControl/Opsware Network Automation System has gone through a number of revisions since our test. In June 2004, Version 3.1 added ScriptMaster Technology, which lets companies leverage the expertise of advanced engineers by automatically converting sessions and commands they issue into error-free scripts that can be used to manage thousands of devices at once. In October, the 3.2 version added SecurID and TACACS authentication integration, giving TrueControl stronger two-factor authentication capabilities, and a Compliance Center. This latter was designed to provide out-of-the-box compliance evidence generation for Sarbanes-Oxley and IT best practices frameworks. Version 4.0, due this quarter, will add workflow and approvals features, so organizations can manage approval for device changes, chain tasks into multitask jobs and manage draft tasks. Other features include ACL management, SingleView and SingleSearch (one central location from which to obtain information on network devices, increasing the visibility to changes for improving compliance), and an improved user interface (designed around task-based workflow). THE COMPANY: The acquisition of Rendition by Opsware, announced in December, closed this month.

The new network configuration management market consists of systems that correctly establish the existing configuration of a network, support a multi-vendor network infrastructure, let administrators make one-time changes or automated changes based on policies, cooperate with current network management and security systems, and provide data through a good management console.

TrueControl (renamed Opsware Network Automation System with the Opsware acquisition of Rendition) won for providing a wealth of detailed information and a robust search capability and security model, and for a great mix of compliance-detection and top-notch reporting capabilities.

TrueControl provided excellent search, auditing and report capabilities, with devices, modules, configurations, tasks, sessions and events all checkable against specified criteria. It made changes to the start-up and running configurations of our network devices. Groups of equipment could be created to monitor and change configuration on a more easily managed basis. The system could deploy user and SNMP passwords, which eases a once-arduous task.

PRODUCT MASTERMINDS

The man: Alain Cohen, president and CTO, Opnet Technologies

Favorite Feature: "My favorite feature is what we think of as 'operational modeling.' Users can use IT Guru models to do predictive planning and also to manage their production infrastructure. For example, users can troubleshoot application performance with captured traffic, then use the samples to plan new app deployments. Or they can do a network audit for compliance and security analysis, then use the captured information to model capacity."

The man: Eric Johnson, CTO at Rendition, vice president of engineering at Opsware

Favorite Feature: "Real-time Change Direction. This was one of our early innovative features and helped set the tone for the emerging network configuration control category. Periodic polling just isn't enough any more. To get real operational value, you need real-time information. Real-time change detection has been fundamental to many of the other critical product features, such as policy assurance, compliance reporting and access control list management."

Finalists In our test of AlterPoint’s DeviceAuthority Suite, we found the DeviceAuthority Server was the most important part. The server provides services such as user credential management, device version control and backup, and scheduling. We liked how the system could auto-discover each and every device on our network, and it had no problem correctly identifying and backing up configurations from mainstream Cisco devices. Dorado Software’s RedCell is an integrated suite of products that allows extensive discovery and management of network configurations. We liked how easy the system was to stop and re-start, either through the command line or an icon in the system tray. The system could accurately ping and discover all the devices in our test network, and pick up our Cisco components. RedCell was a powerful system, chock full of features. We found the Peribit Networks SR-100 WAN link compression appliance a great device for increasing network bandwidth without buying more capacity. The SR-100 scored well for its amazingly flexible scalability, a high degree of reliability, and quick and painless installation. One impressive feature was the device’s ability to compress data at one end of a link and fluff it back up at the other end. Shunra Software’s Shunra/Storm Version 3.1 for network modeling offers an impressive real-time simulator and excellent ability to model WAN links. We also enjoyed Shunra’s use of Microsoft Visio as its user interface, and we liked the tool’s ability to show us how applications and networks could be affected by bandwidth throttling, link limitations, packet delays and jitter. Sourcefire’s Real-time Network Awareness Sensor 2000 is like a magic eye that watches everything happening on your network. It combines passive network analysis with a Web-based management system, delivering a powerful tool to IT personnel who need more information about their networks. The information it obtained from our test network was quite accurate, providing excellent application identification (including finding obscure mail servers on non-standard ports). We liked how it gave us instant visibility into hosts, services and flows on our network, without any effect on the hosts or network. Tripwire’s Tripwire for Network Devices builds on the company’s file integrity assurance product, but goes further by incorporating support for network devices. We liked its built-in log viewer for isolating errors and its direct hooks for many major network management frameworks, including Computer Associates Unicenter, HP OpenView and IBM Tivoli. Another noteworthy point is that the company claims to support more than 100,000 devices. Voyence’s VoyenceControl veered a bit from the network configuration norm. Voyence sends customers a proof-of-concept document to gather as much information as possible about the network before shipping and installing its product. Customers then can have Voyence provide the hardware (loaded with VoyenceControl software), or Voyence can install on-site with customer-purchased hardware. We gave the system high marks for its superb mix of simplicity and functionality. It had an easy-to-understand GUI for discovery and management of network devices, and we easily could view data gathered from the devices. VoyenceControl also had a unique integration with MapQuest that can generate logical and geographical maps from where your network devices are located.

Looking ahead We’ve plenty of tests to consider in the network management area, as always. We plan on examining WAN link management, bandwidth management, application performance monitoring and various other enterprise network monitoring and analysis tools. We also plan to revisit IP address management tools.

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