[OT] network monitoring/visibility appliance
I apologize for the off-topic post, but I'm at my wits end trying to "rediscover" a peice of equipment I came across a few months ago but some how lost the datasheet/bookmark too. The appliance was a standard 1U rackmount "pizzabox" that spoke a whole variety of protocols (IS-IS, BGP, OSPF, MPLS + TE, etc). Basically, the pitch was you plugged the box into your network, and it spat out a pretty map with all sorts of interesting information without having to poll (much). I realize there might be more than a few of these products, but I've somehow managed to avoid all of them in my search. Please contact me offlist if you might be familiar with a/the device described above. Thanks Regards, aaron.glenn
Just to ignore your wishes and reply on-list :) Other folks may be interested. The general area is known as "route analytics". The box you are talking about may be from Packet Design (the HP solution is OEMed from them, I believe) or Ipsum networks. This is separate from modeling and simulation tools like Cariden, Opnet, and Wandl which all offer some greater or lesser degree of routing protocol support. I believe the original idea for these boxes was to target service providers, but enterprises are also quite interested in the field, especially with the growth of RFC2547 VPNs. A box like this can help an enterprise keep track of the BGP advertisements and any OSPF/EIGRP redistribution at their sites (which can number in the thousands). Sales of these products are pretty small now, but that may change. Imagine doing data correlation between IGP (or BGP) convergence and dropped calls on a softswitch across a few thousand sites. My personal opinion is that questions about Internet/WAN technology vendors on a _high_ level are perfectly appropriate for NANOG - at least as much as "is xyz down?" :) More in-depth stuff ("how do I configure my GSR to dance the lambada") belong on the appropriate NSP lists... -- Daniel Golding On 6/24/05 5:55 PM, "Aaron Glenn" <aaron.glenn@gmail.com> wrote:
I apologize for the off-topic post, but I'm at my wits end trying to "rediscover" a peice of equipment I came across a few months ago but some how lost the datasheet/bookmark too. The appliance was a standard 1U rackmount "pizzabox" that spoke a whole variety of protocols (IS-IS, BGP, OSPF, MPLS + TE, etc). Basically, the pitch was you plugged the box into your network, and it spat out a pretty map with all sorts of interesting information without having to poll (much). I realize there might be more than a few of these products, but I've somehow managed to avoid all of them in my search.
Please contact me offlist if you might be familiar with a/the device described above. Thanks
Regards, aaron.glenn
On 6/24/05, Daniel Golding <dgolding@burtongroup.com> wrote:
Just to ignore your wishes and reply on-list :)
OK, I'll bite. (-:
Other folks may be interested. The general area is known as "route analytics". The box you are talking about may be from Packet Design (the HP solution is OEMed from them, I believe) or Ipsum networks. This is separate from modeling and simulation tools like Cariden, Opnet, and Wandl which all offer some greater or lesser degree of routing protocol support.
After hitting send, of course, I came across both Packet Design's and Ipsum's product; neither of which are the manufacturer I had in mind. However they do perform the same functions.
I believe the original idea for these boxes was to target service providers, but enterprises are also quite interested in the field, especially with the growth of RFC2547 VPNs. A box like this can help an enterprise keep track of the BGP advertisements and any OSPF/EIGRP redistribution at their sites (which can number in the thousands).
The box I'm referring too was marketed towards MPLS, traffic engineering, and QoS visibility and monitoring. Had a handsome visualization tool as well.
My personal opinion is that questions about Internet/WAN technology vendors on a _high_ level are perfectly appropriate for NANOG - at least as much as "is xyz down?" :) More in-depth stuff ("how do I configure my GSR to dance the lambada") belong on the appropriate NSP lists...
While I agree wholeheartedly, I started actively following NANOG less than a year ago, during which nearly every discussion had someone questioning it's relevance and on-topic-ness; which, frankly, was and still is, off putting. I apologize being so vague about all this - a fuzzy photographic memory is both a blessing and a curse. I don't remember the manufacturer, or what I was even looking for when I came across it. All I recall is a limegreen-ish box in the datasheet pdf; a mention of how, by being able to speak MPLS and it's ilk, the appliance didn't have to poll devices, nor was it a point of failure; and a strong focus on its traffic engineering and QoS visibility features. After looking at Packet Design and Ipsum, neither is the product I'm trying to "rediscover". Many thanks for the off-list replies. If anyone has any clue what I'm referring too, on or off list replies are welcomed. Regards, aaron.glenn
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Aaron Glenn -
Daniel Golding