Sniffer Watch compatibility

[AlexTovar]

Hi everybody:

I'm getting reports with the last version of Sniffer watch from some E1 DSSs , the DSS version is the 4.1 release 1 and we want to upgrade to DSS 4.2 SP 3, do you know if Sniffer Watch also works with the latest version of DSS ? if so, are there any modifications to do on the watch console ?

Thanks all in advance.

 

[phaelon56]

v4.2 r3 is not the latest release - we are already into v4.3

Sniffer Resource Manager (SRM) was, as I understand it, an important part of the Sniffer integration with Watch (I may be mistaken on this - hopefully someone else can clarify or confirm). SRM has been replaced by nPo (Network Performance Orchestrator) and nPo is designed to dovetail with Visualizer for reporting purposes.

It muddies the waters a bit, as Watch was ostensibly supposed to integrate nicely with third party products outside of Sniffer that could report fault measurements, stats etc to be rolled into the Watch reports. All the focused marketing efforts are now on v4.3 and beyond with a big push for nPo Visualizer. The putty colored PII Sniffer DS Pro platforms that so many people have deployed wil be EOL'd soon. NAI will not be supporting anythign beyond v4.3 on those boxes.

Regrettably... as usual, there is no info on the Sniffer website to clarify the issues. If you have a valid Grant # you may be able to get the answers from Knowledge base on their website. Otherwise it may take a phone call to an SE to get the definitive answer. Expect to get a big sales push when you make the call.

Owen O'Neill
Datacom Systems Inc.
Northeastern SE

http://www.datacomsystems.com

 

[mahaprabhu]

Alex,
I don't think Watch was tested with 4.2 Sp3. The current Long Term reporting product from Sniffer is nPO Visualizer, which has been well tested with Sniffer Distributed Agents. This product is a vast improvement on Watch, you will know what I'm saying if you just take a look at the UI. I would recommend that you upgrade your agents to 4.3 SP1 and combine with an nPO Viz. box.
If I'm not mistaken, SRM, or nPO Manager as it's called now, is not very closely coupled with nPO Viz. nPO Manager is used primarily to management Sniffer Distributed Agents, user authentication, privileges and policies. It also has some pretty cool alarm management and alarm forwarding features. Finally, one of the coolest features in this product is the Multi Trace Analysis component which allows you to combin trace files from vatious segments and provide you end to end visibility of your NW.
Hope this help answer some of your questions and those of Owen as well.
MP.

 

[NetworkAnalyzer]

nPO Visualizer 2.1 is the second release for new reporting solution from Sniffer. You need to first upgrade from DSSWatch to nPOVisualizer 2.0 and then 2.1. Data can be preserved during the upgrade process.

nPO Visualizer provides lot of new functionality - Interface/DLCI/VPI-VCI Grouping, Summary Reports, Scheduled reports, Authentication & Users Profiles/Access controls, Better System Manageability, etc...

It's definitely worth upgrading to both the new S/W and the Xeon H/W.

MTO from nPOManager is another product from Sniffer that helps troubleshooting application response times from captured traces.

 

[AlexTovar]

Hi All:

Thanks for your helpful answers. My problem here is that upgrading to nPO is not possible right now (you know, budget and those things... ). It seems Watch is working fine with DSS 4.2 SP 3. I've already seen nPO and i think is very good. We´re looking forward to get it.

Thanks !