NetX version 3.1 released

NetDialog announces the availability of our new software release NetX version 3.1

NetX meets Netflow
For many years now NetFlow has been one of the standard technologies for retrieving network utilization information from routers and switches.

Over these years, the limitations of the most commonly used specification of NetFlow, version 5, have become known. Already in 2004 Cisco started to resolve these issues with the introduction of NetFlow verison 9, which allows more information to be present in the flow records than version 5, and also offers configurability for both vendors and network architects. With the introduction of Flexible NetFlow combined with NBAR in IOS 15.0M and 15.1T, Cisco now offers a rich set of network information (including layer 7 application recognition) that fits very well in the generic network model that NetX provides. Therefore, with the introduction of NetX 3.1 NetDialog now supports Cisco routers for providing insight into network and application performance. This also allows application-aware network performance monitoring to start without the need for any additional hardware, which combined with a Software-as-a-Service solution like NetX, provides a very low impact and cost-efficient solution. Using this information, founded decisions can be made on the needs and potential ROI of WAN optimization controller (WOC) technology.

Good ideas will reproduce. We see other vendors picking up the potentials offered by NetFlow v9. Exinda is a good example of this. Their Unified Performance Management solution offers application visibility, control, and optimization in a single box, and through the use of NetFlow v9 customized with Exinda-specific measurements their appliances will offer a rich set of application performance characteristics (starting with ExOS version 6.0). Our Exinda-specific extension of the NetFlow v9 driver will process these extra metrices and incorporate them in our network model.

Another example is Riverbed, who has extended their Steelhead appliances with customized NetFlow v9 records that capture in detail the data volume and data reduction obtained through their technology. Compared to the existing Riverbed Steelhead driver available in older NetX releases we can now offer a much more complete picture of the traffic landscape, including insight in site-to-site traffic and pass-through traffic. The new NetFlow-based Steelhead driver will be the standard driver for Steelhead deployments starting with NetX 3.1. We are very positive about these developments and hope other WOC vendors will follow suit and consider the use of NetFlow v9 as the basic technology for enhanced network and application performance monitoring. It will help them, it will help us, and it will help our customers to achieve our common goal: excellent application performance across the network, wherever your users are.