Sep 15th, 2009 |
I just got a press release from the folks at Network Instruments celebrating their 15th anniversary. This Minnesota garage startup founded by CEO Roman Oliynyk and President Douglas Smith has had a long time relationship with the InteropNET Team especially as the world of networking learned how to talk to each other.
In the early days, Interop was one of the only neutral venues for network equipment manufacturers to confirm interoperability to the emerging networking standards. Network Instruments and many others were in the thick of things with what the InteropNET team called the “SpyNET”. Simply put the SpyNET was a dedicated diagnostic and troubleshooting network that was designed so that the NOC team could watch network conversations (or the attempts at conversations) go by on any segment of the InteropNET.
So while the InteropNET still has a SpyNET, it now goes places none of us imagined in the early days. Virtualization has thrown a huge monkey wrench into the works by hiding network conversations between virtual hosts, but Network Instruments is now shipping a vTap to peek into the cloud. The troubleshooting world has also changed from protocol analyzers to that of correlation engines that are applied not only to network troubleshooting but also to the forensics needs of the modern corporation. The world is changing rapidly and Network Instruments is changing right along with it. Here’s some quotes from industry leaders on their views of the last 15 years:
Increased network presence:
“Networking drove the democratization of computing in the early 1980s by making it possible to move processing power out to desktops, and in the last 15 years the Internet completed the push of network computing into the home. Now, ubiquitous, high performance networks – including high speed wireless nets – make it possible to be connected all the time, anywhere. Networks have become the digital nervous system of modern society.”
John Dix
Editor in Chief
NetworkWorld.com
IT infrastructure:
“Fifteen years ago the task of IT was to build out the infrastructure and begin to deploy the applications to automate some key business processes. Today the task is to increase the efficiency of the infrastructure and leverage that infrastructure for business value.”
Dr. Jim Metzler
Principal Analyst
Ashton, Metzler & Associates
The true source of network problems:
“Although network managers have seen an amazing evolution in technology over the past 15 years, one thing remains the same: no matter what the problem is, it’s always assumed to be the network’s fault! Gartner’s strategic planning assumption is that, through 2012, more than 80% of application performance and availability failures will be blamed on network problems, but the network will represent less than 20% of the root cause. Looking to the future, network managers are being pressured to move up the stack, and not just troubleshoot network faults and prevent network performance problems, but meet application performance objectives.”
Debra Curtis
Research Vice President
IT Operations Management
Gartner, Inc.
User need for instant content delivery:
“In today’s world with high expectations of instant web content and application delivery, network staff must be equipped with the right tools, empowered to rapidly diagnose and solve very complex issues in order to satisfy customer expectations. Without tools such as Observer and GigaStor, troubleshooting and problem resolution can often take countless hours or even longer, while the customer suffers, and more often than not, leaves and never returns.”
James W. Harrison
Sr. Network Security Engineer
PDX, Inc.
Growing network complexities:
“I got started as a student gopher for Norm Abramson on the AlohaNET project with stops along the way at Xerox, a Novell Distributor and the federal government along with tenure on the Interop NOC team since 1995. The industry has changed from a world just learning to talk to each other in the early days of Ethernet versus token ring to a world economy utterly dependent upon the global Internet. An important change is that with this massive growth have come layers of abstraction that have removed us from “seat of the pants” diagnostics of the early days.”
“It will be the sophistication of the evolving diagnostic suite to analyze across all those new layers moving towards the true future of networking. For you see we are on the cusp of the ubiquitous network described by authors like Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein where global communications will be the hammers that break down national boundaries.”
Brian Chee, Director
Advanced Network Computing Laboratory
School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology
University of Hawai’i
“More than 80% of application performance and availability failures will be blamed on network problems, but the network will represent less than 20% of the root cause”.
Its true that network diagnostic tools really have made the life easier.
Thanks for update.