Michael Patterson
Product manager for Plixer's Scrutinizer NetFlow and sFlow Analyzer as well as Flow Analytics. Previously worked for Cabletron Systems
Cloud Service Monitoring
Interest in cloud service monitoring utilities will grow as businesses become more dependent on these types of virtual services. In this post,...
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Cellular Mayhem
Just looking at the news makes me think that the cellular industry is having a week of mayhem. Besides the mess I...
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A Day in My Brain
I was in NYC (Tribeca) this week to spend the day at a Q&A session with Seth Godin. He is a marketing...
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Gadgets to Have Integrated Welcome Ads Soon?
If ads on the Kindle Fire Welcome Screen are successful, others will follow There are a few things which are well known...
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Comcast Skype on Xfinity $9.95/month - Lame or Cool?
Comcast today unveiled their Skype video calling service, Skype on Xfinity which directly integrates into your HDTV. The beauty of the system...
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Kodak's Ofoto Another Flickr-Like Disappointment
This past March it was announced that as part of Kodak's restructuring, the online photo-sharing site ofoto or Kodak Photo Gallery...
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Real, Live Video Conferencing of Smart Devices on LTE, WiFi and 3G
Last week at CTIA, during a scheduled press conference on May 8th at 11:00AM, Dialogic demonstrated the future of video conferencing...
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Plixer Scrutinizer Network Traffic Analyzer Preview
I've been testing Plixer Scrutinizer, a network traffic analyzer product for several weeks now. It's a great product that supports NetFlow used...
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A New Conversation Experience: Alcatel-Lucent's 4G Consumer Communications Solution
Beecher Tuttle
Subscriber demand for more innovative, bandwidth-hungry services has driven most every service provider to build a 4G LTE network capable of providing greater capacity, reduced latency and improved pricing. But to unlock the power of a 4G LTE investment – and to continue to deliver revenue-generating voice and messaging services – carriers must look to embrace Voice over LTE (VoLTE), a core component for a new set of rich media and collaboration services that also enables operators to deliver voice without having to rely on legacy 2G/3G networks.
In short, VoLTE helps service providers capitalize on their new 4G investments. VoLTE enables operators to offload legacy infrastructure and to deliver data simultaneously with crisp HD voice. By blending mobile voice with video, converged IP messaging, the web and social networking, service providers can create new revenue-generating communication services that differentiate them from competitors. The technology is also proven to harmonize conversations across disparate providers, devices and apps.
But perhaps more than anything, VoLTE provides operators with the flexibility to respond to ever-changing technologies, market conditions and user demands. The competitive freedoms of VoLTE allow operators to experiment with and deliver new communication features for broad markets and even strategic industries like mobile healthcare.
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Netflix Temporarily Offline? On Movie Night? Ahhhh!
Oh joy - was checking my Netflix DVD queue to see if any interesting movies to stream as well as which ones...
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Temperature Monitoring Solutions with Remote Humidity Sensors
Generally I write about NetFlow solutions but, today I’ve got temperature monitoring solutions on my mind for a data center we use...
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Telefonica Launches Skype Competitor Tu Me
Telefónica today launched a new mobile app called Tu Me, which essentially takes the approach if you can't beat Skype, join em'....
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Viber Announces BlackBerry Beta and Windows Phone 7 Beta
Viber today announced the availability of Viber for BlackBerry Beta and Windows Phone 7 Beta.Both Viber for BlackBerry Beta and Viber...
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Nokia City Lens Augmented Reality Launches on Lumia Phones
Nokia today released its City Lens app for Windows Phone, an app that is an augmented reality browser. Users open the app,...
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Big Mac versus Hamburger
When selling Hosted PBX and other unified communications, it's a lot like giving someone a Big Mac. Extra sauce, more calories, cheese...
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Cloud Service Monitoring
May 20, 2012Interest in cloud service monitoring utilities will grow as businesses become more dependent on these types of virtual services. In this post, I’ll outline some great ways to monitor cloud services by leveraging in house hardware namely, Cisco Routers and the use of Flexible NetFlow Performance Monitoring or Medianet exports.
Temperature Monitoring Solutions with Remote Humidity Sensors
May 9, 2012
Generally I write about NetFlow solutions but, today I’ve got temperature monitoring solutions on my mind for a data center we use that requires remote humidity sensors or electronic hygrometer equipment. Server room monitoring isn’t something I consider my forte but, it seemed I couldn’t avoid getting involved with this project.
Cisco ASA Vs. Juniper SRX: NetFlow Reporting
May 6, 2012The Cisco ASA Vs. Juniper SRX was being hotly debated on the Cisco forum. Being a flow analysis company we always ask about NetFlow or IPFIX support before we purchase a network appliance, especially a firewall. Reporting on data in our organization is paramount as “he who stays in the know, stays ahead”. When it comes to firewall reporting, we are looking for:
- Traditional flow reporting
- Log reporting
- Other cool flow exports (e.g. usernames)
How to roll out BYOD Security: Best Network Management
April 24, 2012You’ve been allowing it for months or even years and now you’ve decided to get serious about how to roll out a secure BYOD environment. Supporting BYOD is easy. Making BYOD secure is the tricky part and then there is always network traffic monitoring to make sure your BYOD security strategy is working. Today I’m going to outline several steps that Patrick Sweeney (VP of Product Marketing) at SonicWALL shared with me. These steps should be considered when setting up a ‘reasonably’ safe BYOD environment.
Patrick Sweeney – VP, SonicWALL
Detecting Advanced Persistent Threats with NetFlow and IPFIX
April 11, 2012Detecting Advanced Persistent Threats and other Network Security Threats with NetFlow and IPFIX requires advanced flow analytics. For example Top hosts, top applications, top DSCP values, etc., it’s great information and these reports can be used both reactively and proactively but, it’s just the tip of the iceberg as NetFlow can tell us about all kinds of anomalous traffic that may be flying under the radar.
Monitoring BYOD traffic with NetFlow
March 24, 2012
Monitoring BYOD traffic is a growing concern amonst network administrators. Why? Gartner predicts that 645 million smartphones will be sold in 2012 – a 40% increase from this year. Cell phone reception is often weak on the interior of office buildings and smartphone owners will have their WiFi on. What's more is that many companies are allowing employees onto the corporate net with their personal smart phones in hopes of increased productivity.
Migrating to Flexible NetFlow : BEST PRACTICES
March 8, 2012
Migrating to Flexible NetFlow (FnF) is a simple and for some of us, an exciting process. It is exciting because of the deeper and improved insight into network traffic monitoring. If your company is interested in migrating to FnF from traditional NetFlow, there are a few things to consider.
Monitoring Video Performance with NetFlow
February 19, 2012
Three years ago I was listening to John Chambers - CEO of Cisco Systems, proclaim that video was going to be the rage. I snickered and though it would be long time before anyone will be monitoring video performance with NetFlow. Well, here we are and John Chambers was right. My daughter is the one that made me realize why video vs. only voice will continue to grow.
End to End Visibility : Network Flow Path
February 6, 2012
Gaining end to end visibility into the path a flow took through the network can be an easy thing to do if you have the right network traffic monitoring tool. Because multiple paths exist between devices, leveraging traceroute or routed topology information may not provide the exact path taken by an end to end flow. To help address this mystery, a couple of utilities exist on the market today.
Dropped NetFlow : Flow Sequence Numbers
January 29, 2012
Dropped NetFlow detection should be a major part of the decision making process in your next enterprise NetFlow collector. High volume Netflow collection and reporting without regard to the NetFlow Sequence Numbers should send up red flags to an educated consumer in the market for a reliable NetFlow and IPFIX collector. Here’s why: It is a safe bet that companies serious about network traffic analysis or network traffic monitoring want to know if they are looking at all the data. In many cases they may not be. How would they know?
