Network Analysis Tools: Make the Right Decision or Risk Your ROI

1
Network Analysis ToolsMake the Right Decision
or Risk Your ROI

• Laura Chappell
• Sr. Protocol Analyst, Founder
• Protocol Analysis Institute, Inc.
• lchappell_at_packet-level.com
• www.packet-level.com
• www.podbooks.com

2
Network Analyzer Architecture

• Capture network traffic
• Chart relationships
• Decode traffic
• Identify unusual events

3
What Do You Want Out of Your Analyzer?

• Troubleshooting
• Optimization
• Monitoring
• Security

4
What is Your Analyzer Budget?

• Free tools (such as Ethereal) can capture data
  requires strong knowledge of protocols and
  TCPdump formatting may not keep up with traffic
  rates

5
What is Your Analyzer Budget?

• More expensive tools still require strong
  protocol knowledge

6
What is Your Analyzer Budget?

• Do you need a portable analyzer?

7
What is Your Analyzer Budget?

• Do you need a distributed analyzer?

8
What is Your Analyzer Budget?

• The analyzer must keep up with traffic

9
What is Your Training Budget?

• These are not simple devices
• Network analysts must know
• protocols (TCP/IP) very well
• network layout
• analyzer functions
• Who is the ideal analyst candidate?

10
Can Your Analyst Build an Analysis ROI on Each
Case?

• Downtime
• Salary groupings
• Usage rates
• ROI per minute, hour, day, week, month, year

11
Analyzer Function Checklist

• Understandable
• Alarms/Logs
• Latency times
• Application analysis
• Triggered start/stop
• Training

• Graphical views
• Fat pipe
• Decodes
• Expert system
• Report generation
• Distributed

12
How to Evaluate Analyzers

• Obtain fully functioning software (or
  hardware/software)
• Designate an evaluator
• Capture a boot up sequence, login sequence,
  common applications (trace file)
• Force an error (disconnection, misconfiguration)
• Force a security breach (port scan, OS
  fingerprinting operation, SYN flood)
• Move a trace file from one analyzer to another
  (ProConvert needed?) to compare results

13
For more information

• Laura explains how to use her ROI calculator in
  this webcastCalculating the cost of network
  downtime
• Or, you can Download the calculator here

14
Questions

• Laura Chappell
• Sr. Protocol Analyst, Founder
• Protocol Analysis Institute, Inc.
• lchappell_at_packet-level.com
• www.packet-level.com
• www.podbooks.com