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Netscout Unveils New Reporting Capabilities For SANs

NetScout Systems Inc, a leading provider of enterprise-wide network performance management solutions, has unveiled new integrated performance monitoring and reporting capabilities for networked storage. Delivered as an enhancement to NetScout's nGenius Performance Management System, the new capabilities comprise an expanded set of real time and historical statistics on the performance of storage traffic traversing the LAN, WAN and storage networks within the enterprise. Filling a critical gap in IT's SAN management tool set, the NetScout solution offers detailed views of usage patterns, traffic details, and utilization trends that help large enterprises minimize disruptions due to operational interoperability issues and incomplete bandwidth planning as they migrate to networked storage.

nGenius Performance Manager, deployed in conjunction with NetScout's Fibre Channel and other probes across the network, collects and displays detailed information on storage traffic between "initiators" (servers), and "targets" (disk arrays) and their logical subdivisions ("LUNs"). With the nGenius solution, IT managers can:

• Understand how much of each segment is consumed, by whom, when and for what purpose, to optimize storage network performance--with real-time and historical views.
• Gain insight into SAN traffic volumes and errors before they impact users--with proactive alarming.
• Enhance troubleshooting of complex packet level problems, such as interoperability--with packet capture and decode.
• Perform accurate base-lining and bandwidth planning to better leverage capital expenditures on storage networking infrastructure--with historical trending reports.

In addition, users can alternate seamlessly between real-time and historical views of the same information to investigate trends and anomalies in an instant. This time-saving feature eliminates the labor-intensive steps of launching separate tools and reconciling disparate information.

"NetScout offers a unique solution that complements and enhances any of the storage network management solutions that are available today," said Nancy Marrone of Enterprise Storage Group. "NetScout has a long history of providing in-depth network performance analysis, reporting and problem resolution solutions for the LAN and WAN markets, and they are now bringing that expertise to the SAN market. As SANs increase in size and complexity, certain business risks can evolve if their performance degrades. NetScout's solutions enable customers to control network performance in order to minimize any potential risks. No other vendor has that capability today."

New Features include:

• Traffic statistics of symptoms that may cause performance degradation including Frame Busy and Rejects, Port Busy and Rejects, Zero Credit Events and Initializations.
• New Fibre Channel traffic views that detail Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP), Extended Link Services (ELS) and Basic Link Services activity.
• Detailed views of Upper Layer protocol session activity including SCSI Initiator to Target/LUN conversations for such exchanges as SCSI reads and writes in FCP or Login traffic for ELS.
• Daily, weekly and monthly automated nGenius NewsPaper Reports for enterprise-wide or SAN focused audiences to understand the trends in the SAN.

"We are committed to leading the development of technology and best practices needed for managing storage network performance," said Michael Szabados, senior vice president of product operations for NetScout Systems. "Our product innovations are designed for large enterprises now making the transition to networked storage. With our Fibre Channel extensions, and new support for iSCSI, our enterprise-wide network performance management solution is now seamlessly extended to storage networks."

Pricing and Availability

nGenius Fibre Channel probes are shipping now in 1-port, 2-port and 4-port configurations starting at $19,995. The new enhancements are available in nGenius Performance Manager 1.4 at no additional charge. For additional product or ordering information about nGenius solutions, call NetScout Systems at 800-657-7666 or visit our Website www.netscout.com/.