Wide Area Networks (WANs) have driven the expansion and evolution of global networking, and underpin the majority of organisational infrastructure. The history of WANs is a tug-of-war between demand and capacity. More data than ever is being trafficked between globally distributed networks and, equally, our reliance on this data has risen exponentially. Naturally, increased demand has led to increased bandwidth cost.
Now, the answer to sustainability isn’t increased capacity, but better optimisation. Data isn’t a flood to be held back. Rather, more data places increased pressure on network managers to harness it, deriving insights from traffic to optimise networks and reduce costs.
Riverbed Cascade
It is for these reasons that many multinational corporates have invested in Riverbed WAN optimisation tools, such as SteelHead and Cascade. These tools are part of how networks have evolved into what they are today; not through mounting hardware but in more comprehensive management, analysis, and monitoring software.
Riverbed Cascade is an application-aware network performance management (NPM) platform that provides actionable insight into application performance from the network perspective. As networks have grown larger and more complex, the need to monitor and assess performance on a granular level has become critical. Broader network optimisation is difficult when analysing a network as a single entity. With WANs now made up of many components and applications across buildings, cities, and countries, the need to identify specific performance issues – and, therein, optimisation opportunities – has grown critical.
Software such as Cascade enables network managers to gain a better vantage point; to see what’s happening across huge networks, down to the specifics: applications, individual systems, and data. The value of this insight is immense. With more understanding comes quicker problem identification and incident response, better operational efficiency and business continuity, and decreased cost.
Scrutinizer
Scrutinizer provides the same capabilities of Riverbed Cascade, but with a more advanced toolset. The data gathered from network traffic is only the beginning; how we understand and interpret that data, and the actionable information we generate, is the key to continued network optimisation. That’s where Scrutinizer’s enhanced data visualisation comes in.
Scrutinizer is a platform that gives you the information you need to make the decisions that make a difference. When optimisation is the goal, no detail is too small, and no cost saved insignificant. Everything adds up; every performance improvement drives efficiency. Scrutinizer enriches data context by correlating traffic flows and metadata across all sources of network traffic. It allows you to find the problems traditional tools cannot, with end-to-end visibility of networks – on-premise and cloud – and applications for deeper insight into existing problems and optimisation opportunities
The differences between Riverbed Cascade and Scrutinizer are in how each presents and handles the data. It’s only with Scrutinizer that you’re able to pair high-visibility and detailed reporting with improved visualisation of data. This means both real-time detection of problems, and the insight required to optimise networks – both in security and performance – to minimise disruption and, ultimately, cut down the costs of WAN.
Scrutinizer should be considered by any organisation using Riverbed or SDWAN products. Incorporating the best of WAN monitoring solutions, Scrutinizer has been evolving and innovating for 20 years. For more information on Scrutinizer and the benefits it offers over Riverbed or other SDWAN products, please contact us today. Together, we’ll create a path for taking your WAN optimisation to the next level.
