Network Performance Management (NPM) Vendor Comparison

The ExtraHop platform offers considerable advantages compared to traditional network performance management (NPM) products, including Visual Network Systems (formerly under Fluke Networks), AppResponse Xpert (formerly ACE Live), CA NetQoS (now part of the CA Service Assurance suite), Riverbed Cascade (formerly Mazu), NetScout nGenius Service Assurance, and Network Instruments Observer and GigaStor.

ExtraHop AppResponse xpert
Real-Time Visibility
Network
L2-L4 Metrics		 check check check check check check check
Network
L7 Metrics		 check partial check check
Simple TCP
Metrics		 check check check check check check partial check**
Advanced TCP
Metrics		 check partial check**
Detailed HTTP
Transactions & Errors		 check partial check partial check partial check‡
Database
Transactions & Errors		 check partial check partial check partial check‡
Storage Transactions & Errors check partial check‡
Data Collection
Real-Time Traffic Analysis check partial check partial check partial check partial check partial check ‡partial check
Packet Capture check check check check check check
NetFlow check check check check check check
SNMP check check check
Agents check
Alerting
Alerts on L2-L4
Metrics		 check check check check check check check
Alerts on L7
Metrics		 check partial check partial check check
Scalability
20 Gbps
Throughput		 check check check check
Deployment
No Agents check check check check check check
No Configuration check
15-Minute
Deployment		 check

** Some network metrics are sampled.
‡ Requires configuration. Limited to 5,000 concurrent flows.

How the ExtraHop Platform Compares to Traditional Network Performance Management (NPM) Products

Network performance management (NPM) is the IT management discipline responsible for ensuring the reliable and speedy delivery of application traffic between network nodes and to end users. Because network teams are responsible for application delivery, vendors of NPM tools have attempted to provide more functionality related to application performance in their products, leading to the creation of an application-aware network performance management (ANPM) market category.

Traditional NPM tools include Visual Network Systems (formerly under Fluke Networks), AppResponse Xpert (formerly ACE Live), CA NetQoS (now part of the CA Service Assurance suite), Riverbed Cascade (formerly Mazu), NetScout nGenius Service Assurance, and Network Instruments Observer and GigaStor. These tools typically include network probes that collect network-level metrics (L2 to L4) and send them to a central reporting server, including measurements for round-trip time (RTT), packet loss, and retransmissions. This network-specific information is valuable for managing application performance.

Application Awareness

While some NPM vendors aggressively market their products as “application aware,” leading to the ANPM acronym, these tools lack basic insight into application performance. For example, NPM tools cannot differentiate between successful and failed application transactions by looking at the speed of the transactions. NPM tools do gather information about application performance, albeit indirectly. They can attempt to classify application traffic based on TCP ports, approximate application response time with TCP-turn-based timing, and roughly define applications by grouping IP addresses, ports, or URIs. Much like a post office understands the information essential for delivering an envelope but cannot read the letter inside, NPM tools can only monitor application performance through inference.

To analyze the application protocols contained in L7, some network performance management tools send packet captures to a packet sniffer appliance such as the GigaStor from Network Instruments. This approach provides extremely granular detail that is invaluable when performing network forensics. However, this retrospective analysis is not well suited for monitoring application performance as it cannot provide real-time alerting for L7 metrics. Furthermore, these network-centric tools require specialized knowledge to operate and rely on expensive hardware resources, such as 4U appliances with many terabytes of storage.

Continuous, Real-Time Analysis

The ExtraHop platform is complementary to NPM tools that organizations already have in place. Taking advantage of gains in processing speed and storage capacity, the ExtraHop platform provides true application-level, real-time visibility across all tiers of the application infrastructure—including the network, load balancers, web servers, application servers, databases, and storage systems. The ExtraHop platform performs both advanced network-level analysis (L2 to L4) and deep application-level (L7) analysis in real time, providing IT teams with insights into application transactions as they pass over the wire. This unique approach provides the application performance benefits of L7 packet analysis, both continuously and in real-time instead of simply retrospectively.

Equipped with real-time, application-level analysis, Network and Application teams can

  • Set real-time alerts on application-level metrics, such as HTTP 500 server errors
  • Receive notifications when a particular database stored procedure is slower than usual
  • See when SSL certificates are expiring and which devices are using them

A continuously updated view of application performance enables IT teams to proactively address issues before they pose a threat to service levels or negatively impact customers. The ExtraHop platform uses a proprietary networking microkernel and real-time datastore to analyze transactions at wire speed—up to a sustained 10Gbps of analysis, sufficient to process tens of thousands of transactions simultaneously.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

In addition, the ExtraHop platform facilitates cross-functional collaboration by providing easy access to application-level details throughout the organization. While NPM tools can establish the innocence of the network in the case of an application slowdown, they lack the application-level detail needed to determine if the problem stems from an application server, a database, or a storage system. In contrast, the ExtraHop platform provides a complete view across application tiers, enabling IT organizations to work more collaboratively when triaging application performance issues.

The intuitive web interface for the ExtraHop platform enables IT professionals to easily drill down from summary views into specific application performance details for an application component, such as specific error messages and methods used. Enterprises that use the ExtraHop platform report significant efficiencies in triaging application performance issues, quickly isolating the root cause and providing specialist teams with detailed information needed to fix the problem. Read more about how the ExtraHop platform works and how the ExtraHop platform compares to traditional application performance management (APM) products.