OptiView Protocol Expert provides seven-layer packet decodes and real-time network health statistics. Vital network signs that can be monitored by OptiView Protocol Expert include:
- Utilization and error rate
- Frame size distribution
- Protocol distribution
- Top senders/receivers
- Conversation matrices
- VLAN traffic analysis
- Expert analysis
- Application response time analysis
- Advanced Packet Decode and Filtering
Troubleshooting network problems is best started by reviewing basic network statistics such as conversation matrices and protocol distribution charts. For VLAN environments, many problems can be isolated by understanding who is talking on which VLAN and to whom. Using these statistics a network engineer can then identify usage patterns that might be out of the norm. When statistical analysis in Protocol Expert doesn't immediately lead to a solution, advanced capture filters can be generated from the statistics to help isolate capture studies.
Powerful alarm system
OptiView Protocol Expert offers 150 predefined alarm conditions to effectively alert you to network degradation or excessive traffic. Alarm conditions trap abnormal or intermittent problems at the time they occur, ensuring you will have the data to study during intermittent brownouts. Custom alarm conditions are easily created using capture filters and OptiView PE's powerful custom counter feature.
For each alarm, multiple actions can be defined and triggered based on severity, including:
- Saving alarm messages into a log file
- Stopping and saving a capture session
- Sending email or pager notification
- Sending an SNMP trap
- Launching an application or custom script program
Data storage and reporting
All traffic analysis from OptiView Protocol Expert can be exported to comma-separated (CVS) files. These files can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Excel® to create quick graphical reports and custom analysis of the statistics. Additional data logging stores key traffic utilization and error statistics for data sampling at user defined intervals over a long period of time. The ability to manipulate the data collected with Protocol Expert provides an added level of flexibility not found in other protocol analyzers.