Traditional network performance management relies on probes/service modules for data collection but it does not scale as monitoring is best done pervasively unless you already know in advance where all the problems are going to be. Furthermore, traditional solutions have not been able to provide adequate visibility and the relationship between the network and applications to pinpoint the issue.

Medianet introduces monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities embedded with routers, switches, endpoints and applications. Essentially router, switches and endpoints/applications become passive probes so pervasive monitoring is possible. The instrumentation across routers, switches and endpoints/applications offer a hop by hop view of traffic performance (loss, jitter, latency, etc.) that was too costly or complex of network operators to deploy.

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Tags: business video, Cisco Prime Assurance Manager, Cisco prime collaboration manager, medianet, Network Management Systems, rich media applications

As we kick off this year’s Enterprise Connect conference, one subject I am discussing a lot with customers is interoperability. This topic is always evolving, but our customers’ need for interoperability has remained the same. So what are the customers telling us about their interoperability requirements and concerns within unified communications and collaboration, and what is Cisco’s approach to addressing those?

What customers want:

At its heart, interoperability is about enabling the free flow of communication across boundaries – whether those boundaries are geographical, across firewalls between businesses and their ecosystems or customers. Customers want to be able to share information quickly and easily across different systems from multiple vendors.

Customers also stress the need for protecting their investments in existing systems and extending their capabilities to new types of work scenarios. These systems include infrastructure (such as Active Directory or Exchange or Notes), voice and video systems (such as Cisco’s Unified Communications Manager and TelePresence and competitive products from other vendors), and desktop or enterprise productivity applications (such as Microsoft Office, IBM Lotus, SAP, Salesforce.com and others). They must work within heterogeneous environments and accommodate new solutions as they come to market.

But that two systems work together is not enough. They must come together as seamlessly as possible to ensure an uncompromised user experience

Finally, this all needs to happen across platforms and devices, particularly as we move toward a post-PC era of many different devices -- from smartphones and tablets in the field to desktop computers and immersive room-based systems. These devices need to be blended into customers’ existing collaboration environments while providing a consistent and compelling user experience.

This is what customers want.

What the industry needs to do:

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Tags: Cisco, collaboration, instant messaging, interoperability, jabber, medianet, post-pc, Presence, TelePresence, UC, unified communications, video, Voice

Networks and applications have become increasingly complex as new rich media applications and networking technologies have been adopted. Today, organizations rely so heavily on their networked infrastructure, it is imperative to move beyond reactive management techniques of old and assume a more proactive approach by instituting scalable performance management. Medianet introduces monitoring capabilities embedded with router and switches. The IOS Performance Monitor feature enables pervasive monitoring across your infrastructure so in the event of quality issues, there is a way to identify where and what the problem is.

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Tags: business video, Cisco Prime Assurance Manager, medianet, network management, performance monitoring, rich media applications

In our last blog, we talked about mediatrace which is one of the medianet media monitoring features. In this blog, let’s talk about IPSLA video operations (VO), another media monitoring feature.

IPSLA VO generates realistic synthetic traffic similar with the same characteristics of real media traffic (e.g. burstiness, packet size, packet rate, etc.). Without involving the endpoints, IT operators can generate traffic and observe its impact on the network and other existing applications. This makes IPSLA VO a powerful tool to validate network configurations and capacity:

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Tags: business video, enterprise networks, IPSLA VO, medianet, mediatrace, rich media applications, video

A few days ago we announced new products that now support medianet media monitoring . Media monitoring helps you to assess and measure the impact of video, voice, and data applications in the network. It gives IT operators more confidence and peace of mind to deploy and manage different video and voice applications in their network by enhancing visibility into the network and accelerating troubleshooting.

One of the features of media monitoring is mediatrace which allows IT operators to troubleshoot an issue while it occurs. Mediatrace works like a traceroute that follows a specific flow hop-by-hop collecting performance statistics end-to-end. It can be started from an endpoint with Media Services Interface or in any router or switch that supports the capability.

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Tags: business video, enterprise networks, medianet, mediatrace, rich media applications, video