Extrahop is a passive network appliance that enables 80% FASTER trouble shooting! 

Extrahop provides an integrated, real-time view across applications, networks, databases, and storage arrays. It is application-aware with full Layer 2 through 7 visibility.  Extrahop captures the immense volume of data traversing a network, extracts the meaningful data, and presents the data in an easy-to-read format. Problems are almost instantly isolated. With no agents, no probes, and virtually no configuration, Extrahop delivers instant ROI,

Extrahop solutions provide 3 main benefits for the entire IT organization:

1. Cost savings through faster, integrated troubleshooting. 

Extrahop solutions minimize IT labor costs by pinpointing problems through an integrated view of the entire application environment. This integrated view enables IT teams to collaborate to find the true root cause in record time. The ExtraHop Application Delivery Assurance system takes the guesswork out of the troubleshooting process. Upon detection of a problem, most IT organizations reactively scramble to collect data for diagnosis and resolution, hoping that they are selecting the appropriate metrics. The ExtraHop Delivery Assurance system runs 24x7x365.25, collecting a wealth of information for all groups within the IT organization. With ExtraHop, the metrics needed  for troubleshooting are collected on an ongoing basis, enabling network, application, and database engineers to fix problems rather than waste time collecting data.

2. Optimization of network infrastructure through guided tuning.

The adverse effects of improperly tuned networking equipment can be quite severe. ExtraHop shines a spotlight on critical tuning parameters to facilitate the optimal system configuration.

As networking equipment becomes more sophisticated, increasingly complex settings and configurations are exposed to network-engineering teams. Even to the most battle-hardened network veterans, the myriad of options and obscure terminology can seem daunting. Extrahop's online Help and documentation provide a detailed explanation of each tuning parameter and general guidelines to turn every network engineer into a TCP tuning expert. 

3. Proof of ROI and curbing of overspending.

Without accurate benchmarks, it is easy for IT organizations to overbuy hardware and bandwidth. The fear of underpowered systems motivates IT management to throw dollars at problems, costing businesses millions in unnecessary expenditures. At the other end of the spectrum, a common problem is not being able to justify an equipment purchase due to a lack of understanding of current and projected capacity. Extrahop provides intelligent trending and baselining that learns over time, based on observed network patterns. Baselines are calculated separately for the time of day and the day of the week to deliver the most realistic model possible. These detailed metrics enable network teams to plan for capacity and demonstrate the true ROI of infrastructure and application projects.

For CIOs and IT executives, Extrahop solutions help to

• Maximize mission-critical application and infrastructure uptime
• Reduce cost and complexity in application and network management
• Eliminate blamestoming-network, application, and database engineers use one unified solution and collaborate to solve problems
• Improve service levels and maximize existing IT investments

For Network Operations teams, Extrahop solutions help to

• Reduce time to resolution
• Increase productivity and help pinpoint problems quickly
• Optimize performance through TCP tuning Understand capacity needs and test network designs

For Application Support teams, Extrahop solutions help to

• Stop firefighting and end the blamestorm
• Improve application performance and uptime
• Measure performance gains from upgrades
• Gain detailed access to performance information for systems in production

Rapid Deployment
Extrahop is a zero-agent, zero-overhead, and ero-configuration solution. The installation process consists of mounting the appliance in a server rack, enabling a SPAN or network tap for the target network, configuring a management IP, and powering on the system. The whole process takes as little as fifteen minutes. 

Because the ExtraHop system is designed deliver a disruptive level of performance, you will not have to pick and choose which metrics to record or worry about missing key ransactions after the fact. Instead, the ExtraHop system is always on and always collecting performance information for everything that traverses the network.

Upon installation, an ExtraHop device passively discovers all network devices without adding additional load or impacting traffic in any way. Unlike some of the more traditional system-management tools, the ExtraHop rapid deployment model delivers instant ROI for network and application management. 

Common Use Cases for Application Delivery Assurance

ExtraHop is an innovative solution that enables network and application teams to gain complete visibility needed to manage today's complex applications and ensure application performance. The ExtraHop system has been deployed at numerous customer sites to help pinpoint performance problems across the entire IT environment. Analyzing some of these successful deployments reveals a few common use cases that deliver quick and proven ROI.

Reducing MTTR through Accelerated Troubleshooting
Enterprise data centers commonly consist of 1000's of servers and network devices. The sheer scale and complexity of these environments often force IT operations into a reactive firefighting mode. Extrahop delivers rapid ROI by accelerating the troubleshooting process and solving some of the toughest management challenges.

Troubleshooting Intermittent Problems

The ExtraHop solution delivers a full set of performance metrics that includes both averages and outliers, portraying a realistic picture of application health that highlights intermittent problems. Reactive troubleshooting requires that network and application engineers collectdata at precisely the right time and place to observe an intermittent issue. In contrast, ExtraHop is always on and always recording, so the necessary information is available to determine the root cause; network and application engineers no longer need to waste time trying to reproduce problems and collect the appropriate data.

Assuming 2% of all transactions experience these intermittent problems, an eight-hour business day, and a cost of $4,200 per hour to the business (Gartner group estimate), the total cost of these intermittent problems is shown by

        0.02 x 8 x $4,200 = $672, or $245,280 annual loss

Isolating Slow Database-Stored Procedures and Database Errors

With deep understanding of database protocols, the ExtraHop solution captures and displays the most problematic stored procedures as well as error details. Deploying ExtraHop can be an effective strategy for dealing with these slow database-stored procedures and transactional errors.

Database analysis tools historically have been separate devices shielded from the overall IT department. ExtraHop exposes performance metrics for all groups, creating a common troubleshooting platform with instant ROI. For customers who experience serious database problems, assuming 10% of stored procedures are slow, of which 10% result in the customer abandoning the process, and an additional 5% of transactions exhibit errors, using the same cost to the business estimates above, the daily cost to a business is shown by
          (0.01+0.05) x 8 x $4,200 = $2,016, or $735,840 annual cost

Reducing IT Troubleshooting Labor Cost

ExtraHop minimizes hassles involved with managing applications by pinpointing problems across the entire application environment. Assume an organization has 5 network engineers and 5 application support engineers. A very conservative estimate (not including further escalations) would allocate 30% of their time toward troubleshooting application performance issues. If the fully-loaded cost of an IT person is $100,000 per year, and the ExtraHop system can reliably reduce troubleshooting time by 50%, then the result is an annual savings shown by    

             0.50 x (5+5) x 0.30 x 100,000 = $150,000 annual savings

Guided Performance Tuning Improves Customer Satisfaction

Performance tuning provides rapid ROI by eliminating performance degradations, or brownouts, and ensuring customer satisfaction. A Dec-06 Nielson study indicates that 4 seconds is the maximum amount of time a customer is willing to wait before jumping to a competing website, so there is a real cost associated with such issues. Assuming the organization can retain 10% more customers after proper performance tuning, using the same cost to the business estimates above, the daily lost revenue is shown by

             0.10 x $4,200 x 8 = $3,360, or $1,226,400 annual loss


Reducing Hardware Purchases through Better Capacity Planning

Without accurate benchmarks, IT organizations tend to overbuy hardware and bandwidth. The fear of an underpowered system motivates IT management to throw dollars at the problem, costing businesses millions in unnecessary expenditures. Frequently, equipment vendors exacerbate the problem by recommending new purchases or upgrades rather then helping clients to understand the true cause of performance issues.

ExtraHop offers intelligent baselining that learns over time, according to observed network traffic patterns. These detailed metrics enable network teams to plan for capacity and demonstrate the true ROI of infrastructure and application projects.

Assume an IT organization spends $1,000,000 a year on new hardware (servers, network equipment, and storage devices) and that 30% of this spending is inessential. The annual capacity planning ROI is shown by

          1,000,000 x 0.3 = $300,000 annually

15-Minute Install Provides Instant Visbility
It is time for your organization to move beyond traditional monitoring and adopt Extrahop? Getting started is simple and easy: a 15-minute install provides instant, meaningful visibility. Customers have found that their new investment often pays for itself in a matter of days.

About ExtraHop
ExtraHop Networks was founded in early 2007 by Jesse Rothstein and Raja Mukerji, engineering veterans from F5 Networks and architects of the F5 BIG-IP v9 product line. Extrahop Application Delivery Assurance system is the industry's first completely passive network appliance that provides application-level visibility with zero agents, configuration, or overhead. 

Milestone Systems, Inc. is an Authorized Reseller and Value-Added Integrator of Extrahop devices.

Toll-free:  866-646-9211   

Email:  info@milestonesystems.com

Information for the article was provided by ExtraHop Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. ExtraHop and the ExtraHop logo are registered trademarks of ExtraHop Networks.