Entuity V15.5 Brings Much-Needed Simplicity to Network Management

Entuity strives to eliminate confusion and reduce network management stress with version 15.5 of its fully federated network management platform.

Entuity leverages Web connectivity to provide a browser-based management screen and dashboard that is fully interactive and provides drill-down capabilities into the product’s various functions. Dashboards can be customized, and the platform also supports full policy-based rights assignments, allowing administrators to control what menus, dashboards and consoles users have access to.

With multi-site, heterogeneous network management in mind, Entuity brings the paradigm of physical site management into the virtual ideology of remote management. In other words, networks can be sliced and diced in most any fashion to meet management and monitoring needs. For example, components can be organized by site, segment or most any other factor, giving network managers multiple ways to monitor and manage the network infrastructure.

Reports such as the “TopN Summary” create views into network activity based on administrator-defined measurements. Those reports prove to be a quick way for administrators to sort through problems on the network by looking at the most active elements that are being reported on.

The extensive logging and data-gathering capabilities of the product provides the ability to delve deeper into how network devices and applications are being used and how responsive those elements are, and provides historic data about most everything about the use of a given component.

Metrics are useless unless administrators can define them in meaningful ways. Entuity provides the capability for administrators to configure device metrics and create reporting methodologies that apply to any given situation. That capability helps ease troubleshooting chores, and speeds the definition of when and where to upgrade network resources.

Most all of the reporting capabilities included in the product can be organized into summary information screens. Administrators can drill down into the status screens to obtain more concise information on a given location, device or another data element. The summary screens prove to be a good way for network managers to quickly evaluate what may need attention.

Entuity offers a capability that will be well-received by those who need to plan upgrades and maintain network services. That capability comes in the form of the product perspective reporting—which, in turn, provides graphical views into the most important factors of the network, such as how virtual machines are performing.

The perspectives-focused reporting capabilities extend to other portions of the network, such as branch offices. The reports provide visual representation of network status in a rolled-up fashion for each branch office. Administrators can drill down further to gather additional information, making the perspectives reports a great diagnostic tool.

The network explorer provides a tree view that allows administrators to select and drill down into any network component and delve into specific incidents as well as performance metrics. Most administrators will find the network explorer a powerful tool for quickly checking on a given network element, without having to visit dashboards or create reports.

The CIO Perspective report organizes the overall status of the network into an attractive, graphical document, which can be used to inform senior executives on how well the network is performing. The report also proves useful for demonstrating areas that need improvement or justifying budgets for network operations.

Detailed logging provides the fodder for event reporting, where administrators can quickly scan reports to determine what occurred, where and when. Although Entuity is not a full security information and event management reporting system, the data provided comes in handy when auditing network operations and looking for potential security or performance problems.

It is said a picture is worth a thousand words. Entuity applies that idea by enabling administrators to create interactive maps relating to the geographical layout of the network. The maps are fully customizable and are updated with status data from network operations, making it easy to spot problems and place them in a geographical context for troubleshooting.

All maps support the ability to drill down into regions and even further. That means that with a simple mouse click, an administrator can virtually look at the layout of a particular location on the network.

Administrators can transition from a geographical map view directly into a network layout view, which exposes the individual components of the network for further investigation if there are problems. All icons are instrumented, allowing administrators to understand the status of a component by just viewing it in the network diagram.

Sometimes, the best way to understand what is going on with a network is to delve into the relationships between packet activity and data flow. Entuity provides full real-time reporting that shows traffic mixes, along with performance metrics that provide insight into traffic composition at little more than a glance at a report.