Network analysis company Fluke Networks has introduced a new version of its OptiView Analyzer.
The company said that the Series III had been developed to help sysadmins perform rapid root-cause analysis. Barry Lindsley, Portable Network Analyzer Marketing Manager for Fluke EMEA, said that the product had been launched in response to their customers' concerns. "We asked our customers what they wanted from their tools. It was clear that they were concerned about the number of different devices they needed to carry and the lack of integration between them," he said.
The OptiView Series III will offer network managers the chance to assess whether the problem is a network, server or an application problem: it also offers a WLAN option. The latest model also offers Gigabit support,
The product also offers a Free String Match facility enabling the user to identify any set of words or phrases within in network traffic, Lindsley said this would help companies with security and legal compliance requirements. "It will also help them track Skype and P2P traffic, which could represent a big chunk of bandwidth."
The product won't however, indicate what percentage of bandwidth is being used by such applications. "That's coming in the next release -- probably in the third or fourth quarter of this year -- but is not available right now," he said.
Lindsley said that the product has been released at the right time. "There's a big increase in network spend in the last couple of years, now companies are trying to get the best out of their networks to maximize performance, the Series III tool will help them do it," he said.
The Optiview Series III is available now, ranging from £12,748 (AUD$31,910) to £17,445.