Question

QUESTION 6 – Case Study [Total = 10 Marks]

The Cisco Network Analysis Module (NAM) is an integrated traffic monitoring service module that occupies a single slot in the chassis of the Cisco Catalyst® 6500 Series Switch. It gives Cisco network administrators full application layer visibility, providing this information to the network engineer using a browser from any point on the network. After it is installed, the NAM enables both real-time and historical application monitoring, including data and voice. With proactive monitoring capabilities, it is easy to capture and decode packets, analyze trends, isolate network problems, and find application response delays before they occur. New VoIP and QoS monitoring capabilities let administrators analyze IP telephony sessions and validate QoS policies. Overview Remote Monitoring (RMON) data helped provide real-time traffic information, and the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series exports limited RMON data - but not enough data. “To get all the RMON data from the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series including backplane traffic - we needed the NAM. NAM gives us voice and data, along with switching statistics. It collects information 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on all ports. Competitive solutions would plug into a single port, or, if they saw passing data, they couldn't decipher what port it was coming in on.” With NAM modules deployed across the Cisco data center network, the Cisco team has an impressive view of network traffic and what goes on. The list of applications they can monitor is exceptional. Administrators can look at customer relationship management applications like Siebel and Oracle, as well as front-end Web applications like Oracle Web Forms. As more applications have Web interfaces, NAM's capabilities are more crucial, because they allow administrators to look at enterprise Web communication and behavior. Cisco also uses NAM monitoring for IP telephony, checking the data layer for problems. In the data center, NAM is essential when monitoring content switching. Ng describes Cisco IT moving toward content farms in the data centers and the advantages of NAM in that environment: “Traditionally, there's been a standalone Web server. From standalone server, Web servers were load balanced to scale Web applications. Next, you take specific content and use multiple servers, make a farm out of it. If you're looking for video, you go to a video farm, for example. In the next year, our content will be spread across content farms. We'll take the Web servers and break them down into more specific pieces. By then, our content will be distributed in a wide range, segregated by both data and content type. When you go to this kind of distributed architecture, the NAM can play a crucial role, because it can look at different applications between servers. Because the network plays a crucial role in this kind of distribution when you've got farms of machines, network analysis is more important. We need to understand how they connect and communicate, and NAM will let us." In addition, the Cisco team also uses NAM for collecting RMON-1 and 2 port statistics remotely, without requiring a separate RMON probe. Similar to Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), RMON takes traps and reports on the data performance across the wire between devices from Layer 2 through Layer 7, enabling administrators to see all seven layers of data on the Layer 2 network where NAM is installed. Because NAM can look at all seven layers of traffic on the backplane of the device in which it is installed, NAM can see more than what is running on the wire: it can look at traffic on the wire between two devices to analyze performance, on the wire, between devices. NAM can also use NetFlow records to monitor applications, hosts, and application conversations for more visibility into the business of the network.

1. Justify how the above Cisco module will achieve better performance and how it can help in network troubleshooting. [5 marks]

2. How can VoIP applications benefit from NAM for high quality service? Explain in detail. [5 marks]

Answer 1

Solution:

1. The network plays a crucial role in the kind of distribution when one has got farms of machines because it can look at different applications between servers. NAM is also used by Cisco for collecting RMON-1 and 2 port statistics remotely, without requiring a separate RMON probe. Similar to Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), RMON takes traps and reports on the data performance across the wire between devices from Layer 2 through Layer 7, enabling administrators to see all seven layers of data on the Layer 2 network where NAM is installed. Because NAM can look at all seven layers of traffic on the backplane of the device in which it is installed, NAM can see more than what is running on the wire: it can look at traffic on the wire between two devices to analyze performance, on the wire, between devices. NAM can also use NetFlow records to monitor applications, hosts, and application conversations for more visibility into the business of the network. It can help in troubleshooting as with proactive monitoring capabilities, it is easy to capture and decode packets, analyze trends, isolate network problems, and find application response delays before they occur.

2. VoIP and QoS monitoring capabilities let administrators analyze IP telephony sessions and validate QoS policies. Overview Remote Monitoring (RMON) data helped provide real-time traffic information, and the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series exports limited RMON data - but not enough data. To get all the RMON data from the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series including backplane traffic, NAM is required. NAM gives Cisco voice and data, along with switching statistics. It collects information 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on all ports. Competitive solutions would plug into a single port, or, if they saw passing data, they couldn't decipher what port it was coming in on. With NAM modules deployed across the Cisco data center network, the Cisco team has an impressive view of network traffic and what goes on. The list of applications they can monitor is exceptional. Administrators can look at customer relationship management applications like Siebel and Oracle, as well as front-end Web applications like Oracle Web Forms. As more applications have Web interfaces, NAM's capabilities are more crucial, because they allow administrators to look at enterprise Web communication and behavior. Cisco also uses NAM monitoring for IP telephony, checking the data layer for problems. In the data center, NAM is essential when monitoring content switching.