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This chapter describes Cisco Network Analysis Module (NAM), which you can use to monitor your WAAS devices.
This chapter contains the following sections:
•Configuring a WAAS Device to Export Data to NAM
•Configuring NAM to Monitor WAAS Devices
•Monitoring and Analyzing Traffic Using the NAM
NAM monitors network and application response time (ART) by analyzing the exchanges of TCP packets between clients and application servers. NAM version 4 has been enhanced to process and analyze data received from the WAAS FlowAgent and accurately calculate the ART of WAAS optimized flows. A FlowAgent runs on WAAS devices to collect TCP packet data and send the flow data to NAM for analyzing and reporting (Figure 5-1).
Figure 5-1 NAM Monitoring of WAAS Devices
NAM provides the following monitoring functions:
•Monitoring Client-Edge Connections—By monitoring the TCP connections between the clients and the WAAS edge device (Connection TCP-1 in the above picture), the following ART metrics can be measured:
–Total Delay (TD) as experienced by the client
–Total Transaction Time as experienced by the client
–Bandwidth usage (bytes/packets) before compression
–Number of transactions and connections
–Network RTT broken down into two segment: client-edge and edge-server
•Monitoring Edge-Core Optimized Connections—By monitoring the spoofed TCP connections between the edge and core WAAS devices (Connection TCP-2 in the above picture), the following additional ART metric can be measured: Bandwidth usage (bytes/packets) after compression.
•Monitoring Edge-Core Connections—By monitoring the TCP connections between the core WAAS devices and the servers (Connection TCP-3 in the above picture), additional ART metrics can be measured:
–Application (Server) Delay (without proxy acceleration/caching server)
–Network RTT between the core WAAS device and the servers
The sections that follow show how to configure WAAS to enable monitoring by NAM and how to configure NAM to monitor specific WAAS functions.
For more information about NAM, see the following documentation URLs:
•Complete NAM documentation set:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/cscowork/ps5401/tsd_products_support_series_home.html
•Cisco WAAS NAM Virtual Service Blade Installation and Configuration Guide:
This procedure describes how to configure a WAAS device to export WAAS flow record data to NAM.
Procedure
Step 1 From the WAAS Central Manager, choose My WAN > Device Group > AllDevicesGroup > Configure > Monitoring > Flow Monitor.
The Flow Monitoring Settings window appears (Figure 5-2).
Figure 5-2 WAAS Central Manager: Flow Monitoring Settings
Step 2 From the Flow Monitoring Settings window, do the following:
a. Check the Enable check box to enable data export.
b. In the Destination box, enter the NAM IP address.
c. Click Submit.
The WAAS is now ready to export flow record data. To specify the WAAS data that NAM is to monitor, see the "Configuring NAM to Monitor WAAS Devices" section.
This section provides an overview of the WAAS data source functions that NAM can monitor and describes how to specify the WAAS data that NAM monitors.
Note You do not need to add any export-enabled WAAS devices in to NAM because NAM can detect them.
This section contains the following topics:
•Information About Using NAM to Monitor WAAS Devices
•Specifying WAAS Device Data Sources to Monitor
NAM uses WAAS data sources to monitor traffic collected from different WAAS segments: Client, Client WAN, Server WAN, and Server. Each WAAS segment is represented by a data source. You can set up NAM to monitor and report other traffic statistics of the WAAS data sources (such as application, host, and conversation information) in addition to the monitored ART metrics.
The use of data source depends upon on the WAAS deployment scenario. Table 5-1 describes several common WAAS deployment scenarios and their applicable data sources.
In NAM version 4.1 and later, correlated data and combined segments are displayed as one row per client-server as shown in Figure 5-3.
Figure 5-3 NAM Sample Data Source Display
NAM can display data about the network applications, protocols in use, and the most active or highly utilized clients and servers (see Figure 5-4).
Figure 5-4 NAM Network Application, Protocol, Host, and Server Report
You can generate various reports to view client, server, or application response times and top active applications, active hosts, and so forth (see Figure 5-5).
Figure 5-5 NAM Response Time Report
You can configure NAM to monitor the following WAAS data sources:
•Client—Export the original (LAN side) TCP flows originated from its clients to NAM for monitoring.
•Client WAN—Export the optimized (WAN side) TCP flows originated from its clients to NAM for monitoring.
•Server WAN—Export the optimized (WAN side) TCP flows from its servers to NAM for monitoring.
•Server—Export the original (LAN side) TCP flows from its servers to NAM for monitoring.
•Pass-Through—(NAM 4.1 and later only) Export the flows that traverses WAAS without being optimized.
For information about how to configure NAM to monitor a WAAS device, see the Using Cisco NAM 4.1 Reporting with Cisco WAAS whitepaper on Cisco.com:
For additional information about configuring and using NAM, see the User Guide for Cisco Network Analysis Module Traffic Analyzer.
The monitoring and analyzing traffic using the NAM feature provides intuitive workflows and interactive reporting capabilities.
The monitoring and analyzing dashboards allow you to view network traffic, application performance, site performance, and alarms at a glance. From there, you can isolate one area, for example an application with response time issues, and then drilldown to the dashboard for further investigation.
The section includes the following topics:
•Performance Analysis Dashboards
This section includes the following topics:
The Top Talkers Summary dashboard allows you to view the Top N Applications, Top N Application Groups, Top N Hosts (In and Out), IP Distribution by Bytes, Top N DSCP, and Top N VLAN that is being monitored on your network. It provides auto-monitoring of traffic from all WAAS devices. You can view the Traffic Summary Dashboard by going to Monitor > Network Analysis> Overview.
The charts shown on this dashboard are as follows:
•Top N Applications
The Top N Applications Chart enables you to view the traffic rate (bytes per second or bits per second) or traffic volume (bytes or bits), depending on the Interactive Report filter selection (data rate or cumulative, respectively).
•Top N Application Groups
This chart shows a detailed analysis of the Top N application groups and the traffic rate or volume for this interval.
•Top N Hosts (In and Out)
This chart displays the traffic rate (bytes per second or bits per second) or traffic volume (bytes or bits).
•IP Distribution by Bytes
This chart shows the percentages of bytes that are distributed to IP protocols (for example, IPv4 TCP).
•Top N DSCP
This chart shows statistics for the top DSCP aggregation groups.
•Top N VLAN
This chart shows the Top N VLAN statistics. In this chart, you might see VLAN 0, which is for traffic that does not have any VLAN tags.
While you are in the process of deploying WAAS devices, you can get data to assist in the WAAS planning and configuration.
When you go to Monitor > Network Analysis> Top Talkers Details, you will see the window that assists you in the predeployment process. Use the Interactive Report window to select the traffic you want to analyze for optimization. The window displays the Top Applications, Top Network Links, Top Clients, and Top Servers.
Based on the results, you can then configure the WAAS products to optimize your network.
This section includes the following topics:
The Network dashboard enables you to view LAN versus WAN throughput for WAAS users both in the incoming and outgoing directions. To view these reports, configure interface groups that comprise WAN and LAN interfaces. The displayed information represents the total data collected since the collection was created, or since the NAM was restarted. To view the Network dashboard, go to Monitor > Network Analysis > Throughput > Network.
Choose an interface group view from the Interface Selector on the left side of the window to see traffic in the charts. Click the arrow icon to the left of the NDE data source name to display all interfaces groups, and then select an interface group view. If the charts show no data, and you see the message "Interface needs to be selected," you have not yet chosen an interface group view.
Once chose the interface group view, you see the following charts populated:
•Interface Traffic (Ingress % Utilization and Egress % Utilization)
•Top N Applications—Ingress
•Top N Applications—Egress
•Top N Hosts—Ingress
•Top N Hosts—Egress
•Top N DSCP Aggr—Ingress
•Top N DSCP Aggr—Egress
You can enter the interface speed manually through the Interface capacity table, or the speed can be auto configured if the SNMP settings for the NDE device are entered in the data source table.
In the Top Applications dashboard, you can view the top applications by the traffic rate over a selected time and for the specified site and/or data source.
Applications Over Time shows you all of the applications that have been running for the time period interval. The color-coded legend shows you what the applications are running.
In the Application Analysis window, you can see the traffic level for a given application over a selected period of time. It is available under the Monitor > Network Analysis > Throughput > Application. This window shows you the following:
•A graph of application traffic over time.
•Top hosts that transmit and receive traffc on that application for the selected time period.
•Application Configuration that shows the criteria by which the NAM classifies packets as that application. This criteria is typically a list of TCP and/or UDP ports that identify the application. Note that some applications are identified by heuristic or other state-based algorithms.
On the "Top N Hosts - Traffic In" or "Top N Hosts - Traffic Out" chart, you can choose Hosts Detail to see the All Hosts window and the detailed information about all hosts. The All Hosts window displays the following information:
•Hos—Host address
•Application—Application type
•In Bytes/sec—Number of bytes per second incoming
•In Packets/sec—Number of packets per second incoming
•Out Bytes/sec—Number of bytes per second outgoing
•Out Packets/sec—Number of packets per second outgoing
This section includes the following topics:
The Application dashboard provides the transaction time performance for an application as well as the original and optimized traffic volume reported by the flow agent. Information about how the transaction time is broken up across client, WAN, and server segments is also provided. For example, if the transaction time is dominated by the server segment time (due to a slow server), WAAS may not be able to improve the performance as much as when it is dominated by WAN network time. To view the Application performance analysis dashboard, go to Monitor > Network Analysis > Performance Analysis > Application.
The charts available on this dashboard are as follows:
•Transaction Time (Client Experience)
•Traffic Volume and Compression Ratio
•Average Concurrent Connections (Optimized vs. Passthru)
•Multi-Segment Network Time (Client LAN - WAN - Server LAN)
The Conversation Multiple Segments dashboard correlates of data from different data sources, and allows you to view and compare response time metrics from multiple WAAS segments (data sources). To view the Conversation Multiple Segments dashboard, go to Monitor > Network Analysis > Performance Analysis > Conversation Multisegments.
The Response Time Across Multiple Segments window shows the response time metrics of the selected server or client-server pair from applicable data sources.