Cisco Prime Network Analysis Module

ENSURE CONSISTENT AND EFFICIENT DELIVERY OF APPLICATIONS AND SERVICES

Virtualization and cloud create exciting business transformation opportunities, innovative service delivery models, and improved economics. To maintain effective service delivery in this dynamic environment, Cisco Prime™ Network Analysis Module (NAM) empowers network administrators with multifaceted visibility to help optimize network resources, troubleshoot performance issues, and deliver a consistent end user experience. The Cisco Prime NAM portfolio includes form-factor choices that can be deployed to meet diverse performance analysis needs in the campus, data center, and cloud, and at remote sites.

With Cisco Prime NAM, you can:

●     Differentiate business-critical workloads with Layer 4–Layer 7 application recognition

●     Characterize application performance and usage of network resources

●     Accelerate problem resolution with quick access to critical network information (Figure 1)

●     Validate use of control and optimization mechanisms and measure the impact of operational changes such as server consolidation, VM migration, and WAN optimization

●     Extract performance and usage analytics in real time using a REST/XML-based API

Feature Highlights

The key features of Cisco Prime NAM Software include:

●     Interactive dashboards with purpose-designed workflows, contextual navigation, and one-click captures

●     Comprehensive traffic statistics and application and voice/video performance metrics

●     Visibility into overlay networks such as OTV, LISP, and VXLAN

●     Detailed troubleshooting with insightful packet captures, advanced filters, and error scan

●     Centralized management with Cisco Prime Infrastructure

Business Benefits

Cisco Prime NAM provides insightful network intelligence that helps drive:

●     Consistent and resilient services

●     Smooth network operations

●     High-quality application experiences

●     Accelerated rollouts of new services

Cisco Prime NAM Product Family

The Cisco Prime NAM product portfolio (Figure 2) includes:

●     Cisco Nexus® 7000 NAM (NAM-NX1): As a high-performance solution, this integrated service module delivers application visibility and performance analytics in the physical and virtual data center.

●     Cisco Prime Virtual NAM  (vNAM): Unshackled from hardware constraints, this virtual form factor delivers the versatility to help rapidly tune network operations whenever required to respond to new business demands.

●     Cisco® Catalyst® 6500 Series NAM  (NAM-3): Addressing application visibility needs in the enterprise, this integrated service module helps enable high throughput traffic analysis, application performance monitoring, and detailed troubleshooting.

●     Cisco Prime NAM Appliances  (NAM 2304,NAM 2320): As purpose-built appliances, they offer deployment flexibility to address monitoring and packet analysis needs in data center, campus, WAN edge, and service provider networks.

●     Cisco Prime Network Analysis Module for Cisco Nexus 1110: Integrated with the Cisco Nexus 1000V infrastructure, this virtual service blade enriches Cisco’s cloud service platform.

●     Cisco Prime Network Analysis Module for ISR G2 SRE: This software, integrated with Cisco ISR second-generation (G2) SM-SRE-700 and SM-SRE-900 platforms, offers multiservice visibility, traffic analysis, and troubleshooting at remote sites in Cisco enterprise networks.

Why Cisco?

The Cisco Prime NAM was designed with the following in mind. To give network administrators better visibility into one of their most strategic business assets, the network. Who is using it, how is it being used, and how both the network and the applications running on it are performing. The NAM delivers:

●     Deeper network intelligence. NAM provides deep, consistent visibility across physical, virtual, and cloud. This includes Layers 4-7 visibility using Cisco Networkbased Application Recognition 2 (NBAR2) natively to help you identify and improve the performance of your business-critical applications. It also includes visibility into OTV, VXLAN, and other encapsulated technologies that are the foundation of a scalable, virtualized network.

●     Service-centric workflows. The NAM connects the applications and the network, weaving together performance statistics, usage metrics, and contextual packet captures to accelerate operational decisions. The embedded web-based user interface allows administrators to access the NAM any time and anywhere for  real-time, fine-grained visibility, improving productivity and eliminating travel needs.

●     The benefits of integration. Cisco Prime NAM is available as an integrated service module or virtual service blade that is a part of the Cisco switch or router infrastructure (Figure 3). Integrated with the infrastructure, the NAM is able to extract the packets directly from the backplane, resulting in quick and reliable data collection and analytics. It accelerates time to value with immediate access to specific VLANs, IP/MAC addresses, and applications of interest, eliminating lengthy change control processes.

●     Deployment flexibility. Cisco Prime NAM can also be deployed as standalone physical or virtual appliances, maximizing deployment flexibility across the network. With pervasive visibility, network administrators can increase their operational agility, and stand ready to meet today’s evolving IT and business challenges.

●     An Open API. With a REST/XML-based API, Cisco unlocks the rich set of network data that the NAM produces, permitting customers to build additional value on top of existing management assets while driving durable investment protection.

For More Information

 For more information about the Cisco Prime NAM product family, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/nam or contact either your local account representative or the Cisco Prime NAM product marketing group at nam-info@cisco.com