OptiView XG [EOL] Reviews

It does the inventory of the network. I was using the current version, but the device died. I am just looking for a replacement.

It just saves time. We have run into situations where contractors come in, and they plug in a WiFi device that is handing out DHCP addresses, which affects the rest of the network. To be able to quickly identify from where the problem is originating, you need a network tool that can identify the device that is doing this. It just brings into clear focus the exact issue when there is a problem or outage. 

When there is a crisis and you've several people wanting to know an estimate of when things are going to be back up and running again, you need to have answers. I have been at places that didn't have a tool like that. I know one place that had an outage for almost a week, and it was craziness. It turned out to be just a bad cable. That's all it was. They were having trouble with their email server, which was an on-premise email server, but emails were taking six hours to appear. The whole problem was because of a bad network cable. When I plugged in the Fluke analyzer, it analyzed and told me immediately that there were transmission errors on this one port from one switch. It told me this within 10 minutes. It is an incredible product.

It is a very valuable tool. It goes out and does a discovery, which is a great process of it. You could have something like a rogue DHCP server, and it will identify it, and then you can see to which switch port it is connected.

It is quite an impressive tool. I really liked it because you didn't have to install an agent on anything. It would just go out and do its discovery. For me, that's great.

Its price can be improved. Their support can also be improved a little bit.

In terms of features, it did everything I wanted it to do. With more features, I would have to start installing network agents or something else, and I don't want to have to install anything. This was the value for me about this device.

I have been using this solution for ten years.

It was great in terms of stability. The unit I had was 10 years old, and it just kept working. Unfortunately, it stopped working, and I can't get it repaired. A replacement is $20,000, but I am not going to spend that kind of money to replace it.

Its scalability was great. There were no limits on it. I had one site with 1,000 devices, and it would constantly monitor all of them. It was great, and no agents needed to be deployed. It would just discover what was there.

I have interacted with them. They were helpful to a degree. Their support can be improved a little bit. I would rate them as average.

Its initial setup is very straightforward. It is a portable device. No agents need to be deployed.

I am responsible for different companies, and I am able to go and quickly deploy it. Within 20 minutes, I have an inventory of everything on a network such as VLANs, subnetting, and other things.

I was also handling its maintenance and all that stuff. I used it daily to monitor things. We had to monitor and make sure that our 10G connections were performing as expected, and it did that, so that was quite good.

We have seen an ROI. A good way to approach it is to calculate what your downtime costs would be if you had a network outage, and then you realize that it is cheap insurance to buy this stuff.

It is worth it when you calculate what your hourly downtime would be. For one of the sites, we had calculated that downtime of an hour would cost about $30,000. So, it paid for itself.

Its price was a bit excessive. The device that I had died. It is under warranty, and they want $20,000 for another one. I just don't want to spend that kind of money, so I'm trying to find an alternate solution.

They have annual maintenance on it, which probably was 10% a year, so it all starts to add up.

I would rate OptiView XG a ten out of ten. It did everything that I wanted to do, and I was very happy with it.

On-premises

Gives us the ability to see our network.

It helps us troubleshoot when we have problems.

I would like a built-in tap feature which doesn't interfere with the network, and it allows you to see what is happening there.

I would also like to see them lower the cost of maintenance. We paid a lot of money for the product and you also have to pay a yearly fee for technical support.

We have been using this solution for three years.

There were no issues with stability.

I was involved in the setup. It was easy.

We can see the sub-net, but we can't see more without using the tap feature.

We are looking at packet loss, tracking the packets which are going to and from a tap to figure out exactly what the problems are with the traffic movement.

We are using this product to improve our view of what is happening with the packets. We can analyze the information there fairly quickly. We can resolve the issue at hand, whether it is a software issue or a hardware issue.

At this time, I can't really think of anything specific. I need to ask my colleagues about that.

I've been using the solution for about three years.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

I have never engaged technical support.

We didn't use any similar solution previously.

The setup was straightforward.

I am not involved in pricing and licensing considerations.

We evaluated Wireshark and some others, but this product was a better fit for our requirements.

You get what you pay for.

• Network discover: We use it for fiber testing, for checking all the packets that are going in and out, availability, bandwidth, etc.
• We don't necessarily use it every day, but every time we have some issues with the network, we use it. This could be once a week, twice a month, or three times a month.
• I usually have it turned on all the time just to scan the network for problems.

There are a lot of improvements depending on the situation. We have a lot of tools that we can use. If we are in the field and we have OptiView, it is our first line of defense. It is very easy to do the troubleshooting right away. It's an issue of portability.

I think everything is OK, except that they integrated AirMagnet already. It's also very heavy, like a brick.

We've been using the product for more than ten years.

We had a stability issue when we updated. It froze a few times, but they were able to solve it when we opened a ticket. We had a virus issue, but they solved that as well.

We didn't encounter any scalability issues.

The technical support is pretty good. I would give them a rating of 9.5/10.

We did not switch to anything. But again, we have multiple monitoring tools, and we had XG since day one.

The setup was pretty straightforward unless you don't know how to pay attention and listen to the instructions.

• Make sure that you know what you're doing.
• Make sure you know where to do the plugins. There are multiple Ethernet ports. Know which one you want to be part of the network, which one you want for management, etc. Sometimes they interchange those things if they don't pay attention. They just plug everything in there, and then you get screwed up.
• You need to know what SFP you're going to use for a 10-Gigabit and a 1-Gigabit port. Those are important things. But again, you have to pay particular attention to those things, or else you will not get any results.

We have only been using it for site survey. I've used spectrum analysis as well, just to see what is on the wireless. I haven't used it too much, but it's on our network.

We use it as a site survey tool. I don't hire out, so it's done in-house. I don't use it every day, but only when I need to.

I had some problems generating reports. However, that could be me and not the tool. I don't know. I couldn't get a report out of it for some reason. I have to review that myself.

It's been about two years since we starting using this solution.

There were no scalability issues that we experienced. It's running pretty well.

I personally have not contacted support. I just haven't had time for anything like that. I had other people use it, and they got the report they were looking for.

OptiView XG is the first solution that I've gone with. I have not used any other solution yet.

The setup was straightforward. You turn it on. It's really easy to use, once you understand it a little bit. For the site survey part, it's pretty simple. For the other issues, you do need some training. I took some training for it.

I did not evaluate other options. I went with this solution because I read the reviews on it and they were good. We had shortage of time to purchase the product, so either you purchase now or never. I ended up purchasing it.

It's a good tool and is pretty simple to use. Once you get the hang of it, it's not too hard to use. You don't have to read a bunch of manuals to get it going, at least for the site survey part.

For the other issues, such as the analyzer and the spectrum, you will probably need some training. I've got to use it more often. If I had time to play with it, I would, but I don't have time.

The packet capture feature is valuable when there's a troubleshooting issue. Since this is a data center, there are thousands of servers/users.

When there is a performance issue, we do the sniffer capture on the OptiView XG, and then we analyze the captures. If it helps to determine what the problem is, then it improves the server or application performance.

The licensing cost needs to improve since it is very expensive, especially the licensing and maintenance costs.

We used to cover the maintenance, but it's too expensive, so we no longer pay on a yearly basis for the maintenance anymore.

This product is also too bulky.

I have been using this solution for around four years.

When we first got the second one, there was an issue with the power cable, i.e., when we plugged the power cable into the unit, even if you moved it a little bit, it would turn off. Then we sent it in and it seems a little bit more stable now than it was before. This was a while ago, so it's been fixed.

It has not crashed; there were no scalability issues.

When I had the power issue mentioned elsewhere, I contacted them to get it fixed; they sent me a temporary one while they were trying to fix it. So, it was pretty good. I would probably give them a 10/10.

The new OptiView XGs were purchased because the data center has all 10-gigabit fiber; so that's why we had to purchase that.

The setup was pretty straightforward.

Just test it out. We've always used a Fluke (now NETSCOUT), so I can't really compare it to anything else.

The maintenance cost is obviously too expensive, so our management is not going to approve that type of maintenance cost on a yearly basis.

Most valuable to me is its size and the applications that are loaded on it. It's like a Swiss Army Knife. It's in a tablet size, but not like a laptop. It has handles and straps so it's easy to carry around and survey. The bulkiness I accept only because I need the extra battery life. I don't know if there's a way to do all that stuff and not have the battery capacity. We ordered extra batteries so we can swap them out and keep surveying.

We've been using it a lot for the wireless portion. We've been doing surveys, heat maps, verification of signal strength, and everything else. If we use the OptiView, we also can use verified LAN and WAN, we do bandwidth throughput testing. Those are some of the big tasks we use it for.

It's the one product that we go to when we have a problem or need to get information, because it can do so much. You don't have to go back and grab this or that other device. It's a Swiss Army Knife.

Recently, they introduced a cellular product, so part of what I needed was to add this onto the XG so we can do cellular heat maps for our properties and locations. Our owners come over and expect to have great Internet, as well as connections for their phones when they bring them. That would probably be something I'd want to add on. Size is not a big factor for me, because I realize we ask it to do a lot and for a long time. We may go all day, so I need battery stamina.

Recently, it came out with the web interface or cloud-based feedback; that's good. You got live clients for testing and all that. I'm actually pretty happy with what I've got. I can't think of anything else that I could be improved on, other than the cellular, which they've already done. I've given feedback and they seem to have caught up on that stuff. The cellular was the last one that I had talked about.

I have been using OptiView since the XG came out and we had the generation before that, so we're looking at either six or seven years.

We haven’t had stability issues. We buy the gold support to cover us if there are any issues. One time, we had an issue with a battery and they sent us new batteries overnight. The gold support is important for us, so in case anything does come up, it's covered.

I have no stability problems because we maintain network connectivity with the whole state of Hawaii; from here to the Big Island. If I need to run tests, it's usually to set up a reflector and run bandwidth tests. Scalability wise, it can go across and do quite a few things with what we need to test it with.

I rate technical support 5/5, being the best. After our last report and the follow-up, everything's been great.

We've used other products and the biggest problem was lack of support, no warranty or excess warranties; things like that. The OptiView support program was pretty comprehensive, including updates for the XG and the other products that we buy. It's something that an enterprise would need; not some fly-by-night or, "oh, we're going to do this stuff, but we won't do extra.", kind of thing.

Setup was pretty straightforward. We needed a little help from our sales engineer who guided us through some scenarios. Then, once we got the hang of it, we took off with it. We just needed a little nudge.

We looked at freeware options like JDSU. We looked at Wavetec, also.

The pre-site survey and the AirMagnet site survey help my company in pre-sales and post-sales.

We used it for our post-sales, so we can get a better understanding of the customers’ wireless needs.

They could improve the tablet hardware itself. It can't support the AirMagnet software.

I have encountered stability issues. It crashed. Tech support told us that the OptiView tablet itself needs a better processor and more memory. It's unable to run the software without crashing.

It can’t scale to even one user because it crashes when you're using the AirMagnet survey tool, or even running reports.

When I contacted technical support about it crashing, it didn't go very well because they said we need better hardware or better tablets with more processing power.

We didn't have a solution before. OptiView was the first of its kind. We wanted a pre-sales site survey tool and a post-sales site survey tool.

Initial setup was straightforward.

With the licensing and putting up the software, I pretty much didn't really have to do much other than activate the license.

Before choosing this product, I didn’t evaluate other options.

Make sure the hardware supports the software. I think the software is good. I think it would work better on hardware that would support the software.

Packet sniffing - it allows us to see where there are communication errors between devices.

We had two devices that we didn't know what was wrong with them. Communication wasn't working and the graphical interface actually allowed us to see what traffic was being sent to which device. We were able to find out that there was actually double acknowledgments coming from one of the devices. We were able to share that with the coders and ultimately get it fixed.

We found that when we used the wireless section of the AirMagnet, we used to have a laptop dedicated to AirMagnet and it actually ran smoother on the laptop. The device still runs AirMagnet the same way the laptop did but it's not as smooth as it ran prior. It probably just needs more memory or needs to be a little more robust.

No issues at all.

The only thing we used them for was some licensing. Since then we really haven't called back.

We actually used another Fluke Networks solution. It was two of Fluke's separate products and this was a an all-in-one solution.

It's actually very easy. It auto discovers and you can pretty much set it up and let it go. It uses a Windows interface so if you're familiar with Windows computers, it's fairly easy to use.

We were able to try it out so if it's possible for you to try it out, it's definitely worth the trial.

I'd rate it an 8. The wireless portion of it being a little stronger would probably get it a 10.

We use it more or less for the troubleshooting aspect of wires and wireless.

It just made it easy to troubleshoot certain situations and to get a quicker resolution, depending on the situation. Basically, we utilize it to troubleshoot situations, packet analysis, wired and wireless, sifting of traffic, and then accurate analysis; when someone says they've got issues with an application. That's generally what we're doing.

• Ease of updating, automated updating.
• Basically, based on the unit right now, maybe get it to be a little bit smaller, lighter. That would help.

I have used it for 4+ years.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues; it's just a good tool. Basically, it's used for troubleshooting, so it's not always used 24/7. When we need to use it, it works.

Technical support is good. I give them a 4 out of 5; no real changes needed.

Before, we would use Wireshark and similar products. OptiView just made it a little bit easier. It was a neat package that made it easier to utilize.

Initial setup was easy; it wasn't complex.

Previously, pricing and licensing was easy. We'll see what happens with the change with Netscout.

We basically upgraded. We had some legacy versions of this and we upgraded them. There was no evaluation or comparison.

Just know that it's a niche product, but it works.

The 10 GigE connectivity and ClearSight are the most valuable features for us.

It helps us with troubleshooting. For example, we have a lot of 10 GigE connectivity in our data centers, so we can inject it into the switches, scan the ports and it enables us to capture that data.

It's bulky; it's a big tablet. The physical dimensions need to change a little bit; it needs to be more portable. It needs to be like an iPad. Right now, it’s like carrying around an iPad with three inches of bulk underneath it.

The software's all right, but I don't know how you upgrade it to Windows 10. That's the only downside; it comes with Windows 7 preloaded.

I have used it for probably four years.

I haven't seen any stability issues; the application's pretty stable so far.

The data center supports three to five hundred users. We're using it for the servers and applications. A user might call and report problems; then, we'd go into the data center and try to isolate it. For example, if you call and say, "Hey, we have problems with the SharePoint application," I'm going to say, "What are the problems?" You might say, "Hey, we have connectivity issues or dropouts." I go in there and I scan the port, I connect the OptiView up to it, send all that data to OptiView and analyze it. Another example is, say someone has a connectivity issue in the data center. They might say, "Hey, we're having issues; the 10 GigE connections are not coming up." I'll take the OptiView in there and make sure that 10 GigE connection is coming up, make sure I get an IP address and so on.

I have never asked for technical support. I actually went to a training class on it. I know how to use it, so I haven’t needed technical support.

We previously used the Fluke Networks EtherScope. We switched to the newer version because it didn't support 10 GigE. The biggest thing is support for 10 GigE connectivity, and the ClearSight software.

Initial setup was straightforward. If you've used the tools before, you should be able to use this just as well. If you use any of the Fluke Networks tools, you should be able to use this as well.

We were using Fluke Etherscopes, so we just kind of evaluated what they offered with that product. We didn't bring in any other vendors.

I was told that they have something called TruView; I would look into buying TruView as a package with it.

The most valuable feature of this product is the sniffer, where we can troubleshoot user connections by identifying the source and destination, to try to get to the root cause. I'm in the operations role, so I'm always trying to get to the root cause.

I don't use it that much, maybe once or twice, so I can't really say whether it has helped the way my company functions much. I want to. The challenge is getting the experience with the product to use it successfully. I think that's one of the areas where Fluke (now OptiView) probably needs to step up and make it available to end users so they would use this product more often.

I think sometimes the codes that are provided with respect to the reporting function could be improved. Is there a way that we can automate the reporting that dumps the captures to discover what could be the potential culprit? Sometimes I see information that's anecdotal, that is being alarmed on but is not really the root cause.

They could also implement a distributive model: How do you take the current functionality of the product and make it mobile? Where we could deploy it quickly, anywhere, to help us get to the root cause because, right now, Wireshark is our go-to sniffer.

I've probably been using it for about five years.

I have not encountered any stability issues. I never had it crash, but I don't use it much either.

As far as I can recall, I don’t think I ever ran out of storage on it. It usually supports over 500 users.

I have asked technical support for help, and I had a good experience. Usually, support would push me towards training and so forth, if I had something specific. I would say it was about a 6/10. I think if they provided customers the training as part of the purchase would really go a long way.

I did not previously use a different solution. Honestly, we probably use Wireshark more than we use Fluke in our environment, because we can deploy it to a person's laptop anywhere in the world and use the traces. I think that's one of the challenges with the Fluke product, how I have to ship it somewhere to use it, which is not effective.

I have a ton of challenges with the OptiViewproducts. I think on the wired stuff, it was a little easier to decipher. I think on the wireless side, because I had the combo, it may have been a little bit more challenging there.

I think that the maintenance is ridiculous on some of the products, including OptiView.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options. I don't normally get into that. On the other hand, we do use other products for sure.

Figure out how you're going to deploy it, and whether it will include online deployment. I think there's a lot of competition out there with respect to the online portion of it. You can put probes and so forth that have a similar function to Fluke on the network. I don't know if there's a software version that's similar to Wireshark that can be deployed and then use Fluke's analytics to get to the root cause. I think it's a good product.

I like the fact that it can map my whole network when I plug it into my router, my switch, that it can literally discover nodes and clients. That's very helpful, and then drill down to the switch.

If I'm looking for a client, if I have a MAC address, I can punch in the MAC address and it'll direct me to the switch and the port without me having to home to the switch itself. It can home my whole network, more or less, and find exactly where this MAC address is at. Basically, it streamlines troubleshooting and finding troublesome clients.

It didn't used to support 10-gig fiber, which it does now. There wasn't a fiber module, which there is now. It ties into all of your other products, as well, so I'm actually pretty pleased with the product.

I don't currently use it, but I have a lot of experience with it, over five years. I used it a couple of times a month.

I had some issues with discovery, but it did not crash during those five years.

I did not encounter any scalability issues. It can handle a load.

I believe I asked for help once and they were helpful. I had trouble turning a feature on or something and they helped me navigate through it.

I did not previously use a different solution. Prior to OptiView, we did not have a tool of this magnitude or this type, so this was the first tool of this type that I've used and I haven't used any competitors.

Initial setup was straightforward. It wasn't tough at all.

You need to be familiar with networking. Some people think you can just kind of plug it in. If you're a PC guy, then you can learn it but you need to understand networking protocols. Basically, have a good solid understanding of networking infrastructure before you purchase this powerful tool.

• All of the wireless applications
• The packet sniffer

This product helps troubleshoot problems, find issues and fix them.

On the wireless side, when users say that they have trouble connecting to the wireless network in a certain area, I take the Fluke up and I use the analyzer to see the signal strength and if I need to add wireless access points in that area.

I actually don't have any complaints.

I have used it for a couple of years now.

I have not encountered any stability issues. The only problem I've had with it was the hard disk failed. After that, it wouldn't boot. I had to send it back to get replaced.

I don't know why the hard disk failed. I don't believe it was a scaling issue.

Technical support was awesome. They were quick to respond. They were very knowledgeable. We were kept up to date on the status.

I did use something else before using the Fluke product. I switched because of the more updated capabilities of the OptiView.

For one thing, the OptiView is much more compact. The other things that I was using, I had to carry two or three things. OptiView has a lot of things rolled into one compact tablet.

The licensing was confusing in the beginning, but once I figured out what was going on, it makes sense now. The software upgrade process on it is easy.

I would recommend it to others and I have recommended it to others. I told my peers at other remote sites about this and three other sites have gotten one.

They just love it. We love it.

The only reason I haven’t given it the highest rating is because everything can be improved.

• Analysis of the packets across the network
• Application monitoring

We use these features for troubleshooting rogue applications. We look for lost packets when we're having issues across our wide area network.

Basically, what OptiView XG allowed us to do is, when someone says, "Hey, there's a problem, we're experiencing slow latency in a site", we put it on both ends and we look at the traffic going between both ends and see where the latency lies. It gives us an overall view of what's going across that, and we can make adjustments or we can then pinpoint and say “Hey, this thing's going nuts and talk to whoever is responsible for that server or application.”

None of my guys have said anything about improving it or doing anything like that. I really wouldn't have any input on that one.

Nonetheless, to make the product perfect, Maybe the licensing could come down; the price could come down a little bit, that would be kind of nice. I think it's a little bit expensive, but as far as functionality goes, I'm not too sure about any room for improvement; I'm not the one that uses it every day. I don't have any; I'm the guy that pays for it.

We have been using it for four years. It supports the 600 users in my company.

As far as I know, we have not encountered any stability issues.

As far as I know, we have not encountered any scalability issues. I don't know that it's ever crashed.

I haven't had to contact technical support, but my guys have. They said it's fine; they've had no problems with tech support when they've called it before.

I did not previously use a different solution. What we had before the Fluke product, we had the ASUS. Those were in-betweens, and that was just to see what the utilization was. And that's all we ever used, we didn't use anything else. We switched because the ASUS didn't give us much as detail as the OptiView did.

We needed some tweaking from the engineer, so it was a little more complex at the beginning, but once we got the hang of it, everything seemed to go just fine.

It's expensive.

Before choosing this product, we looked at some others; they didn't have a lot of the things that this product had, so that's why we selected this one. We had previous history with Fluke and we had good dealings with them, so that's why we chose this product.

The only thing I could say is make sure that you get help in the beginning to set it up correctly, and then it pretty much runs on its own and you have no problems. That's the only thing my suggestion would be. Make sure you start out at the beginning with someone to help set it up, and then you'll have no issues.

The WiFi debugging features. It's called Debug. It helps solve issues that we deal with, with our product.

It allows us to be able to troubleshoot, predominantly in the field, with the tools that we would normally have in the lab. The portability, the software of it, is nice to use.

The GUI’s very user friendly, so it's easier for the field service guys to handle.

There's some obvious shortcomings with the product. Hardware is unreliable. It's already crashed on me several times. It's unusable for weeks.

There are some problematic features. For example, file sizes cause problems where they're too small. You want to record a certain number of things, but this one limits us due to how much we can record and how large the files are.

Software corruption prevented it from turning on. It resolved itself on its own, just by rebooting it a million times.

About 2 years.

There isn't that much instability.

I give it a 8. The response time was okay, but the level of detail didn't help solve the problem.

We used the PC-based devices. They were much harder to be mobile, so this device makes it easy to go into the field with. It's more accessible if you're out in the field.

It was straightforward. It was predominantly already set up. All you needed to do is turn it on and register it. There's not much you have to learn to start using it. It's already familiar.

The user interface is intuitive.

Do the proper research into the features that it has and whether or not it's the right fit, because for the cost of how much you pay for, there are other solutions out there that you can get. It's the portability that makes this valuable. If that's really what you're after, you need something that's going to be out in the field and is portable, it's great, but if you're looking for something to set up in the lab or something like that, where it stays fixed, then might not be the right tool.

I'm rating it an 8 because it is easy to use and it is portable. Both of those are the positives. The negatives would be hardware unreliability and scalability or the file size limitation. You should be able to record longer periods of time. This one minimizes. It does allow you to record beyond a certain point.

The device is easy to use and is effective very quickly. I can plug it into a network and troubleshoot it in 15 minutes and pinpoint problems that would take days to do otherwise. It is an expensive device but, if you are going to use it, it pays for itself in time and effectiveness.

Its effectiveness has improved the way my organization functions.

It is hard to say what it takes to analyze a network without this device, and then of course with it. For example, with the wireless. I was able to plug it in and see that the client was using the same channels for communication too close together. They were interfering with each other, causing problems with the client using their laptops. Once we were able to rearrange the channels that the individual access points were using, everything cleared up.

I cannot even speak to that because normally what it does for me is so well. Then they come out with new features that I cannot even anticipate that make the product more effective. I do not want to say easier to use. Sometimes it is kind of complicated, but they come up with new solutions and they also stay with the market. With fiber and the speeds of fiber, these devices had to become even more powerful to be able to handle that kind of traffic and that kind of testing.

They really do stay up with technology. If you keep up with your maintenance, you can easily upgrade, obviously your softwares, and the hardware; trade it back in. It is almost like a lease on a vehicle. You can trade it back in and get a newer one for big discounts, and stay up with the technology that OptiView offers.

I have used this solution for over 10 years.

I have not had any issues with stability. We have two of them and they are out, and the clients love them. They just love them. Anytime I plug this in and go through testing of a network and you have their network administrators there, they pretty much love the product. I have only had one client who was a naysayer, but otherwise it is extremely effective.

I have not had any issues with scalability because they built that into their product to handle that. You can capture packets, all of the information, that is coming over the wire, which is immense. You can have these ports that are rather large. Any other testing device can get overwhelmed with too much data but the OptiView does not. They have built into their technology the ability to capture all the packets and not miss any. If you miss any, your capture is basically ineffective because you lose the roadmap. It is an extremely solid product because they know the problems with the industry that they are dealing with. They are right on top of it.

Their support from my standpoint is 10/10, because any time I have called them with a question they have an answer, or can give you the insight to help you solve your problem effectively. I have never been disappointed with their support when I have had questions, or think I have had a problem. They will help you out, and their staff really knows their stuff.

We implemented this solution in the first place for testing of wireless, for wireless troubleshooting. We had a lot of problems with our clients implementing their own wireless, and they were doing it wrong. This was a way for me to troubleshoot their wireless infrastructure to offer a road map to make it better. That was my main concern, and then getting into the network testing. After realizing what OptiView can do, I got pulled into basically kind of a white area of testing with it as well.

At the time we started using it, there was no effective software for analyzing wireless. Now there are other software products that you can use to analyze bandwidth usage, or another software product to use for capturing packets, but the OptiView has it all in one bundle. You can do the work that the OptiView does with different software products over a longer period of time. It might take me a day, maybe more. The OptiView, you can plug it in and all the tools are there that you need, and it is effective in very little time.

To set it up, you plug it in and it pretty much discovers on its own, maybe it needs a little bit of technical input from myself. All that is really easy.

Their pricing is expensive. They are the Mercedes. Most people have a problem with that understandably, because if you are only going to use it once, it is hard to justify it. Luckily, a company like us that deals with thousands of clients, it allows it to be effective.

Pricing would be your only problem, because it is expensive. It could be cheaper, in my opinion.

They really do stay up with technology. If you keep up with your maintenance, you can easily upgrade your software, and the hardware, trade it back in. It is almost like a lease on a vehicle. You can trade it back in and get a newer one for big discounts, and stay up with the technology that OptiView offers.

It is a complete package. It is not just a really good testing device, but also the maintenance that goes along with it. There is support when I have questions. Then the continued advancement of the product itself. It is well worth the price quite frankly, if you are in that arena.

I have used other products. There were no products that did what the OptiView did as well as OptiView.

They have no competitors because nobody has done it like them, so they basically own it. That is why you have to buy the device, because there is no other.

We are using it to run wireless only. From a wireless perspective, it's a great tool for going out in the field and seeing what's going on.

We use it. It's great for going out there and getting environmental information regarding WiFi. It's great for doing surveys. It's great for generating reports that can be submitted to management-type people, that type of stuff.

It takes some time to get used to it. There's always room for improvement in the ease of usability, learning curve type of stuff. It was not that user-friendly at the beginning. Like anything else, the more time you spend on it, the better you get with it.

I think we've had it a few years now. At least three years.

I have not had any stability issues. Again, we use it infrequently. It's not something that I'm using every day, but anytime I've needed to use it, it seems to work fine.

I have not had any scability issues for what I'm doing.

I think initial setup was fairly straightforward. I assume you would need some sort of previous knowledge if you're going to use this product.

I played around with some free stuff, but nothing that would be comparable to this particular product.

It was a management decision to go with this product. That's what they gave me to use. I'm just an end user.

It's worth a shot. Give it a try. Definitely a product worth considering. I'm not sure what else is out there on the market at this point in time. I haven't really looked into it, but it would be definitely something you would want to check out.

I use it a couple times a month. We use it. OptiView does other stuff. We are just using the tablet. It's just running the WiFi analyzer. I could run that product on other pieces of equipment, but we're just running it on the OptiView tablet.

I'm rating it a seven because I haven't used it that much. To be able to say how it could rate higher, I would need to do more with the product, to really dig deeper into it, explore all the functionality of the product.

Packet capture is a valuable feature. It's a network troubleshooting tool.

We use it to validate new networks.

We use it in our data center.

We need it for troubleshooting WAN circuits, which are LAN circuits. We use it to troubleshoot and validate LAN and WAN circuits. We have approximately 300 servers that we use OptiView for.

We would like to use it to decode IP tunnels. That would be it, as far as room for improvement. We have a lot of IP-to-IP tunnels. If we can decode the traffic within the IP tunnel, that would be great.

Also, if they added some software features to enhance usability. If I wanted to do a simple packet capture, I'd like, for example, an online menu to do that, where I'd connect network here, next set this up to put the IP in, and so on - some kind of simple guide that would systematically guide you through a packet capture.

I have been using this product for about a year.

We did not encounter any issues with stability.

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

We've only used technical support a few times, and it was just satisfactory. My big problem is training my new employees. I don't remember the online training suite, but we did attend a couple of seminars. Those were pretty good.

We switched to OptiView to be a little bit more flexible. We were using Wireshark before, and wanted something a little bit more flexible. It's more portable. It's more accesible, as well, because it has lots of ports on it to do different things.

Initial setup was complex. The online training was very helpful with that. Make sure the training seminar's available.

I use it most for data capture or to troubleshoot issues on the production floor, because of intermittent issues we're having with communications, not knowing if it's a network problem or an application issue, and this helps us narrow it down.

When there's an issue of communication, data being dropped, we can prove the network that provided it. That allows the developers or software engineers to work on finding the solution in their area. It tells them that it's in that section. It defines the problem area.

The biggest one I can think of right now is probably training. We did have people attend training, but they weren't overly impressed with the training. Other sessions I have taken were OK, but when we first got it they were not thrilled with the instructor.

The reports I got back from the guys I sent to training said the guy spent more time telling stories, war stories and that type, rather than actual training about the product. They got, I won't say turned off, as it was fun at first they said, but they didn't get that much out of the training. Most of the time it was self-learning. I took an online one and that was very good. They went to the class in person.

We've had it about two years, but I'm not the main user.

Everything is just fine.

We haven't seen any limitations scaling it.

I'm not the main user of it, but I would say it's good. We're not having problems with it.

We used different solutions, such as Wireshark, but they had limitations. This brought everything to one solution.

It depends on how far into it you want to get. I have not gone that far, but I understood it. It takes some setup to get done, to run a whole network, but we're just slowly adding into it. Discovery of devices, that type of stuff was simple, but it only discovered local devices.

The ability to a packet capture on the fly and more recently, to use the ClearSight software to analyze it. From an operational standpoint, when you have an issue in the data center you want the ability to not only do a packet capture but also to do a packet capture at a line speed up to 10 GB which is critical in a data center.

I think it cuts down the time to resolution drastically for an environment that would not have the ability to do these packet captures.

The biggest is that the storage space is very limited. I'd like the ability to capture more data.

We have had a version of it for over 10 years. We started with the classic, and have had several classics. We mainly use it in the data centers.

We've had no issues with its performance.

It's had no issues handling the data it captures.

8/10

We did use a different solution and we switched because of the portability, and we had a very good salesperson that worked with us.

It was functional right out of the box.

One thing what I would ask is that they attend the offered training courses. Sometimes they, Fluke Networks or NetScout, will offer training courses for the product in areas close to large cities. They seem to go around the country and have training for particular products. I think a technical or operational team would get great benefit out of seeing all the features of the OptiView XG in real time as opposed to looking at documentation and going through it themselves.

We don't use them much unless we have an issue. We do the packet capture feature, we do the bandwidth testing and we even get to use the wireless scanning features they have. Those are the features we use.

When we do a capture, it gives us the details of where the problem is and what it could be. It gives a detailed report of what it found on the network.

We use the tablet version, and I'd like it to have a longer battery.

We've been using it for five years.

It's fine. For our organization it's good enough.

It was already in place when I arrived.

I haven't had to call them. I use their online instructional videos.

It wasn't complex but it wasn't easy for the registration and licenses.

We are leveraging it with the Wi-Fi analytics software, and also Wi-Fi survey and design software. Specific to my group, we're responsible for Wi-Fi design. Those are the features that we use primarily.

We use it for all of our predictive Wi-Fi designs. We get standards reports, so we're able to do more of the designs, more quickly, and more consistently.

I know we're not using it for all of it's capabilities, but what we do use it for certainly a larger screen size would benefit us. We typically attach it to a larger external monitor to assist with that. Also, the overall weight of the product is a lot to carry around for a long period of time. Because we're typically dealing with detailed designs of building layouts, to be able to zoom in and see it would be nice. It's better if we connect it to an external projector or larger monitor.

2 years

No

It's been excellent.

Not that we've had any issues with the OptiView, but where we've used support, they've been good with communicating what the process is to get things upgraded and the timeliness when we send it back for upgrades. Certainly the ease of doing that.

We had not been using a different solution previously and when we looked at this product, we were looking at both the combined analyzer as well as something that was running the design software packages.

Very straight forward. Pretty much everything came pre-installed and ready to use. There was very little customization and configuration that we needed to do with it.

I think it's a niche product. It isn't something that's easily used on a daily basis by a large number of people. It is rather expensive, so it isn't something that we can support a large number of.

We use it for key devices to let us know if we lost communication with any of them. We use it if we get a complaint about slowness or whatever on the network but for the most part, to let us know of problems with communication to like the switches or servers.

Right now, we haven't gotten into it as much as we can. We did use it to troubleshoot our VLANs because we were having a problem with the VLANs. That helped quite a bit with displaying our VLANs and the paths things took.

Right now, I can't really add anything. I haven't used it enough. We use it for some troubleshooting, but we're not heavy into using Fluke Networks yet.

1 year and a half.

No issues deploying it. They helped us get it initially set up and really had no problems with setting it up.

It has been stable. There is the app mobile piece of it, which I will have to call to maybe get working. I'm not sure whether it's our firewall blocking it. I haven't been able to really get the mobile app to function right, but that's minor.

I think we will be using it more and more as our infrastructure starts growing.

As I said, we had an older Fluke Networks unit in here before and this was really an upgrade. It's a trade up that we did from that work group analyzer.

Straightforward.

My opinion is yes, we have seen an ROI. For me, just resolving our one VLAN problem really makes it worth it.

I'd give it an 8 because there's little things that we've used it for. I can see it being used for a lot more and I can't rate on anything that I haven't tried, but for the pieces that we have used it for, it has been very accurate and truthful.

All the wireless features are valuable. Also, the Layer 2 trace routing is pretty valuable. In general, it's a very nice product, works well, and it does what they say.

It allows us to tune our wireless networks in a way that's never been done before.

I've not used it long enough to determine this.

We've been using this model since April, and it was an upgrade from the previous model.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Customer Service:

10/10.

Technical Support:

10/10.

We just upgraded from Fluke's previous model.

It was a little complex due to the licensing.

We implemented it in-house.

We haven't calculated it.

No other solutions were evaluated.

I would recommend the device.

• Interface
• Ease of use

It has helped with troubleshooting and has simplified the way the organization functions.

None.

I've been using it for a year, on and off.

We didn't have any issues with deployment.

We didn't have any issues with stability.

We didn't have any issues with scalability.

Customer Service:

9/10

Technical Support:

9/10

No, this is the first monitoring solution we've used.

It was straightforward.

It was implemented through our in-house team.

No, this was the only solution we considered.

I would recommend trying it out first and making sure it fits your needs.

It's too soon to tell.

OptiView XG helps us troubleshoot problems faster than we would normally be able to.

We've been using the solution for about 2-3 months.

We didn't have any issues with deployment.

We didn't have any issues with stability.

We didn't have any issues with scalability.

Customer Service:

I would give it a 9. It's Fantastic.

Technical Support:

I've never had to use it.

We used an earlier version of Optiview and we switched as an upgrade to the solution.

The initial setup was straightforward and simple.

It was implemented through a vendor team who were excellent. I would give them a 9/10.

I have no advice as licensing and purchase were not an issue for us.

We didn't evaluate any other solutions.

You can't go wrong with it!

For me, it's the clearsight, the possibility to capture and see clearly what is occurring is fantastic. Previously, I would spend hours and hours checking the flow of traffic using Wireshark for example.

I work for a Cisco partner company and and a certain part of the demand of our customers is characterized in troubleshooting of their networks. We always use the OptiView XG to detect failure points on the network of our customers, because it is fast to identify problems. We've solved problems involving spanning tree, duplicity mac address, timeouts for databases, delay and latency and so on, all this using the OptiView XG.

I think that the discovery of a network can be improved if the OptiView would recognize more kinds of devices independent of the manufacturer.

I used it for less than one year, but it was enough to see how powerful the OptiView XG is.

No, deployment has always been easy. I never had any issue with it.

No, the device always was very stable.

No, we were able to use the OptiView for small businesses and large companies.

My company always used the OptiView XG.

I only did implementations through a vendor team and their level of expertise was good.

Time: we used to spend days with a lot of IT workers from different areas. This time spent was reduced by hours. We're able to find the problem and hand it over to the responsible team solve it.

It was easy, as I mentioned earlier, we only need to understand the problem of the customer and we then define an action plan, in other words where to put the OptiView XG, what devices we need to pay attention to.

Well, Wireshark for example, but the problem was that we needed to understand a lot of the customer's topology and to mitigate and analyse the errors which was a waste of time.

With this product there is no longer a need to spend hours and hours solving problems related to networks. You can get a report on the origin of the problem and deliver it to the responsible team to solve it.

Line-Rate Packet Capture, AirMagnet Integration, ClearSight Analyzer Software.

It has streamlined and simplified troubleshooting complex networking problems that would be nearly impossible to uncover with other products.

The price could come down quite a bit.

About 1 year

No

No

No

Customer Service: 9/10Technical Support: 9/10

We previously used other solutions but switched for some of the advanced features and ability to capture at rates higher than 1Gbps.

Straightforward, if you want a complex configuration it is possible but not required to gain the main benefits from the product.

Obtained training from a certified Fluke Networks vendor, they are at a 10/10.

We have not purchased the product due to the high cost. We have rented units as necessary to resolve issues on customer networks.

The network discovery ability.

With network discovery, the troubleshooting process was easy, but with this resource, we can see the pathway from the device to the resource, it's amazing!

I wouldn't change anything about the OptiView XG.

About 6-7 months.

Whenever I need support, their engineers are fast and spot on in their diagnoses.

No issues, it's easy to set-up!

We implemented In-house.

The OptiView XG uses the best practices to understand your network. In this way, I think OptiView XG is the best all in one solution.

• It's an integrated, purposed package. 
• It's fairly portable, durable, and usually easy to upgrade hardware to current standards (10gb for example).

Troubleshooting becomes less of a mystery, particularly when showing the problem to other people. It's a lot more difficult showing someone Wireshark and explaining what's going on. I can lend my Linkrunner to Help Desk and have them check out a port with little training. I can show the problem on an OptiView and the graphs will make it easier to understand.

Hard to say for sure, but I'd almost want to see what a VM appliance version would be like. You would definitely miss out on AirCheck and AirMagnet but perhaps the cost could go down quite a bit and you'd still have about 80% of the product. Also, I've never been a fan of the touchscreen. I have big fingers and don't always have the stylus handy. The device is not convenient for holding in one hand.

I've used many Fluke Networks products since 2000 when I worked at Disney. This includes OptiView, One-touch, AirCheck, Linkrunner, etc.

Typically, I encountered no issues at all beyond the initial learning curve. However, the OptiView really is more for experienced network troubleshooters.

I've never encountered a problem like this with Fluke Networks products.

With the cost it's hard to justify having more than one in our school. Also, the OptiView is overkill for 90% of the troubleshooting I do, making the much more portable Linkrunner, One-touch, or AirCheck better options. I've literally thrown those products in my back pocket.

I've tried some different software solutions in the past. I've switched to Fluke Networks products because having an all-in-one tool is more convenient, and the way information is presented makes it easier to share knowledge.

The initial setup is always ways straightforward IF the network is set up correctly in the first place.

We implemented in-house.

Know your audience and IT technical level. You cannot hand this over to desktop support and expect immediately results like with the One-Touch. However, this is still an easier product than interpreting Wireshark, or other similar software. It's also easier to show to others and explain plainly.