TruView Reviews

We offer a variety of professional IT and network architectural services. Like any business, we have several important applications, such as Exchange, SharePoint, Salesforce, SAP and VoIP, along with other technologies that our internal teams rely on to do their jobs. We needed a centralized platform that was a trusted source of network intelligence and we also need to provide the same network and application visibility for customers that use the our data center for application hosting.

We chose Visual TruView which helps us quickly isolate the root cause by allowing us to easily drill down into context-sensitive packet-level detail. We can navigate through the UI to understand problem domain isolation, which applications are running slow, what servers and sites are impacted, etc. TruView also builds a filter for relevant packet data which allows us to quickly access specific packet data at any point in the process from any UI screen.

It gives us a centralized platform with visibility into key network and application performance metrics, and it allows us, in just a couple clicks, to dive into packet-level details to further troubleshoot in real time.

Most tools tend to go a mile wide and an inch deep. TruView is the opposite. It focuses just on network and application performance, giving us a complete overview of our assets. But then, with just a click, it allows us to go all the way into the packet weeds and do heavy analysis.

For example, when several clients started experiencing massive packet loss and data drops when connecting to applications in the data center, TruView instantly noticed the problem. When we drilled down to find the root cause, we discovered the problem was coming from the same destination port at each client location. By cross-referencing the technology parameters, we realized they all had a Juniper firewall that was running an old software version that couldn’t combat a Layer 7 application (denial of service) attack. I’m not sure how we ever would have found out that all of these clients had the same firewall update issue. TruView illuminated the problem, and we drilled down to the root cause in 23 minutes.

We recently had another customer using VoIP from a partner that was hosted in the data center. After 30 minutes on a call, the VoIP service would drop. Of course, the customer’s analysis said the issue resided with the provider, and the provider’s analysis said it was a customer firewall issue. We jumped in with TruView and captured an entire transaction in transit and inspected it. We found that the client’s firewall was seeing the conversion timing out. The provider was acknowledging the timing-out issue and killing the call. We were able to share that information with the provider and the customer so they could work together to isolate and fix the problem.

We have more than 25 dispersed clinic locations connected through a central data center and we run hundreds of critical applications. One of the largest software applications is Epic, which is a huge multi-tiered application suite that includes several smaller applications that all bounce from server to server, gathering data requests from different sources and funneling back responses to our clinical and administrative teams.

Visual TruView uses key data sets (including packet storage, application response time, transactional decode, NetFlow and SNMP) to measure performance of hundreds of applications and then report the results through a single dashboard. The comprehensive overview of both network and application performance provides us with a clear picture of performance and, when issues arise, helps us quickly identify the root cause.

We also use TruView to evaluate top talkers (i.e., applications) on the network, identify unknown applications, identify the most-used at any moment, and measure other indicators of network health. TruView delivers this information via simple graphs and alerts that trigger when minimum performance thresholds aren’t met. It helps immediately narrow down the scope of performance problems, so we can do further analysis on a specific node or server.

For example, when we used TruView to identify which applications were affecting network performance the most, we were surprised to find a marketing screensaver as the main culprit. The screensaver (which runs on hundreds of computer screens and is displayed in every patient room) was not deployed properly. Instead of caching information from each individual computer’s hard drive, it was pulling high-resolution images and marketing materials from remote servers and serving them to desktops. This created a huge amount of traffic every single day. We used TruView to identify this unnecessary bandwidth-intense application as a problem.

TruView helps us tell right away when a problem happens and the scope of the issue. If something is slow, we can tell the location or application affected. When it’s a multi-tier application, we can see which element is the problem and don’t need to involve the vendor – it’s eliminated a lot of the troubleshooting frustrations we used to have.

We develop our applications in-house to address our organization’s specific mission and operational needs. The data housed within these applications are critical to us, as evidenced by a spike in incoming technical support calls immediately after any network, application, or database outage.

Application and network issues would inevitably arise within our infrastructure. These issues, no matter how minor, were hard to troubleshoot since each application integrates with multiple data sources. We evaluated multiple network monitoring solutions. Visual TruView was selected and deployed to solve our IT challenges and resolve the ambiguity associated with technical support calls.

As TruView processes network performance analytics, it time correlates the results, which helps cross-functional IT teams—such as network engineering and application development teams—work more collaboratively and solve problems faster than before without the usual finger-pointing. The effort is centralized with a dashboard that tells us whether the problem is database, application, or network related so we can assign accountability and get to a solution faster.

The ability to see across our network and monitor each node along with all applications and databases is of great benefit, it helps us immediately identify the problem’s root cause so we can bring in the appropriate service team to solve the issue.

Deployment was rather simple, but did require quite a bit of time to configure since our applications are so complex. But, once we got it up and running, the results were almost immediate.

It also provides ongoing monitoring for external and third-party applications as well. TruView can easily pinpoint problems, letting us know if the issue lies internally or with the external application provider.

For example, we used TruView to troubleshoot a third-party application that was performing slowly over the VPN connection. The application used specific protocols for querying data from multiple sources. We reviewed all data transactions – one after another. In each transaction, data took no more than 30 milliseconds to process. Some of the files, however, exceeded 15 MB in size. These larger data calls required several minutes to process over the VPN. Because we could isolate the specific data call culprits, the system could be optimized to solve the issue quickly and effectively.

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Our IT department is responsible for maintaining key systems and applications for all corporate locations, more than 500 stores across the U.S., and the e-commerce retail websites. Not having insight into these key applications and the underlying network infrastructure that supports them meant teams were always in a reactive mode when isolating and fixing problems.

As a member of the networking team, we’re responsible for monitoring performance of more than 100 custom applications, store circuit performance, database applications, key business applications like Exchange and Lync, client access, vendor networks and more. If we can’t access the needed network and application performance data, we can’t isolate and fix the problem. Teams just finger point and the guesswork begins to try and isolate root cause. And the worst part, while this is happening, the business is being negatively impacted.

As a matter of fact, during the holiday season, our online retail site experienced sporadic performance issues. Without solutions in place to proactively monitor performance, the IT department struggled to isolate what was causing the problem.

We knew this could never happen again, and it was the tipping point for us to find a solution to help solve the problem. We needed complete insight into the application performance layer so we could identify if it was a network or application issue. We also needed the ability to generate hourly reports for key executives and managers so they could monitor site performance.

In a nutshell, our company lacked visibility into network and application performance. If you can’t see it, you can’t manage, which means when problems happen, you can't easily fix them. This creates a big problem for IT and a bigger problem for the business. We needed to take off the blinders so IT could become a strategic resource.

To meet these challenges, we selected Fluke Networks’ Visual TruView, a unified application and network performance monitoring and troubleshooting appliance. It leverages key data sets such as stream-to-disk packet storage, application response time, transactional decode, NetFlow and SNMP, to present performance analytics through a single visual dashboard view. It eliminates the need for swivel chair correlations and gives teams the ability to quickly drill down into packet-level details if needed. With intuitive guided workflows, we’re never more than a few clicks from isolating performance problems.

There are only two solutions I keep up and running at all times, and Visual TruView is one of them. It gives me complete visibility into the application layer and when problems emerge, I can identify the source and work to fix it before it has an impact on the business. We can monitor all of our key sites and applications easily, immediately see if and where a problem is occurring, drill down into extensive details if needed, and isolate and fix the issue in real-time. It’s our eyes and ears for the network, and it’s made the engineering team shine.

Since deploying Visual TruView, our IT team now has complete visibility into application performance and can proactively manage the network.

TruView has allowed us to completely revamp site performance for the website. We use the full map view to manage all sites and can easily see when performance is degrading or if there is an outage – and immediately identify if it’s an application or networking issue. The information is easy to process and the search function allows us to quickly get graphs for usage, top conversations and more.

To make sure the networking team keeps on top of all performance issues, we created custom monitors and hourly reports that automatically get pushed to key team members and executives. This helps track everything from general performance data for key business applications to site transactions associated with e-commerce. If an issue emerges, the teams can instantly work to remediate.

From the moment TruView went live we had instant visibility into pressing issues and were able to immediately fix problems and do application rollups. And while the networking team owns access, we also provide access to the application team so they can instantly work on response time issues and drill down into individual connections that may be causing the problems. No more finger pointing, just data that helps isolate and fix a problem.

We also find Visual TruView simple to use. I can easily set alarms for application performance, site performance, network performance and more. There’s no need to manually correlate data and I can instantly prove or verify if a problem was the result of a networking issue.

The workflow is very logical and easy to use, and because it pulls all the data sources we need, we can get as granular as needed to isolate an issue. Every night it seems some issue occurs, whether that’s a server failure or a sales query, and TruView makes it easy to log in, put in a source destination and get results on any activity and how it impacted performance. It’s a critical tool for our day-to-day management of performance.

I can't imagine doing my job without Visual TruView. Previously we couldn’t provide concrete answers on performance issues. Now we can…and with extensive detail, which allows us to prove the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of a problem.

With a team of just three engineers and a network spanning the country, we required a solution that provided support for each location’s specific data centers, servers and storage without requiring a vast amount of engineering support. With hundreds of people on the network at any given time, identifying and troubleshooting end-user delays was an important and time-consuming issue for our engineering team. We needed visibility into each data center and the ability to quickly identify and segregate network issues from application problems.

With such a small team of engineers managing all the networking needs — from plugs, to wiring, to power — it was challenging for us to dedicate the required amount of time to troubleshooting end-user issues, especially with a user base spread across the country. It was nearly impossible for us to tell where an issue was coming from; was it a network problem? A smaller location based issue? We just didn’t have the visibility we needed to fix issues efficiently and still have time to dedicate to our other pressing projects.

In addition to normal internal network issues, we utilize many different applications throughout our three data centers, including a newly implemented video over IP capability that allows our geologists to stay on site and still participate in key company meetings. Because of the large number of internal and external applications running at any given time, in any location, our engineers were tasked with solving issues without any clear knowledge of the origin – whether network or application based.

Often problems would arise in Tulsa that had to be diagnosed and fixed from a different location. A large building and hundreds of different devices connecting to the server at any given time hindered the troubleshooting process and often non-vital issues were left unresolved and became the new normal end-user experience.

Our team also faced the challenge of managing third party, subscription-based applications that weren’t always performing up to standard. Conversations with vendors yielded few results and most users were left dealing with a slower, less efficient process.

We chose Fluke Networks OptiView XG to begin monitoring our biggest data center, located in Tulsa. The OptiView XG allowed our engineers to track the normal network use levels and establish a benchmark to compare degraded performance to. Currently, we use the OptiView XG mainly as a diagnostic tool, running continuously and conducting network assessments, validating new infrastructure and devices, testing service provider SLAs, and troubleshooting problems from end to end.

After our success using the OptiView XG, we expanded our Fluke Networks’ product line to include the Visual TruView. With TruView’s Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Network Performance Monitoring (NPM) combined capabilities, we are able to identify, test and resolve issues across LAN, WAN or Cloud environments and across multiple data centers.

The entire team tested several different product solutions initially, but Fluke Networks provided the visibility we needed to make a discernable difference in our network performance and engineer time management. With the TruView, we’re able to identify an issue, zero in on the location and solve it quickly.

With the TruView and OptiView XG helping to streamline our networking troubleshooting process, our engineering team now has the ability to remotely identify, diagnose and resolve our connectivity problems.

Using Fluke Networks TruView and the OptiView XG together allow us to shed light on issues that pop up when managing a cross-country network. It gives the entire team insight we’ve never had before and enables us to differentiate between normal traffic and bigger problems. It’s a great tool for not only day-to-day network monitoring, but also troubleshooting and effectively leading us to issue resolution.

In one specific example, my team was called in to deal with an application problem reported by a group of users in Tulsa. It turned out the users were all on the 14th floor of the same building. The IT team first used the OptiView XG to eliminate some obvious potential causes with the network on that particular floor and then used TruView to see how the performance on that floor compared to other floors. With the network ruled out as the cause of the issue, TruView helped to identify a file server that had been configured improperly after a power outage.

In addition to dealing with our own internal network issues, Fluke Networks’ tools have allowed us to help identify and resolve third-party application issues as well.

In one instance, using the OptiView XG, our engineers were able to log into an end user’s machine, take a packet capture then decode it using Fluke Networks ClearSite Analyzer software, which showed specific metrics around application performance.

The data showed an application problem that was a surprise to the vendor. While they were able to fix the problem and improve the end user experience, without the conclusive data provided by the Fluke Networks tools, we may have been lost in an endless cycle of back-and-forth between the internal team and the application company.

Without Fluke Networks, we just wouldn’t have the same visibility. It’s an essential part of our network infrastructure.

Recently, our government moved forward with a plan to combine two separate county councils into a single entity. One of the more complex tasks involved in the merger is the creation of a single, unified IT infrastructure for the county’s services and public-facing websites. The €1.8 million IT consolidation project includes the creation of a primary data center and disaster recovery site connecting to 57 remote county offices and sites over a variety of connections (point-to-point, VPN, private DSL, MPLS, etc.).

When completed, the network will include a mix of internal applications, public-facing websites and portals for services such as housing, water, roads, environment, planning and other key local government functions. In addition to standard business applications for communications, productivity, CRM and financial management, the network will also host some bandwidth intensive GIS and mapping applications. It will also support remote access and a variety of mobile services and applications.

Creating a single unified network across all of our county is a major undertaking. All of the merged authority’s back-end infrastructure will be located in the North of the county. As a result, all WAN services from the Southern part of the county are being relocated and re-terminated at a separate head end. Major sites in the south of the county will send traffic out through a switch core, up the point to point link to be dropped off in the primary data center core. About 800 users will be connecting to services hosted in the data center, of which approximately 450 will be from the southern part of the county.

The technical complexity of merging existing systems, applications and data was just one of my major concerns. We are especially conscious of the fact that users from the Southern part of the county are sensitive to performance issues in light of the division of labor and responsibility for the unified network. Being able to remotely diagnose and solve network and application problems is a priority.

We need a tool that can give us a complete picture of what is happening with applications, servers and the network across the entire county. Right now, we’re still building the network. But in the medium term, it’s important for us to be able to isolate the source of performance issues so we can get application problems on the desk of the applications team and network problems to the network team so they can address them quickly.

We chose the Fluke Networks Visual TruView appliance to provide the application and network performance monitoring we need. TruView leverages key data sets such as stream-to-disk packet storage, application response time, transactional decode, IPFIX (NetFlow), and SNMP to present analytics through a single reporting interface. As TruView processes analytics from these data sets, it time correlates the results providing cross-functional IT teams such as network engineering, application, and server teams with a new found ability to work more collaboratively and solve problems fast. We deployed TruView directly in our data center core.

With TruView you can get a high-level overview of what’s going on with a particular site or a particular application very quickly. It’s very easy to interpret. We can see which applications are having or causing problems. With our previous solution, it took much longer. And, of course, with TruView you can drill down into the data when you need to take a closer look.

I’ve been a user of Fluke Networks products for more than 12 years. We even had one of the earliest OptiView portable network monitoring devices which was extensively used across the network. So when it came time to choose a performance monitoring solution, I knew Fluke Networks could deliver.

We had no identified budget for a TruView appliance this year, but we could clearly see the benefits we could realise from deploying the solution. We managed to identify savings and re-prioritise some other projects within our budget in order to fund purchase of the TruView. We chose the TruView because it offered better value than the other performance monitoring solutions we saw.

Before deploying the TruView, performance monitoring was fairly manual. We’d used and were very familiar with NetFlow. With TruView, we have a much better view of application performance, particularly from the user perspective.

For example, we had an application response time issue with Exchange. TruView helped to isolate the particular server that was the root of the problem. As the launch of our unified network approaches, TruView has helped my team find “bits and pieces” of things that might have impacted application performance had they gone undetected.

Another recent example of practical use was an issue in which slow user logins were being reported from the southern end of the network. Using the TruView, within minutes we eliminated the point-to-point link, server side performance and end user response times and firmly diagnosed the issue to be local to the southern end of the network. This is exactly the type of scenario we knew the TruView could help us with. Prior to this it would have required an exhaustive search to figure out what exactly or where exactly the issue was.

As the launch of the new, unified network gets nearer I see TruView becoming even more useful. We’re looking forward to seeing how much more it can do. I don’t think we’ve taken full advantage of it yet.

Fluke Networks is a well known name when it comes to network testing hardware and devices. That being said, their Visual TruView monitoring software is top notch and one of the best SNMP/monitoring solutions I have seen.

I have used the competitors products in the past, namely WhatsUp Gold and others, and they don't even come close to offering what Fluke does with their product!

The way that TruView presents its information, via a HTML5 front-end applet with the visual and textual renditions of the data is superb, the dashboards are full featured and make it easily readable to even the entry level IT professionals. It helps you narrow down the problem areas quickly and efficiently, and drill in to fix the issue with little to no downtime.

From what little I've used this solution (I've only deployed it twice), it has quickly become my "go-to" for my clients when their in house IT needs a management solution, and especially when I am doing the management myself!