FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
June 10, 2005
Network Instruments, LLC
10701 Red Circle Dr.
Minnetonka, MN 55343 USA
NETWORK TESTING LABS REVIEWS OBSERVER AND SNIFFER NETWORK ANALYZERS
Network Instruments' Observer Suite and Gigabit Probe Outperform Network General's Sniffer Portable and
Sniffer Distributed s6040 in a Head-to-Head Review
June 10, 2005 – Minneapolis, MN - Network Instruments®, the leading developer of network analysis, monitoring and management solutions, announced today that it received top marks in a review by Network Testing Labs. The review weighed Network Instruments' Observer 10.1 and Gigabit Probe side-by-side with Network General's Sniffer Portable 4.8 and Sniffer Distributed Expert s6040. Network Instruments outperformed Network General in all categories.
“Our test revealed Network Instruments’ Observer Suite 10.1 is clearly the most capable, sophisticated, easy to use, and feature-rich protocol analysis product,” said Barry Nance of Network Testing Labs. “Observer Suite showed itself to be the most scalable, most protocol-savvy and most useful. Moreover the combination of Observer Suite and Gigabit Rack-Mount Probe emerged from our battery of stress tests with flying colors.”
According to the Network Testing Labs review, Observer Suite excels in its ability to detect and report WAN link latencies, capacity planning tools, number of protocol decodes supported, remote monitoring capabilities and general reporting. Observer Suite includes functionality not found with Sniffer such as:
- VLAN analysis
- SNMP support
- RMON device management
- “What-if” analysis
- Numerous drill-down capabilities
Observer’s location-independent user interface was particularly well praised.
“Observer Suite has the same consistent, well-designed interface when used on probe-equipped segments as it does for a local network segment,” said Nance. “Having to turn to different tools with different user interfaces, even ones from the same manufacturer, complicates a network troubleshooter’s life tremendously—especially when you’re faced with multiple concurrent problems to solve. Observer Suite’s well-designed, consistent and cohesive basic architecture is far superior to Sniffer’s different products-from-different programming-teams approach.”
Network Instruments is the only manufacturer to offer a complete line of fully-integrated network analysis probes with the ability to monitor multiple network segments, topologies, and locations with a single console. All products are built from a Distributed Network Analysis (NI-DNA™) architecture offering a unified code set for monitoring across multiple topologies and local/remote segments.
“We are delighted with the findings of the Network Testing Labs review,” said Douglas Smith, president of Network Instruments. “It is a very thorough and comprehensive review of both Observer and Sniffer. There is no doubt that Sniffer is a well-known product, but we’ve spent a tremendous amount of time creating a more complete, more robust and more valuable network analysis solution for the next generation of IT administrators. Reviews like these validate our efforts and are much appreciated.”
Network Instruments continues to receive awards and praise from industry analysts and independent testing labs. This is the eighth product award for Observer in the past year. As a result of the Network Testing Labs review, Observer 10.1 and the Gigabit Probe were awarded with two World Class designations for outperforming Network General’s products in the categories of monitoring and analysis, protocols, ease-of-use, reporting, documentation, and installation.
Observer Suite 10.1 retails for $3,995. The Network Instruments Gigabit Probe pricing begins at $9,995. Various options, configurations, and models are available. The company offers a full line of probes, including those for monitoring multiple trunked links, LAN, WAN, and 802.11a/b/g networks as well as probes designed for network forensics. More information is available at www.networkinstruments.com.
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About Network Instruments
Network Instruments is the industry-leading developer of distributed, user-friendly and affordable network management, analysis and troubleshooting solutions. The award-winning Observer family of products combines a comprehensive management and analysis console with high-performance probes and network TAPs to provide integrated monitoring and management for the entire network (LAN, 802.11 a/b/g, gigabit, WAN). All Network Instruments products are designed utilizing a Distributed Network Analysis (NI-DNA™) architecture. With NI-DNA, the Observer solution set simplifies network troubleshooting and management, optimizes network and application performance and scales to meet the needs of any organization. Founded in 1994, Network Instruments is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota with offices in London, Munich, Paris, Toronto, and multiple cities throughout the United States with distributors in over 50 countries. More information about the company, products, innovation, technology, NI-DNA, becoming a partner, and NI University can be found at: www.networkinstruments.com.
About Network Testing Labs
Network Testing Labs performs independent technology research and product evaluations. Its network laboratory connects myriads of types of computers and virtually every kind of network device in an ever-changing variety of ways. Its authors are networking experts who write clearly and plainly about complex technologies and products. Network Testing Labs' experts have written hardware and software product reviews, state-of-the-art analyses, feature articles, in-depth technology workshops, cover stories, buyer’s guides and in-depth technology outlooks. Our experts have spoken on a number of topics at Comdex, PC Expo and other venues. In addition, they've created industry standard network benchmark software, database benchmark software and network diagnostic utilities.
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