Cisco’s NAPA to See Through Networks

Cisco Systems next week will introduce new network
management tools to help users monitor enterprise voice, multimedia
and data applications.

The San Jose, Calif., equipment vendor’s Network Application Performance
Analysts (NAPA) offering will hit Tuesday and consist of analysis
software, appliances and customer support services.

With NAPA, IT managers can react to high-priority application performance
problems, as well as plan for changing network requirements.

For example, companies that are considering rolling out Voice over IP can see if their network is ready for the extra
traffic and determine how other applications would be impacted.

“With growing intelligence in the network, IT managers will need
progressively more tools and services that capture increasing levels of
visibility, as well as proactively plan and prevent network issues before
they occur,” Cliff Meltzer, senior vice president of the Cisco Network
Management Technology Group, said in a statement.

An industry analyst briefed on NAPA agreed.

“IT operations managers and network managers need to be better aligned as
they migrate to a more service-oriented architecture,” Zeus Kerravala, a
vice president at the Yankee Group, said in a statement. “The Cisco NAPA
solution integrates products and services into a single intelligent solution
helps customers better communicate within the IT organization.”

Most of the products and support services in the Cisco NAPA solution are
available now. Others will be available by March.