Xangati brings new view to application management

Vendor Xangati this week released a new version of its application platform designed to give service providers a visual, real-time view of how applications are behaving on their network.

Xangati’s Application Management 2.0 offers a relatively lightweight appliance-based platform and a highly visual view of application performance that lets not just network engineers but others such as application owners or call center reps get a view of apps that might be affecting network performance.

The idea is to give carriers a much better understanding of how a variety of applications – from streaming media to BitTorrent downloads and beyond – are impacting network performance in a less invasive (and less expensive) way than a full-blown deep packet inspection (DPI) deployment, said David Messina, Xangati’s vice president of marketing.

“We take six weeks to deploy; DPI takes six months,” Messina said. “We’re zero footprint on the network versus DPI probes. DPI is really designed to control user behavior. Our platform is about giving visibility into the applications running across your infrastructure. Our platform can help you remove 10% to 20% of [improper] application activity without even getting into the debate about [peer-to-peer] or controlling user behavior.”

Xangati tries to bring a more proactive process to application management. Rather than red-, yellow-and green-light indicators and historical reports, Xangati’s platform lets service providers dive down into performance on a per-application and even per-user basis. Visual tools include the ability to view an “on-demand streaming video” of any application – which Xangati calls a Visual Trouble Ticket -- including the ability to DVR and play back an analysis of how that app is performing. It also includes tools for letting multiple users review a potential problem and collaboratively come to a solution.

Early deployers of the platform have seen its benefits. For instance, Michigan telco Agri Valley Communications uses the platform to manage applications across fixed wireless, DSL, 3G and VoIP networks. The provider found a legacy monitoring server consuming excess bandwidth and was able to take it out of commission.

Service providers need this type of view of application behavior to really understand the impact on the network before they start setting network policies or limiting usage, Xangati’s Messina said. “If you’re still asking, ‘What’s going on in my network?” then you aren’t ready to start setting policy.”

Xangati’s Application Management 2.0 appliance is available immediately, with pricing starting at $21,000.