A little fine-tuning Concord adds performance, scalability to Network Health solution >BY CHRIS BUCHOLTZ, Intelligence & Software Editor

Improvements to the scalability of a Web-based network reporting and analysis solution will allow network managers to poll more than 5000 network elements at once and view this information in a single report.

Version 3.0 of Network Health, from Marlboro, Mass.-based Concord Communications Inc., provides carriers with a significant performance improvement over previous editions based on improvements to the software's framework. The system now consolidates historical data 10 times faster to speed up the report formatting process, making it easier and faster for network managers to store and report on data across a multitude of time periods.

"Now, tasks like analyzing and generating reports on managed services like frame relay that used to take all night and a number of servers, can be done in hours with a single server," said Brian Burba, product marketing manager at Concord. "Carriers can use those freed-up assets to perform other tasks, and the result is a more reliable product for the customer.

Large networks benefit from quicker exception reporting with the new version of the software, which Ameritech and MCI have used to monitor managed services. Exception reporting automatically generates reports highlighting any troubled network devices.

"We know there's a shortage of network analysts, so one of our goals has been to automate as much of the process as we can," Burba said. "The point is to help the carrier do as much as it can with fewer resources.

Network analysts at MCI, which uses the system to monitor its frame relay service, found that the new version allows them to generate reports on more specific topics to address the needs of individual customers while maintaining a complete view of the network.

"Not only does the software allow us to take greater advantage of the hardware investments we've made, but it's helping us from a human resources point of view, too," said Ray Kang, director of broadband marketing at MCI. "This new version allows us to consolidate several networks into a single view and then helps us 'slice and dice' the data automatically. The system has always allowed us to drill down into the data, but the new version gives us a better ability to focus our analyses.

Concord's focus on scalability is a welcome trend, according to Kang.

"We were well aware that this version was coming, and it was part of our decision to adopt Network Health in the first place," he said. "There's a big difference between a carrier-class tool and a customer management tool, and Concord seems to have made the jump quite well, although with the trend toward larger and larger networks, soon 5000 elements will seem like just a scratch.

Concord is planning to continue expanding the system's "ability to grow" in response to that trend, Burba said. "As real-time monitoring begins to become even more something the customers' want to do, we know that even more reporting capability will be needed," said Burba. "We're already going back to fine tune the engine for the next release. You just can't stand still in this market."

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