Goodwill’s network, built with Cisco Systems routers and switches, connects headquarters to regional retail stores. The organization used an open source network monitoring tool, But, as noted in this Search Networking report, getting an alert about a clogged pipe doesn’t tell you how to identify the source of the clog.
“For Branski, the trouble with resolving network strain was a matter of scale. End users throughout the nonprofit’s 56 locations — interlinked through an MPLS connection, plus another 13 remote sites via VPN or ISDN — draw on more than 120 physical and virtual servers at corporate headquarters in Milwaukee.
“Using a NetFlow traffic analysis tool, Branski saw that automatic updates for virus scanners and Windows — contrary to what he had thought — were not configured to act as background transactions.”
