SolarWinds Deep Packet Inspection for Quality of Experience Monitoring1. Using Packet Analysis for Quality of
Experience Monitoring
is it the application or the network?
August, 2014
© 2014 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
2. © 2014 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
A Few Notes About Today’s Session
* Today’s content will cover using
packet analysis for quality of
experience monitoring
* Ask questions!!!
º No attendee left behind
º Ask questions using the chat box and
we will do our best to cover them
all
* Today’s session is being recorded
º Solarwinds.com
º Slideshare.com
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Jim Baxter
Performance Analyst &
Wireshark® Certified Network
analyst
PacketIQ®
Rob Hock
SolarWinds Product Manager
3. © 2014 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Agenda
* What is Deep Packet analysis?
* How is it Done?
* How can it be used?
* SolarWinds® Network Performance Monitor and Deep Packet
Inspection
* Q&A
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Deep Packet Analysis
* Also known as Deep packet
Inspection (DPI)
* Capturing (by making a copy of)
and analyzing the contents of
network packets that flow
between clients & servers
* Packets are typically captured
using a ‘TAP’ or switch port
‘mirroring’ or ‘spanning’
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Manual Packet Analysis
* Packet analyzers (or sniffers) are
typically moved around and used
as needed to troubleshoot specific
problems – no continual
inspection
* Requires a highly skilled user to
configure, perform captures, and
analyze the packet flows
* A number of vendors offer high
throughput DPI appliances, but
these can become very pricey
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Wireshark®
* Current industry standard analyzer
* Sophisticated capture & display filtering
* Specialized analysis & data screens
* Expert info window
* Support for over 1000 protocols
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What you can do with Packet Analysis
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* Network response time can be measured
* Application response time can be obtained
* Application traffic can be identified and categorized by ip addresses,
ports, protocols, or urls
* Is it the Application or the Network?
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Network response time
* Speed of light propagation delay
* Network routing & geographical
distance
* Serialization delay (wan links)
* Queuing delays (qos)
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Measuring network response time
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* TCP 3-Way Handshake
* Client sends server a ‘SYN’
Packet
* Server responds with a ‘SYN
ACK’ packet
* Clients returns an ‘ACK’
packet
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Measuring application response time
* TIME TO FIRST BYTE
* Client sends a ‘GET’ request
to server
* Server ‘ACKs’ the request
* Some Amount of time goes by
while server processes the
request and responds
* Server sends first data packet
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MANUAL CAPTURE SEQUENCE
NETWORK RTT = 69MS (FRAME #1 TO
FRAME #2 DELTA
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Client sends ‘get’ request
Client receives ‘ack’ in 263ms
Client receives first data packet in 1.163
seconds
Total server response time ~ 1.4 seconds
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Traffic distribution analysis
* Categorization &
measurement of network
traffic types based on IP
addresses, ports and
protocols
* Identify business vs. non-
business and potentially
malicious traffic
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SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
* Fault, Availability, Performance, &
Deep Packet Inspection
º Speeds troubleshooting, increases service
levels, and reduces downtime
º Monitors & displays response time,
availability and performance of network
devices
º Analyze user quality of experience using
deep packet inspection and analysis
º Improves operational efficiency with out-
of-the-box dashboards, alerts, and reports
º Automatically discovers network devices
and typically deploys in less than an hour
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Deep packet Inspection & Quality of Experience
* New in NPM version 11
* Easy-to-deploy software deep packet inspection and analysis sensors
* Quality of Experience dashboard for a quick summary of network and
application performance metrics
º Visual presentation of over 1200 application (i.e. Skype®, SQL, facebook®, etc…)
response times, classification (messaging, database, social, etc…), categorization
(business vs. non-business), and risk profile
º Visual presentation of network response time
º Graphical display of traffic volume and transaction count
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Summary
* Deep packet inspection and analysis has a number of benefits
º Network response time can be measured
º Application response time can be obtained
º Application traffic can be identified and categorized by ip addresses, ports,
protocols, or urls
º SolarWinds NPM provides affordable, easy-to-deploy DPI along with a
visual presentation of key application and network performance metrics
º You can finally answer the question: “Is it the Application or the
Network?”
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