Cloud APM (CAPM)

Cloud APM (CAPM) is the process of monitoring user experience (UX) for application programs that are running in private and hybrid cloud environments. An important goal of any CAPM initiative is to provide administrators with the ability to identify a poor user experience quickly so the cloud service can be turned off until the issue is resolved.

Measuring the user experience for public cloud-hosted applications usually requires an intelligent agent to be placed on the application server to monitor application response-time. CAPM tools can then be used to combine data from disparate monitoring silos into a correlation engine and dashboard. The dashboard makes data logs easier to read and saves IT staff from memory-dependent and error-prone manual correlation and analysis.

Before the advent of APM tools, application performance troubleshooting was a time consuming and tedious task. As organizations begin to move enterprise applications to the cloud, however, the need for a tool that monitors and manages the performance and availability of applications across a distributed computing environment has become a must-have.

pick chart

A PICK chart (Possible, Implement, Challenge and Kill chart) is a visual tool for organizing ideas. PICK charts are often used after brainstorming sessions to help a group identify which ideas have a high payoff and can be implemented easily.

A PICK chart is set up as a large grid, two squares high and two squares across. The PICK acronym comes from the labels for each quadrant of the grid:
Possible - ideas that are easy to implement but have a low payoff.
Implement - ideas that are easy to implement and a high payoff.
Challenge - ideas that are hard to implement and difficult to determine payoff.
Kill - ideas that are hard to implement and have low payoff.

PICK charts are useful for focusing discussion and achieving consensus. Once each idea from the brainstorming session has been placed on the most appropriate square, it becomes easier to identify which ideas should be acted on first.

AN ADVANCED PERSISTENT THREAT(APT)

An advanced persistent threat (APT) is a network attack in which an unauthorized person gains access to a network and stays there undetected for a long period of time. The intention of an APT attack is to steal data rather than to cause damage to the network or organization. APT attacks target organizations in sectors with high-value information, such as national defense, manufacturing and the financial industry.

In a simple attack, the intruder tries to get in and out as quickly as possible in order to avoid detection by the network's intrusion detection system (IDS). In an APT attack, however, the goal is not to get in and out but to achieve ongoing access. To maintain access without discovery, the intruder must continuously rewrite code and employ sophisticated evasion techniques. Some APTs are so complex that they require a full time administrator.

An APT attacker often uses spear fishing, a type of social engineering, to gain access to the network through legitimate means. Once access has been achieved, the attacker establishes a back door.

The next step is to gather valid user credentials (especially administrative ones) and move laterally across the network, installing more back doors. The back doors allow the attacker to install bogus utilities and create a "ghost infrastructure" for distributing malware that remains hidden in plain sight.

Although APT attacks are difficult to identify, the theft of data can never be completely invisible. Detecting anomalies in outbound data is perhaps the best way for an administrator to discover that his network has been the target of an APT attack.

distributed antenna system (DAS)

A distributed antenna system (DAS) is a way to deal with isolated spots of poor coverage inside a large building by installing a network of relatively small antennas throughout the building to serve as repeaters.

The antennas are physically connected to a central controller which is connected to the wireless carrier network’s base station. Because distributed antenna systems operate on RF spectrum licensed to wireless carriers, an enterprise cannot undertake a DAS deployment on its own without involving at least one carrier. 

Distributed antenna systems can be passive or active. A passive DAS grabs cellphone signals from antennas on the roof and runs them through leaky feeder cables throughout the building. In this approach, the signal leakage distributes the signal. In an active system, the signal is passed from roof antennas through fiber cables. Along the way, systems boost and amplify signals as needed.

Deployment is the most expensive stage of a DAS project because installing antennas and stringing fiber optical or coaxial cable between antenna modules and the controller are all very labor intensive processes. Generally, the carrier bears the costs of installing the system as well as maintenance expenses and many times, the carrier will only agree to take on these costs if the deployment fits within their network plans, covers a large number of subscribers or fills an significant gap in service. To keep the cost down, a DAS may be shared by multiple carriers.

Distributed antenna systems are transparent to mobile devices, providing both voice and data services to mobile devices just like any tower on a cellular network. Densely populated indoor spaces such as shopping malls, medical centers and high-rise buildings are all good candidates for DAS deployments.

Over the past five years, wireless data traffic has increased more than 20,000 percent on AT&T’s wireless network alone. People are no longer only accessing the Internet at home or in the office, they are doing it wherever they are from their mobile device.

AT&T network engineers are helping enable this shift in Internet usage habits by putting in place new technologies, such as Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS). A DAS network consists of many antennas tuned to precisely match the areas of a building or venue where boosted service is needed. AT&T DAS helps address the exponential network traffic growth at large venues and other hard to serve areas, such as sporting and entertainment venues, hospitals, college campuses, airports, hotels, conference centers and more.

DAS helps boost mobile broadband coverage, improve reliability in heavily trafficked areas and enhance network capacity, alleviating pressure on wireless networks when thousands of people in close proximity are actively using their mobile devices simultaneously. DAS is seamless and invisible for customers, but the results are easy to see. Data and voice capacity more than doubled at the pro sports venues that installed AT&T DAS in 2011.

The Face of Innovation

Behind the scenes making this innovation possible are AT&T engineers implementing a variety of strategies to meet the unique needs of each venue or building owner.

Chad Townes, Vice President of AT&T’s Antenna Solutions Group (ASG), oversees all of the company’s DAS installations. As Towne’s group began to notice smartphone trends and usage patterns skyrocket, increased emphasis was placed on getting ahead of the curve by installing DAS in a variety of locations, including sports venues. As Vice President of AT&T’s ASG, Townes is responsible for the end to end deployment of AT&T wireless infrastructure delivered via DAS. This includes the Sales, Negotiations, RF Engineering, Design, and Construction of both in building and outdoor DAS applications throughout AT&T’s network.

Bill Schlough, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for the San Francisco Giants, sensed mobile data demand was on a sharp rise as early as 2009, which led his charge to create an extremely tech-friendly atmosphere at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. Leading up to the 2010 baseball season, Schlough and his team already had an AT&T Wi-Fi system in place, but worked with AT&T to install a DAS to combat the data crunch coming from the nimble hands of smartphone-wielding fans at the ballpark.

Since the installation, the mobile experience at the ballpark has been night and day according to Schlough. While many fans might not know that DAS or Wi-Fi are powering their network at Giants games, they do notice the reliable and consistent mobile Internet connection they have come to trust and rely on to enhance the experience at games.

AT&T is a leader in the DAS space and annually installs hundreds of systems across the country. However, as new technology and opportunities present themselves, AT&T’s ASG will continue to adapt and modify the way its DAS perform and operate in order to provide the best possible end-user experience:

• Faster Speeds. As DAS deployments continue nationwide at sporting stadiums, campuses, airports and other venues, AT&T is beginning to upgrade and build new DAS with ultra-fast 4G LTE speeds.
• DAS on Wheels (DOW). At the recent major political convention in Charlotte, N.C. AT&T rolled out its first ever DAS on Wheels. The mobile DAS consisted of a mobile head end situated in an AT&T truck and portable antennas located throughout a major Charlotte Arena. AT&T is currently exploring future opportunities to deploy DOW.

Wireshark

Wireshark is an open source tool for profiling network traffic and analyzing packets. Such a tool is often referred to as a network analyzer, network protocol analyzer or sniffer.

Wireshark, formerly known as Ethereal, can be used to examine the details of traffic at a variety of levels ranging from connection-level information to the bits that make up a singlepacket. Packet capture can provide a network administrator with information about individual packets such as transmit time, source, destination, protocol type and header data. This information can be useful for evaluating security events and troubleshooting network security device issues.

Wireshark will typically display information in three panels. The top panel lists frames individually with key data on a single line. Any single frame selected in the top pane is further explained in the tool's middle panel. In this section of the display, Wireshark shows packet details, illustrating how various aspects of the frame can be understood as belonging to the data link layer, network layer, transport layer or application layer. Finally, Wireshark's bottom pane displays the raw frame, with a hexadecimal rendition on the left and the corresponding ASCII values on the right.

Because Wireshark can also be used for eavesdropping, an organization using the tool should make sure it has a clearly defined privacy policy that spells out the rights of individuals using its network, grants permission to sniff traffic for security and troubleshooting issues and states the organization's policies for obtaining, analyzing and retaining network traffic samples.

Improve data storage efficiency with archiving technology

Data archiving technology moves inactive data from primary storage to more suitable media. It may be used for compliance, governance or storage efficiency. By moving data to less-expensive media, an archiving strategy can help avoid new capacity purchases and reduce the amount of management required. Archiving is a mature technology with specialized products for various apps.

 Converged systems -- reconfigured bundles of storage, server and networking resources -- are popular as they can be deployed quickly and easily. Some vendors can tap their own product lines to assemble converged systems, while storage vendors partner with server and networking vendors.

Finally, our Quality Awards program collects user responses related to the service and reliability of storage products. We review the results of the eighth Quality Awards survey for enterprise and midrange backup and recovery software.