Cisco NAM - Capabilities

[Adnan Fakruddin]

Hello All,

I'm looking for features of NAM 3.0 which may help on daily operational basis, below are few questions regarding the same:

1. Can NAM give real time data showing which IP addresses are connected to a particular server?

2. Can it provide details of which protocol is abruptly disconnecting between two end-points?

3. If I deploy Cisco NAM at my data centre in HQ, how would it help me monitor my traffic at remote sites, or does it help at all in this regards?

4. Can it differentiate between traffic coming from load balancers, WAN optimizers, SSL devices, etc apart from regular endpoints like servers, desktops?

5. I'm guessing it already does, but just wanted to know if NAM gives complete details of all ports active on a server and which protocols, clients connected to it?

6. Does it show real time traffic between two endpoints like two hosts on different remote sites?

Thank you.

Regards,

Adnan

[Vinod Arya]

NAM, NAM1, NAM2, NAM SoftAppliance, NAM WAAS Blade or NAM Appliances are hardware denominators. Each new hardware release brings new chipsets, designs and hardware capabilities to NAM.

But majorly, all features depends on the software version you are using, either NAM Software 4.x or 5.x.

As an example, it is like using a Windows Software on a old single processor or a new Quad-core processor, features may remain same. However, some of the selective features does depend on Hardware as well, but mostly the robust hardware adds performence.

The latest NAM3 has following architecture:

•Two high-performance CPUs with hardware-based packet acceleration offering greater than 10 Gigabit Ethernet monitoring performance, 24 GB RAM, 600 GB SATA hard disk drive, mini SAS, and 10 Gigabit Ethernet external storage interface, and 1 Gigabit Ethernet management interface

• 20 gigabit interface to backplane for Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN)/VLAN access control list (VACL) capture data sources, NetFlow, encapsulated remote SPAN (ERSPAN), Cisco WAAS, and Cisco Performance Agent (PA) data sources

For more details on NAM3 please visit this link:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/modules/ps2706/ps11659/data_sheet_c78-655374.html

-Thanks

[Vinod Arya]

The latest software for NAM till date is NAM 5.1(2). You can see Cisco Prime Network Analysis Module Software 5.1 User Guide or  Cisco Prime Network Analysis Module Software 5.1(2) Release Notes for more details on software and features it brings and have.

-Thanks