Unlike other analysers, ClearSight’s network APPLICATION analyser shows you all the activity on your network via a simple and intuitive user interface.
 Features of the High-level Screen
From the main screen, you can:
- Display Application, Network, or Physical layer overviews.
- Perform real-time network monitoring, capture and store packets, do in-depth
postcapture analysis, or analyze packets stored in trace files.
- Perform real-time packet decode.
Although the main screen of the ClearSight Analyzer presents an immediate comprehensive
high-level overview of your network, you can also click screen elements such
as counters or icons to drill down to more detailed information. This makes it
really easy to access the information you need. Examples of this detailed information
include:
- A ladder view, showing the progress of a network transaction in plain language.-
- A hierarchical presentation that lets you use hyperlinks to successively display
total application activity, then specialize the display to a particular server,
further specialize to a particular flow, and finally observe the content of that
flow.
- A one-touch filter menu, opened by right-clicking on a particular connection
that filters the display to show packets from that connection only.
 The Ladder
View
The ClearSight Analyzer displays the transactions in each application flow
in a ladder format.
This simplifies the complex message interaction between client
and server, by displaying the ladder interaction sequentially.
The use of color
coding makes it easy to spot errors or abnormalities in the communication protocol.
When troubleshooting, this saves you from having to make a handwritten diagram
of the communication flow based on the packet translation from the protocol analyzer.
The ladder diagram itself can be saved to a pdf file.
The ladder diagram is not
restricted to trace files only – it can also show the
traffic during real-time network monitoring, to give an on-the-spot view of the
communication flow.
Multi-segment Ladder Views
The exchange of packets between multiple nodes, including telephone terminals
and relay servers, can be automatically grouped by call and displayed in a multi-segment
ladder view. The entire sequence, from initiating the connection, to the conversation
between telephones, and the disconnection can be viewed. View screen: Figure
3
The multi-segment ladder view is available for real-time monitoring, for postcapture
analysis, and for trace files.
 Audio and Video Playback
The ClearSight Analyzer can play back the content of
an audio or video flow, whether from real-time monitoring or from a trace file,
provided that the flow uses one of the supported CODECs.
Supported audio CODECs
include:
- G.711 (U-law), G.711 (A-law), G.729, GSM mono, G.723 mono, G.722, G.726
- 4-bit mono DVI (8 kHZ, 11.025 kHz, or 22.05 kHz)
- MPEG layer (I, II, III)
- AMR (GSM, 3GPP)
Supported video CODECs include:
- JPEG (411, 422, 111)
- H.263 (Mode A and Mode B)
- MPEG4
VoIP Analysis and VoIP QoS Reports
The ClearSight Analyzer is a particularly valuable
VoIP test tool, making it easy to perform voice quality measurement and VoIP
troubleshooting.
You can generate a QoS report for a VoIP call simply by selecting
the desired call and clicking the Report tab. Measured speech quality parameters,
including packet loss, jitter, R value, and MOS are displayed graphically. A
VoIP report which includes an overall ranking out of five stars, is generated
automatically. You can save the report in html, pdf, or rtf format.
View screen:
Figure 5
Expert Alert Function
In addition to displaying overall network activity on the
main screen, the ClearSight Analyzer continuously compiles and updates a list
of Issues (faults in the communication sequence) This feature is available during
real-time monitoring and also when analyzing trace files.
Each issue is listed
with source and destination addresses, a description, the associated application,
time stamp, and a color coded icon indicating severity. You can sort the Issues
list simply by clicking on a column heading. You can also drill down to the associated
communication flow by right-clicking on an alert during postcapture analysis.
View screen: Figure 6
In a separate tab, the ClearSight Analyzer presents a list
of Problems (faults that exceed a user-specified threshold value). You can see
at a glance which application, server, or flow has the problem.
Comprehensive
Filter Functions
The filter function in the ClearSight Analyzer supports not just
simple address and protocol filters, but also filters based on application commands,
IP subnets, data patterns, and many other criteria.
Complex conditions can be
specified with ease by freely adding and combining filter conditions using AND,
OR, and NOT operators within the filter definition screen.
Once specified, a filter can be saved with an assigned name, and then
reused at a later time, either as a capture filter, or as a display filter when
analyzing a trace file.
The filter function can be used to create a more powerful
packet monitor tool, by letting you capture only the packets that interest you.
The
ClearSight Reporter
The powerful reporter function in the ClearSight Analyzer
can collate statistics on items such as applications, servers, and network status,
and use this information to generate standardized reports automatically. The
reports can be collated and displayed based on either real-time network monitoring
results or the contents of packets contained in a trace file.
Real-time / Trace File Reports
Reports based on the accumulated data for each
statistical data item can be generated immediately, simply by clicking the report
item in the list displayed on the screen. The reports can be printed in the format
in which they appear on the screen, or saved in html, pdf, or rtf format. User-defined
reports that combine selected report items can also be generated.
The ClearSight
History Reporter (option)
Network, application, and other trend reports can be
produced based on real-time statistical data accumulated over longer periods of
time. You can choose how often to save the data from a range of 1 to 60 minutes.
You can specify the period covered by the report – for example, yesterday, last
week, or any period you choose. By clicking on statistical items such as hosts
or frame counts in the cumulative report for the specified period, you can generate
a trend graph for that item. You can select multiple items and display them superimposed
on the same graph. You can save the reports in html, pdf, or rtf format.
Wireless
Support
By using the ClearSight Analyzer to open Sniffer TM format (*.cap) or
pcap format trace files captured from a wireless LAN environment, you can perform
packet decoding and application flow analysis on WiFi packets in the same manner
as in Ethernet analysis. WEP key decoding is supported – encrypted packets can
be analyzed in the ClearSight Analyzer by entering the WEP key. Note that a third-party
Wireless LAN analyzer must be used to capture the original WLAN packets.
A wireless IP telephony (Voice over WiFi phone) trace file can be opened in the
ClearSight Analyzer, and the ladder display can be used for signaling analysis.
Voice quality measurement based on the RTP packets can also be performed. View
screen: Figure 11
The ClearSight Analyzer also lets you analyze WiFi packets encapsulated
in the LWAPP, GRE, and VLAN headers used over Ethernet in a wireless LAN switch
environment. This enables real-time application monitoring of encapsulated WiFi
packets sent over Ethernet between AP-WLAN switches.
IPv6 Support
In environments where both IPv4 and IPv6 are used, statistical data
is listed separately for both types of IP packets. This provides an easy way
to see what proportion of packets use IPv6.
Advanced functions such as real-time application flow analysis, ladder views,
and content playback can be used in an IPv6 environment without any special setup.
You
can specify filter settings for IPv6 addresses just as for IPv4 addresses. You
can also save IPv6 addresses in the Address Book and display them as host names
within the ClearSight Analyzer.
With the (optional) ClearSight IP Multicast Visualization
Module you can:
- Generate tables for each MLD (Multicast Listener Discovery) group ID.
- Measure PIM-SM (Protocol Independent Multicast – Sparse Mode) Join and Prune response.
- Analyze IPv6 fragmentation.
ClearSight Packet Generator Option
The (optional) ClearSight Packet Generator
lets you perform network load testing and traffic reproduction testing. This
function can operate in packet mode (in which a specified packet is sent repeatedly)
and buffer mode (in which traffic from a trace file is reproduced on the network).
The
Packet Generator software is available as a standalone product or within the
ClearSight Analyzer.
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