WildPackets' Habib Explains Critical Functions of Protocol, Network Analysis

At TMC’s (News - Alert) recent ITEXPO West 2011 held in Austin, Texas, TMC’s Group Editorial Director Erik Linask (News - Alert) had the chance to talk with WildPackets Director of Global Services, Joe Habib.

The company has been in the protocol and network analysis business for over twenty years, capturing network traffic and analyzing it, performing data forensics and other services.

Habib talked about some of the major changes he’s seen in the industry, starting with, of course, faster speeds. Scalability and handling greater data flows are major concerns, and as Habib said, companies are shoving a lot through the network these days, and when problems happen, really have no idea where the problem is.

He explained the advantage to being completely passive, as WildPackets (News - Alert) is. “We can capture all the data and report what we’re seeing,” instead of adding more strain to the network, as some other such services do.

A couple weeks ago TMC had the news that WildPackets announced the appointment of industry veteran Ron Lloyd as the company's vice president of Operations. Lloyd will be responsible for manufacturing operations, technical support and IT for WildPackets as the company expands further into the enterprise.

“When you can see graphically what’s happening, it’s a lot easier than looking at a packet decode,” Habib said, as he explained one of the advantages of WildPackets’ visualization service.

A critical function WildPackets can provide, Habib explained, is getting rid of a lot of the “finger-pointing” happening today. When there’s a problem on the network, of course each part blames the other one, but WildPackets can sit down and objectively analyze the entire network and come to an impartial understanding of where the problems really are.

“It’s just moving services to different segments of the network,” Habib said, outlining some of the other advantages of the approach.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, taking place Feb. 1-3, 2012 in Miami, Fla. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.