SecurActive blog

DTT stands for Data Transfer Time; it represents the time required to transfer the application response over the network from the server to the client. It has a huge impact on the perception of performance of the End User.

It is one of the three main factors that impacts directly the level of satisfaction of users with regards to their access to key application:

• RTT (Round Trip Time): how much time does it take for a packet to travel through the network from the … Continue Reading
  
  • 

Context
I was recently at a customer who just installed an APS unit in their Data Center.

Their infrastructure was fairly simple:

• they had all their production servers in the data center,
• their users were located either in the headquarters (where the data center is located) or in one of their nearly 100 remote sites; these sites were connected to the headquarters through an MPLS network.
• they are part of … Continue Reading
  
  • 

Dashboard are a report fitting on a single screen that put together all relevant information to understand how the application is doing. They are present in APS from version 1.7.

It is extremely useful :

• as a starting point for troubleshooting
• as a tool to communicate to management and business users on how the application is actually performing

What does it consist in?

It is … Continue Reading

SecurActive APS – Analyse d’une lenteur applicative – avec commentaires en sous-titres :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9O4Vt9CWVQ
SecurActive APS – Analyse performance ERP via Dashboard d’applications – avec commentaires en sous-titres:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5E_cjHqtuE
SecurActive APS – Analyse performance de temps de réponse DNS – avec commentaires en sous-titres:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSG0ohcNjy0

ICMP, network administration & security monitoring

What is ICMP?

ICMP stands for Internet Control Message Protocol and is also a common IP transport protocol. It seems pretty explicit, although most people reduce ICMP to ping reply commands, a good way to test whether a host can be reached through a network and how much it takes for a packet to make a round trip through the network…
Obviously ping and trace-route-like tools are very useful for network administrators… but there is much more to say about ICMP and the help it can provide for network administration & diagnosis.
In total, ICMP can … Continue Reading

The DNS (Domain Name System), which has been defined in detail in the RFC #1034 and 1035, is key to the good performance of TCP/IP networks. It works in a hierarchical way; This means that if one of the DNS servers is misconfigured or compromised, all the network, which relies on it, is also impacted. Although the DNS protocol is quite simple, it generates a significant number of issues: configuration issues, which affect the performance of the network as well as security issues, which jeopardize the network integrity.

The purpose of this article is to cover the … Continue Reading

In the recent weeks, we have heard (or worse we have experienced) a lot about viral threats, Zero day attacks, Conficker and polymorphic worms. Although these concepts designates totally different realities and phenomenons, they have much in common and especially when it comes to the consequences they may have on the security of your IT systems or to the defences we may put in place to mitigate them.
Let’s start by clarifying what they are, what differentiates one from the other and what they have got in common.

What is a zero day attack?

A zero day attack designates … Continue Reading

The DNS (Domain Name System), which has been defined in detail in the RFC #1034 and 1035, is key to the good performance of TCP/IP networks. It works in a hierarchical way; This means that if one of the DNS servers is misconfigured or compromised, all the network, which relies on it, is also impacted. Although the DNS protocol is quite simple, it generates a significant number of issues: configuration issues, which affect the performance of the network as well as security issues, which jeopardize the network integrity.

The purpose of this article is to cover the … Continue Reading

I do not know if you have had the chance to notice this, but here are two tables that show you the phenomenon: a zone populated with Windows clients has got larger RTTout values than one populated with Unix based clients.

RTTout for unix based clients

RTTout for windows based clients