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Product Lifecycle: Extend

The  Extend workflow is all about getting the most long-term value from your Packeteer deployment.

To begin the Extend workflow, you should already have completed your Packeteer deployment and be using it on a day-to-day basis to manage the performance issues you had in mind with purchase.

If you need help deploying Packeteer products or integrating them into your operational habits, see the Deploy or the Operate workflow.

In Extend, you solve or avert more problems with either the latest application detection, additional features, supplementary management strategies, or additional units.

Answer or attend to the questions listed below on a regular basis:

Are new applications available for auto-discovery?

Packeteer continually adds to the applications its products automatically detect, identify, and classify. Perhaps a new one is common on your network. If you were to classify the application, then you could protect, contain, block, or pace it, as needed, with PacketShaper's shaping features.

With PacketCare, Packeteer's support program, you are eligible to receive plug-in modules. Plug-ins add the ability to classify an additional application without upgrading to a new release of PacketWise software. You can subscribe to a service that informs you via email of new updates and classification plug-ins. Also, you can examine the latest list of software images and plug-ins available for download. For more, see the instructions on downloading plug-ins.

New releases usually incorporate auto-classification of several new applications and protocols. You can peruse the latest complete list of all auto-discovered applications, protocols, and services. This list includes a column that indicates the software version in which the service was incorporated.

If you decide that the additional classification features in a new release warrant an upgrade, follow the instructions in PacketGuide's upgrade task. To download the latest software image, go to the support website and click the Software link. Log in and enter the serial number of your unit you wish to upgrade and select the software version. If needed, consult more complete information on upgrades.

PolicyCenter includes a file distribution service that can obtain the latest plug-in files from the Packeteer support website, then schedule a time to copy and install these files to PacketShaper units assigned to a PolicyCenter configuration. See Distribute Plug-In Files.

Are there other plug-ins available to enhance your current software version?

In addition to classification plug-ins, Packeteer offers other types of plug-ins that you can install into an existing software release, to expand its functionality. A plug-in can be a classification module, an Xpress compression algorithm, a set of adaptive response templates, a report (such as Host Analysis or Real-Time Graph), a configuration web page, or even a new feature (such as Site Tree Monitor). To see a list of plug-ins available for your software version, see Plug-In Descriptions. So that you can be automatically notified when new plug-ins are posted for download, make sure to subscribe to Packeteer's auto-notification service. For details on ways to download and install plug-in files, see Download Plug-Ins.

If you are using PolicyCenter, you should take advantage of its file distribution service to install plug-in files on all of the PacketShapers assigned to a configuration. See Distribute Plug-In Files.

Has your network topology experienced changes?

Some topology changes impact the manner in which you should deploy or use your Packeteer products. Suppose:

• You manage several branches with a single main-site PacketShaper. Over time, your site-to-site traffic has increased as you migrate from a pure hub-and-spoke topology to more of a meshed approach. You'll need to make a corresponding shift in PacketShaper strategy from a main-site WAN link topology to a distributed branch topology.
• Your organization's employees' work habits have changed. Many now work from home over a VPN connection. PacketShapers manage your inter-office traffic over the corporate WAN. But to manage performance for your telecommuters, your main-site's Internet link needs a PacketShaper too. It will juggle the demands of VPN and various types of web traffic.
• Your network is moving to a redundant-router topology for stability and availability, but you don't want to lose the benefits of Packeteer's traffic management. You'll need to change your PacketShaper placement to fit your new topology style.
• Each of your PacketShapers connects to a single LAN, but one location will now have two regular LANs and a DMZ. LAN Expansion Modules (LEMs) will solve your dilemma.
• Historically, 55 branches have had similar traffic mixes and loads, and all used a single main-site PacketShaper. However, the branches are no longer so similar in traffic mix and performance priorities. In addition, you are planning to expand the number of branches soon. A distributed branch topology will be more helpful.

Read about many deployment topologies and each of their implications in the paper titled "Packeteer Deployment Topologies." In addition, the Getting Started Guide has lots of topology information. Find different versions of the Getting Started Guide on the PacketShaper Documentation area of the customer support website.

Could you do more with what you have?

No matter what reasons you originally purchased Packeteer products, your current installation can probably solve many other problems for you.

Perhaps you purchased a PacketShaper to contain music downloads, or perhaps to ensure good VoIP performance, or maybe to allocate a prescribed amount of bandwidth to each user. Whatever your initial purposes, there are many other reasons to add to the jobs your PacketShapers handle. Perhaps one of the items on the following (partial!) list looks like a good idea for you:

• Detect and quantify the bandwidth wasted on retransmissions
• Assess an application's network, server, and total response times
• Get the information typically gathered by a protocol analyzer
• Insulate an application's users from the performance impact of their peers
  
• Detect and quarantine those users who use more than their fair share of bandwidth
• Notify yourself when something interesting happens
• Vary your traffic management strategy according to the clock or calendar
• Detect and/or limit the impact of denial-of-service attacks
• Manage Citrix performance
• Manage application performance for healthcare networks
• Control use of instant messaging, especially where it's disruptive (such as in the classroom)
• Manage the performance of streaming media
• Protect voice-over-IP and/or video-over-IP
• Integrate traffic management and MPLS solutions
• Protect the performance of an ERP application (such as SAP)
• Increase Link Capacity — Enabling and/or Tuning Compression

Is your PacketShaper reaching its capacity?

Over time, a variety of network changes or management-style changes can evolve that ultimately impact the effectiveness of your PacketShapers. Check the following items to make sure your model is still appropriate for your environment.

• Follow the procedure described in PacketGuide's Verify PacketWise Health under the heading Available Capacity. You'll find out if you are approaching your model's limits on the maximum numbers of classes, flows, partitions, and other items. The adaptive response feature is a useful way to monitor your unit's health.
• If you are planning an upgrade to your WAN link capacity, make sure your upgrade fits within your model's limits. Find the row for WAN link rates in the chart for your model's configuration limits and verify.

If you are nearing the edge of your model's capacities, consider an upgrade to another model. Consult the sizing information in Choosing an Appropriate Model.

Would you benefit from new services or features?

Suppose:

• You have been enjoying the advantages of the PacketShaper's monitoring features to gain insight into network and application behavior. But now, you'd really like to be able to impose changes on that behavior. Traffic shaping with the PacketShaper is your next step. You can purchase the Shaping Module software key for the upgrade.
• The PacketShaper has improved the efficiency of your network and the performance of several critical applications. Although you have restricted unsanctioned traffic, your WAN links are again crowded and straining to cope with the volume of required traffic. Packeteer's Compression Module is your next step. Again, you can purchase a software key for the upgrade.
• You have satellite or long-distance links causing high latency on your network. Or, perhaps you have a high-speed link with a small window size (such as Windows 2000 with a 16K window size) and moderate latency (30 ms). These environments might benefit from Packeteer's Acceleration Module. See the Link Utilization Calculator to determine whether your environment can benefit from acceleration, and then refer to the document, How Much do Applications Benefit from Acceleration?, to see if your applications are conducive to acceleration.

Packeteer frequently introduces new traffic-management products and features that help solve performance problems. It's difficult to define one place where you would be able to find only those items that are new since you last considered enhancements. In general, you can explore our website, especially the Products section, or contact your Packeteer reseller.