Initially, we had some issues, teething issues, while setting up. But over time, we overcame all that by sending folks to get some training and to get more familiar with the devices and more familiar with the network topology. That's a given whenever you set up a new device; you do have teething issues when setting it up the first time. We've learned a lot in terms of setting up the first one and going forward it should be easier.

Our first deployment took about six months.

In terms of our implementation strategy, we were trying to do analytics in real-time; that was our goal, to begin with. Obviously, Corvil offered that solution. We set it up in in a lab environment to start with. And then we made that device production-ready. The initial setup, the testing, and making sure that everything was fine, and then moving it to production, that's what took some time. Going forward it will be easier to add more devices if need be.

As for maintenance, it requires a small staff because, while the device is being used actively, we are not making any major changes. Even the business side gets to view the system through the Corvil interface. When we need changes, that's when we would need someone who is certified in Corvil. That's when we need more experienced folks, but right now it's on "autopilot."

Our initial setup was quite a while ago. It was somewhat complex. 

Turning on a new machine now is pretty simple. Send some traffic to it and their protocol discovery is pretty good at what it does. As a matter of fact, it gives me more stuff that I have to delete later than it lacks.

If I get a new CNE in, it takes a couple of days to get the network hooked up, etc., but once it's receiving data, it'll be up and functional in less than a week.

We have another group that actually handles the bare metal pieces of it, the racking, the network connections, and the software installation. There are four or five people in that group, but they don't just do Corvil, they do all monitoring tools.

Our initial setup was straightforward. 4 appliances with a central manager. Our SE from Corvil came in and helped us do the initial setup. It was very good because he let me do the work, just telling me what to do. His attitude was, if you do it, then you will remember how to do it, rather than having him do it for me. That was really good. It was very straightforward. We gave him a few flows that we were interested in and he showed us how to set them up. We had a few follow-up questions which he handled via email. It was very straightforward.

Altogether, the setup took a couple of weeks to get it to where we wanted it to be. Some of that was scheduling because we had to schedule to get this guy in, but from initially unpacking the box and sticking it in our data center, cabling it up, to actually spitting out useful data, it took a couple of weeks.

In terms of our implementation strategy, we did a PoC beforehand, which gave us an idea of how we wanted it set up. From there, we came up with a plan of having one per DC plus the central manager. Once we made the decision to buy Corvil, we put a little bit more effort into thinking about what places in the network we wanted to monitor, where were the key points we wanted to put SPANs and TAPs in. We also thought about how we were going to use our aggregation switches. In terms of Corvil itself, apart from the PoC, we didn't spend a lot of time with it. In some respects, we didn't know all it could do at that point. We knew the basics and we had to make a decision on what we saw in the PoC. So some of that came out during setup. We knew, for example, that we wanted to monitor our FX feeds. But when we got to the day where the SE came, he showed us that we could display this kind of view and have these kinds of metrics displayed. It was a case of, "Oh, you know that's actually good." And then we fine-tuned it from there.

For the deployment, it was pretty much just me involved from our side. Since it was deployed and configured, it has been just me maintaining it. That is a bit of a sore point because it makes me something of a single point of failure. We have to sort that out because it's not sustainable in the long-term.

We have about 15 people using it. They're mostly application development guys. Obviously, we network guys use it for troubleshooting and the like. But in terms of the non-infrastructure teams, they are mostly application developers or those who run those teams.

The initial setup was a little complex, like understanding how the whole flow has to be set up within Corvil and what kind of measurements have to be added. It takes time to set up the latency configuration formation. Whenever there is a new protocol, we have to configure the latency setup for different protocols. For example, if you want to put a correlation between the FIX protocol or any different protocol, then we have to add a new configuration.

If this could be something, which could be built into the decoders, then this would help. This is the most complex part of the setting up Corvil. Otherwise, setting up new sessions and everything else is fairly simple. 

It took around six months for the monitoring to be set up from the time when the order comes through from the client to when it reaches application, then when it goes out to the exchange. Now, we have a bit more complex flow which we have incorporated. Since, we now have more understanding and experience on this tool, it take less time to set up a more complex flow: Around a month or so. So, the time frame it takes depends on the types of environments for different flows and on the experience and understanding of these flow.

Our implementation strategy was understanding the requirements, different points in the flow, and the subnet groups for catching the traffic, along with spanning the correct traffic to those CNEs, adding the class maps, etc. We first putting together all of the requirements:

• What kind of subnet groups do we require?
• What kind of class maps would be required?
• What are the different protocols that are need to be used for a particular flow?

Once that is all in place, then we had to work on putting together the configuration and sessions, laying down all the requirements, such as what kind of feature will be required to be able to set up the whole flow, making things easier. If you have everything in place, you have written down what may be required, then you can just fill up those blanks.

When the process was complex, then it took more time. When it was less complex, it took a day or two. This took two people from our front office support team.

After it is deployed, there will be four to five people who will be monitoring Corvil. It is a very high-level tool. There are hourly reports which are generated. We just check whether we are getting the right stats. If something is missing, then we just go back and see what is required to be added, or what needs to be further investigated. Then, we raise a backlog ticket for it.

While I wasn't part of the initial installation, I did go through the Tera upgrade, which was a fairly significant build-out. It took a long time, approximately nine months front to back.

The initial setup was straightforward. Everything is almost done out-of-the-box, as the decoders do all the work. Plus, Corvil has session auto-discovery built-in, making it pretty simple.

The previous upgrade was pretty smooth. Though, from the previous version to 9.4, it did take a while. However, once you have 9.4 loaded and install 9.4.2, it's pretty quick. The major releases can take up to an hour per box, but the deltas, like 9.4.2, take about 20 minutes.

The initial deployment process took about a week. This includes prepping switches and dashboards, installing the license, and having LDAP working.