The whole package is valuable.

Personally, as a network engineer, the ability to identify what traffic on the link is consuming all the bandwidth at any given time, and provide immediate feedback to the business, is the most valuable feature.

We've also got the advanced reporting on the security side of it, not the NetFlow side. We've always had that integrated into our SIEM solution. It's one of the things you can add on top of what Plixer offers as a base package. It runs analytics over all the NetFlow and then provides signature-based recognition of problems in the network environment and provides that feedback through a reporting mechanism. We've customized it to push that into our SIEM solution.

One feature I found most valuable in Plixer Scrutinizer is the very extensive reporting. Reporting is very flexible, though sometimes you need a little bit of support from Plixer Scrutinizer to create custom-made reporting in a very short time. Reporting is a very strong feature of the product.

Another valuable feature of Plixer Scrutinizer is more on the side of how you can implement it. It is running on a virtual appliance or a physical appliance if you have a very large network, but competing systems sometimes run on a Windows platform where you have to install a lot of Windows and databases that are appliance-based. As for Plixer Scrutinizer, you just need to install it with the right specs, and you have a working appliance, and this is a plus for the product.

It's agnostic as far as what your network gear is. As long as it supports an sFlow, JFlow, NetFlow, some kind of flow monitoring, Plixer will support it very well.

It also facilitates the enrichment of the data context of network traffic because you get a very clear picture of what's going on across your wires. I gave my managers the following example: If I can't see into the wires regarding what's going on across them, then I can't really manage them or troubleshoot things. Scrutinizer allows me to do a little bit of both. It allows me to analyze things — not to the point of being a packet analyzer; it doesn't do that and that's not its function — and can give me an idea and point me in the right direction if I'm troubleshooting something. 

It can also be what I would call a "projection tool." If you do daily or weekly or even monthly reports, it'll keep pretty good track of how much your bandwidth utilization goes up or down, allowing you to do predictive analysis via some of their reports. It's helped me know whenever I've had a circuit that was heading towards saturation.

The insight the solution provides as a result of its correlation of traffic flows and metadata is unique. It provides you with a unique perspective that I've only found with a couple of other tools. There are other tools out there that will do what Scrutinizer does. But what I have found with Scrutinizer is that it does it very quickly. I've taken 25 million individual data fragments from the different sensors, and it has graphed that and mapped it and presented a picture within 30 seconds. It has a very efficient database algorithm that I am really impressed with.

I do believe, if you ask the CEO of Plixer, that speed is one of their guiding milestones. They have a goal of being able to present data to the user, whenever it's requested, within 30 seconds or 60 seconds. In comparison to what I had previously, I could start a report, go to lunch for an hour or hour-and-a-half, come back, and it would still be grinding away on the database and not have generated the report. When I do that same type of analysis with Scrutinizer, I'm able to see that report within 30 seconds.

One of the most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer is the reporting, particularly how easy it is to drill down into the reports. Another valuable feature of the solution is its overall visibility. It's great. I also liked Plixer Scrutinizer in terms of deployment time and that it's very simple to set up. Once you get the appliance set up and connected, the customer starts to see results immediately, versus other solutions where that could take a while.

Plixer Core Platform is a valuable feature and a good software. Plixer Scrutinizer uses NetFlow analysis to monitor whatever is there in a network. Price-wise, Plixer Scrutinizer is not an expensive product. Basically, Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features.

Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that can integrate with any other brand or product in the market, so it is not an area of concern.

History features are the most useful for going back and looking at when a problem has been reported, anything prior to immediately right now. A lot of it is, if we had really slow traffic over the weekend, and I come in on a Monday, it will not be slow now. So, I have nothing to look at, it's in the history.

The solution helps to enrich the data context of our network traffic. It allows me to see what applications are most in use on a slightly historical basis, going back a day or week at tops. It allows me to tune QoS or traffic shaping around what's being used. It saves me from having to unnecessarily upgrade, if I don't need to.

It is an easy go-to tool.

As I didn't get it fully up and running, I can't really say what features were best. 

• Being able to monitor VPN user traffic has been nice. 
• Being able to monitor interfaces, in general. 
• We do a little bit of reporting, but we're just getting into that.

In general, there are multiple valuable features, but the ability to view the status of the top-10 at a glance is helpful. We immediately know which link is over-utilized or heavily used. We watch the traffic on different network links. For example, we can see what's going on in New York, how much of the network traffic is on New York links and how much of it is in different cities, wherever our customer has offices. That's a good feature, and it's all in real-time.

We can also run reports. We can generate reports for specific links and look at the historical data.

It has a very user-friendly interface. 

The mapping is most key. It is very important for us and is very nice. It's important for us to see who is communicating with what and where. So, we have had many requests to understand in the network which devices are connected to others. Most people don't have this information or are able to establish a map of data flow everywhere around the network. Scrutinizer can really help with this. We are using it to understand who is talking to what, how, and which protocols can help us to improve security and analyze flow.

We use the flow analysis and graphical interface to analyze a different flow along with using some filters in order to drill down where the problem is coming from. These are the main features that I use Scrutinizer for. We implement them in specific reports. But, with so much information, in the end, we had to stop.

When comparing Plixer Scrutinizer to NetFlow Analyzers and Microfocus NPS (Network Performance Solution), the features I found most valuable in Plixer Scrutinizer are the ease of access, particularly in the GUI, and the ease of the solution.

The most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer are its ease of use, accessibility, and UI.

The whole thing is valuable because it's such a massive product. We love every bit of it. We use every bit of it that we can. The reporting and generating troubleshooting reports would be the best feature; our host-to-host conversation reporting.

Visualization of the network traffic is the most valuable feature. It allows you to drill into information quite quickly.

The solution helps enrich the data context of our network traffic. It allows us to easily visualize data flows and data usage. This helps keep management happy.

• The automatic reports that we use for statistical purposes.
• The security analytics.
• The security alarms.

The most valuable features of the solution are the ability to track what a device is doing and to go back historically. It is also able to go down to, and identify, very low levels of traffic. It gives us 100 percent reporting on network activity.

It's valuable in two cases. It assists in network issues and it helps the security of the infrastructure, so that we can see what would normally be innocuous levels of traffic. If people are "tapping on doors" with very low levels of traffic, trying to do scans and the like — we can detect and identify that. We can then set up the scene to alert us when that happens and that's very useful. That is something that we would normally miss.

Scrutinizer also very much helps enrich the data context of network traffic. It can integrate with Active Directory and with other security products like Cisco Identity Services Engine. We can get context-based information from those sources. So we've not only got the traffic levels, but now we've got the context from which those sources are taken. That's very useful.

The insight the solution provides as a result of its correlation of traffic flows and metadata means I can tell you who's doing what at any time.