When I first reviewed the TruView solution today it was quite comprehensive but through the version releases Fluke Networks and now NETSCOUT have continued to make the product better. Whilst Citrix could be handled better like their nGenius product line (which does an excellent job) it copes with the centralised type of deployment TruView covers.

One thing I would like to see is the ability to operationalize it with some templates for various groups. Right now, it's primarily used by the networking group, and then we'll point other groups into a screen that they'll use to do analysis. It would be great if we could just have a set of heuristics that server guys can use or the database guys would use.

One area that could be improved is the reporting features. In the version transformation from ten to eleven, the platform changed from a Windows-based platform to a Linux-based platform. As a result, the previous reporting feature using Crystal Reports was no longer available. Instead, we had to generate PDF dashboard reports, which were not as flexible. It would be great to have better reporting options in the future.

When it comes to future releases, TruView is reaching its end-of-life, so they are not developing or selling it anymore. However, the replacement software from NetScout, called NetScout Engineers One Monitoring Software, is close but more focused on engineering and technical aspects. It would be great if the new software could provide similar views and data representation as TruView, as there are still a few things that our customers would like to see but are missing in the current solution. For example, improvements in data representation.