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Managing Client Networks › How Client Networks Work › How Network-Based Reporting Works

How Network-Based Reporting Works

To monitor application performance across the network, the management console reports the average application response times across a client network rather than reporting on the response times for individual TCP sessions. Reporting at the network-level enables the management console to isolate a performance problem to a particular network.

When monitoring a client network that is defined with at least a 24 bit subnet mask (24 bit to 32 bit), the management console reports the actual client IP addresses that communicate with an application during a specified time interval. For example, reporting on the 191.168.1.0/24 network displays the actual client IP addresses that accessed the application.

Because the management console averages the application response time across the network, this information does not help you isolate which client computers were affected by a performance issue. Rather, this is simply a list of clients that communicated with the application during the specified time period. This level of detail is not required to isolate the network as the source of a performance problem.

The example lists client IP addresses that communicate with the application.

If you create a client network with a subnet mask that is less than 24 bits, the management console reports the Class C networks that communicate with the application. For example, if you create a client network with a 22 bit subnet mask, such as 192.168.0.0/22, the management console reports metrics from the Class C client networks, 191.168.0.0/24 through 191.168.3.0/24, instead of the actual client IPs that accessed the application.

The example lists the /24 networks in the /22 client network definition.

Note: If you are interested in session-level reporting, use a CA Multi-Port Monitor as the monitoring device. Unlike a CA Standard Monitor, which analyzes TCP sessions at the network level with a 5-minute granularity, a CA Multi-Port Monitor can analyze a TCP session between a server and a particular client at a 1-minute granularity. In addition, a CA Multi-Port Monitor lets you analyze traffic volume for all observed network traffic, including TCP and non-TCP traffic.