CA Application Delivery Analysis (ADA)

Previously known as NetQoS SuperAgent or SA
ADA (also known as SuperAgent or SA) provides TCP level transactional analysis of client to server connections via packet capture and inspection. ADA measures overall transaction time as well as the response times for the components of network round trip time, server response time, and application response time. The analysis of this data indicates whether latency is present in the network, the server, and/or the application. ADA requires two components: a Master Console and a collection appliance. ADA can use any combination of three different collection appliances: Multiport Collector (MTP), Standard Collector (CO), and GigaStor (GS).

Related Pages

Data Acquisition Guide: Check out this page for information on SPANning best practices.

NetQoS Solution Run Book: Check out this document for practices that should be implemented when deploying any of the NetQoS products. Also check out Stuart's Blog for more tips and tricks on what to do to an out of the box ADA installation.

Setting SLAs: Check out this document for details on setting performance SLAs including instructions on what values to use.

Collectors

Collector (CO)

The standard collector has no specialized hardware and only acts as a collection point for the master console. The standard collector is the only collection appliance that can be installed on the same hardware as the master console. The only non-standard hardware is an extra Ethernet port for collection. The standard collector can be installed in a virtual environment. Depending on the virtual environment, it can collect either for all traffic on its own ESX host or from a physical switch.

Multiport Collector (MTP)

The multiport collector is a CA proprietary appliance with specialized hardware for high speed packet collection. It comes in three flavors: 4x1Gbps, 8x1Gbps, or 2x10Gbps capture ports. The MTP not only provides a collection point for ADA data but also has built in analysis down to the packet level for additional troubleshooting beyond what ADA can provide.

Gigastor (GS)

GigaStor is an appliance built by Network Instruments that provides many of the capabilities of the multiport collector. It comes in the same flavors as the multiport collector and acts as a data source for the master console. The main difference is that the GS records the collected packets for long term storage and the GS uses the Observer software (proprietary NI software) to decode the packets (similar to Wireshark).
 

Hardware Requirements

ADA requires a copy of all packets going into and out of the servers of interest. This is normally accomplished using a SPAN or port mirroring. The best place to capture these packets is on the switch where the server is installed. See the section of the ADA Installation guide entitled 'Following Data Collection Best Practices' for more details on data collection best practices for ADA.
If installing ADA in a virtual environment, the requirements are as follows:

Master Console and Standard Collector (aka Standalone ADA)

• 1 virtual processor
• 30 GB RAM (recommended)
• 300 GB hard drive space, partitioned into a C: (system) drive of at least 20 GB, the remainder into a D: (data) drive.
• 2 virtual network adapters. An uplink port (physical port leaving the ESX host) is required on one of the virtual network adapters (management NIC). If the virtual appliance will be monitoring a physical switch, the other NIC must be tied to a physical port on the ESX host.

Standard Collector

• 1 virtual processor
• 4 GB RAM (recommended)
• 300 GB hard drive space, partitioned into a C: (system) drive of at least 20 GB, the remainder into a D: (data) drive.
• 2 virtual network adapters. An uplink port (physical port leaving the ESX host) is required on one of the virtual network adapters (management NIC). If the virtual appliance will be monitoring a physical switch, the other NIC must be tied to a physical port on the ESX host.

Master Console (without Standard Collector)

• 1 virtual processor
• 30 GB RAM (recommended)
• 300 GB hard drive space, partitioned into a C: (system) drive of at least 20 GB, the remainder into a D: (data) drive.
• 1 virtual network adapters. An uplink port (physical port leaving the ESX host) is required on the virtual network adapters (management NIC).

Software Requirements

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard (64-bit only)
• Internet Explorer 7 or 8 (32-bit version recommended) or Mozilla Firefox version 3.5 (later versions not supported)
• IIS
• ASP.Net

ADA Installation

SA 9.1 Installation Guide

ADA Configuration

ADA Upgrading

SA 9.1 Upgrade Instructions

ADA Maintenance

Tips and Tricks

See Stuart's Default SuperAgent Tweaks

Default MySQL Database Passwords:

More information on the installation of ADA can be found at ftp://ftp.ca.com/pub/netqos/products/sa/9.1/SA_Installation 9_1.pdf.