Hi Jason,
Full disclosure: My company was one of the first resellers of 7Signal. We are
also an early reseller of Nyansa. I have taken every precaution to make this
informative with an iota of "vendor speak". (If I've failed in any way, my
apologies in advance and I will ban myself from ever posting again!) :)
I know three organizations that are customers of 7Signal that have also
deployed or PoC'd Nyansa. Two are higher ed and one is not. (I am not at
liberty to disclose the organizations, but can discuss offline.)
7Signal and Nyansa address two different use cases. There is some overlap in
the business case that they make. I have no doubt that they will compete for
the same budget allocations, even though they complement each other technically.
Business Case...
* Both aim to improve Wi-Fi performance. (Nyansa also addresses
wired/uplink network performance as well. It examines switch/router/other
components.)
* Both can breakdown network performance to specific protocols/applications.
Use case...
* Both aim to improve network performance from the perspective of the user
experience - but in two *completely* different ways. 7Signal does this with
sensors - both highly capable (e.g. expensive) physical sensors that are
deployed as an overlay to the Wi-Fi network, as well as "mobile sensors" and
win/mac/ios/android agents. Those sensors can actively simulate ftp, smtp, and
other common protocols. ("Simulate" is probably not the best word, but I can't
find a better one at the moment.)
* 7Signal provides a historical view into network performance with an
emphasis on the contribution that RF quality has on the environment. It is a
more proactive way to monitor & report on RF than a spectrum analyzer, but it
does not completely replace the need for spectrum analyzers. The
reports/displays from 7Signal are very powerful in the hands of an experienced
Wi-Fi technical expert.
* Nyansa has no way to address specific spectrum problems, but it can
recognize characteristics that certain RF problems create. (In one case I
experienced, it did a really good job of diagnosing far-end interference from
the controller logs.) The KPI's that Nyansa displays/reports can be shown to a
technical CIO/CTO who will be able to comprehend the information.
Technical differences:
* 7Signal has sensors that are deployed to monitor network traffic and RF
spectrum. Nyansa extrapolates network performance based on advanced analytics
by examining controller/AP/switch/router data, as well as network traffic via a
TAP/SPAN/aggregation port. Nyansa does not examine RF spectrum, but does a
good job of making recommendations at the root cause that may be creating the
problem. At that point, 7Signal or a spectrum analyzer is useful (and
sometimes absolutely necessary) to determine the contribution that spectrum
issues may be creating.
* 7Signal supports a number of Wi-Fi vendors. As of this writing, Nyansa
supports Cisco & Aruba. (I am told that Ruckus is also supported, but I don't
have personal experience.)
* The 7Signal mobile product has some really good functionality. It was a
really nice addition to their product set. Obviously, it can't do all that the
full-blown sensor does.
* Nyansa can be turned loose on the helpdesk. It has "common language"
recommendations to address "root cause" of a user's giving problem. That helps
avoid escalations to the network team. The alerts that Nyansa generates are
"really actionable" according to one end-user who has used both 7Signal &
Nyansa.
* Additional note and really cool concept: Nyansa creates a baseline of
"normal" network performance (as measured by the KPI's, from the perspective of
both technical and user experience). It then monitors and alerts for
deviations against "normal". It also shows those segments that are best/worst
performers. From that performance comparison, the network team can determine
the characteristics/settings on the controller/network/switch/segment that are
contributing to the goodness or badness. Think of that metaphor where raising
the level of the water causes all the ships in the harbor rise. Now the cool
concept... Nyansa takes to KPIs and anonymously publishes them to the cloud
console so that comparisons of those KPIs can be made with other Nyansa
customers by industry/technology/size. So if you are a small college with
Aruba controllers, Cisco switches and one location, you won't be comparing your
network to a pharmaceutical companies with Cisco WLANs spread across hundreds
of locations. Crowd-sourcing network performance improvements. To me, that's
a simple but powerful concept.
Caston Thomas
InterWorks, LLC
[email protected]
586.530.4981
From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kees Pronk
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2017 5:16 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Nyansa vs 7Signal vs ?
Don't have experience with Nyansa, have experience with 7signal.
IMO nothing beats 7signal in the radio / spectrum part of their *Wi-Fi*
performance monitoring. It appears to me that this is the key difference.
Regards, Kees
On 25 Jul 2017, at 09:02, Jason Cook
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi All,
There's been plenty of positives mentioned about Nyansa in recent discussions.
I'm wondering if anyone out there has experience at both 7signal and Nyansa or
any other systems that do wireless monitoring/alerting in a more detailed way
than vendor provided gear. The approach for these 2 are obviously quite
different with I guess varying advantages. Don't need much detail, just general
thoughts is good.
Regards
Jason
--
Jason Cook
Technology Services
The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005
Ph : +61 8 8313 4800
e-mail:
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]%3cmailto:[email protected]>>
CRICOS Provider Number 00123M
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