Much of a network professional's time is spent in the weeds-fixing what breaks-and trying to keep infrastructure humming so users don't call the help desk. Climbing out of the weeds to take in the big picture and thoughtfully lay the groundwork for better future performance seems a luxury. However, strategic planning to improve performance can yield tremendous benefits, especially when paired with a strong visibility solution. This report introduces best practices for understanding and improving the performance of mission-critical networked applications and provides pointers for what to look for in a measurement tool in a WAN optimized environment.
