The networking industry has witnessed significant advancements during the year 2024 driven by emerging technologies and evolving business needs. As a result, today’s complex networking landscape extends beyond mere threat detection requiring a proactive approach to building a resilient digital framework.

This need for resilience is further emphasized by the fact that even technology giants like Microsoft were not immune having faced massive threats including a 2.4 Tbps DDoS attack on its Azure platform.

Right from gaining better network traffic visibility, detecting threat storms, and investigating incidents – todays network environment has evolved in terms of regulatory compliance, scalability, and complexity, This new network environment demands innovative solutions to stay ahead of the challenges. Let’s take a closer look at how Trisul Network Analytics has put users at the forefront of its development roadmap during this challenging phase.

2024 – A year of staying on top of Network Visibility, Detection, and Compliance

Trisul kicked off the year with a significant Q1 release, addressing the challenge of scalability limitations in managing large-scale network deployments which introduced a reworked Routers and Interfaces page capable of handling over 10,000 devices, making it ideal for large SD-WAN like deployments.

Another example of Trisul’s commitment to innovation is, one of the tools that was born out of a specific customer request, demonstrating Trisul’s commitment to user-driven development. The customer needed a more efficient way to manage databases, which led to the creation of the Database Usage Analyzer. This powerful tool provides fine-grained visibility into disk usage patterns, intuitive visualizations through interactive pie charts, and detailed insights into storage usage.

Another customer request led to the refinement of an existing feature, which resulted in the NetFlow Template DB Explorer. Previously, browsing NetFlow templates was a cumbersome process due to the plain text display. The new explorer enables users to delve into received templates, select specific probes and routers, and pinpoint problems with unprecedented ease. This enhancement has been a game-changer for users, empowering them to troubleshoot errors more efficiently.

Furthermore, Trisul’s IPDR Compliance solution received a major boost with blazing fast flow queries, resulting in up to 10x faster query speeds.

As organizations continued to grapple with the challenges of managing complex storage infrastructures, Trisul’s Q2 release delivered a timely solution. The Storage Analyzer feature was designed to address the pain points of disk storage management, providing users with a centralized platform to view and manage disk storage pools. With this feature, users can now easily label offline storage for S3, Block Storage, or Tape, and optimize their storage infrastructure for improved efficiency.

Also IPDR Compliance continued to receive significant attention, with major improvements to query times, enabling users to search billions of flows in mere seconds. Additionally, Trisul NetFlow Analyzer was upgraded with improved interface drilldowns, custom reports, and seamless integrations with FortiGate syslog.

In line with our ongoing efforts to enhance user experience our Q3 release introduced several significant upgrades. Our previous trial license a free three day rolling window limited new users to monitoring, detecting and investigating data only for three days hindering their ability to fully experience the benefits of our platform.To address this constraint we introduced a simplified trial experience with a 7-Day Trial License scheme, making it easier for new users to get started.

As we worked to address the diverse needs of our customers, we faced a significant challenge where our platform’s versatility made it difficult to tailor it to specific use cases without manual configuration. We identified four primary categories of use cases – NetFlow Analyzer, Packet-Based Network Security Monitoring, IPDR Flow Logging for Compliance, and ISP Peering and Route Analytics – each requiring distinct product features.

To overcome this challenge, we developed a game-changing solution: the “Product Mode Selector“. This innovative feature enables users to easily select a predefined configuration tailored to their specific use case, eliminating the need for manual configuration and streamlining the installation process.

One of the key strengths of Trisul’s powerful time series engine has been its ability to store traffic data in precise 1-minute intervals. However, this high level of granularity came with a cost. When querying large time frames, such as one or two years, the sheer volume of data would cause significant network and browser slowdowns, hindering performance. To address this challenge, Trisul introduced the trisul_bucketizer tool, a game-changing solution designed to optimize performance by maintaining shadow data at lower resolutions. This innovative feature enables users to store data at multiple resolutions, customizing the level of detail to specific time frames and ensuring seamless performance, even when querying large datasets.

Furthermore we also launched a revamped documentation portal and migrated our documentation to the Docusaurus platform. This powerful tool enables us to create and serve technical documentation as static pages, making it easier for users to quickly find the help they need.

Making continued progress, Trisul’s Q4 release delivered even more features to enhance control and flexibility. Managing multiple tenants can be a daunting task, especially when dealing with diverse networks and infrastructures. To address this challenge, we introduced new tools for managing multiple tenants, streamlining the process and reducing administrative burdens. With these tools in place, users can now focus on optimizing their network performance.

To further enhance user flexibility and productivity, Trisul’s Q4 release also focused on overcoming internet connectivity limitations. In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, staying productive on-the-go is crucial. However, internet connectivity limitations can often hinder progress, forcing users to wait for a stable connection to access their apps. To address this challenge, we introduced an offline import feature, empowering users to download apps as TAR files and import them offline. This innovative feature ensures that users can access their apps anywhere, anytime, without being held back by internet connectivity limitations.

As users access their apps and manage their tenants with ease, Trisul’s Q4 release also enables them to optimize their network performance with precision. Network administrators often lack precise control over interface speeds, hindering efforts to achieve optimal network productivity. To address this challenge, we introduced a feature that enables users to configure interface speeds for receive and transmit on Velocloud. Additionally, our revamped dashboard navigation system provides a seamless experience, allowing users to quickly find what they need with List and Tile views for top-level menu navigation.

Conclusion

As we reflect on the advancements made in Trisul’s 2024 releases, it’s clear that our commitment to user-driven development and innovation has yielded significant benefits for our users. From scalability enhancements and user experience upgrades to groundbreaking features like the Product Mode Selector and offline import capabilities, our efforts have been focused on empowering users to overcome the complexities of modern networking.

Throughout the year, we’ve worked tirelessly to address the evolving needs of our customers, and our releases from Q1 to Q4 have collectively raised the bar for network monitoring solutions. As we look to the future, we remain dedicated to delivering cutting-edge solutions that meet the ever-changing demands of the networking landscape. With Trisul, users can trust that they have a powerful, intuitive, and flexible network monitoring solution that will continue to evolve and adapt to their needs.