NAM 5.0 means agility - agility that allows you to quickly know what is happening on the network and see where trouble is lurking. NAM 5.0 offers new and enhanced capabilities that help enable you to get to the appropriate data fast, whether it is data that helps you respond to a help desk call on slow application performance, understand application performance before and after deploying Cisco Wide Area Application Services ( WAAS), confirm that VoIP performance is rock solid at one of your international sites, or learn whether application performance has also made the leap with your migration from physical servers to virtual machines.

• Redesigned GUI simplifies monitoring and troubleshooting: The Cisco NAM's redesigned GUI includes preconfigured dashboards that provide a comprehensive graphical view of network performance so you can immediately grasp if all is well or if a problem is emerging. It also includes workflows (Figure 3) with helpful features such as contextual navigation, interactive reports, and one-click packet captures. The NAM's GUI reduces not only the time it takes to solve problems, but also the time it takes to learn the product, giving you more time to spend on advancing new business initiatives.

• NetFlow and packet data analysis in one box offer unprecedented levels of breadth and depth: NetFlow and packet data complement each other to provide a powerful monitoring solution, all in one box. With expanded NetFlow reporting capabilities, you can obtain an extensive view of traffic usage information, such as who is using your network, what applications they're using, and how much bandwidth is being consumed. Pinpointing traffic of interest, you can use packet-based data to perform a "deeper dive" to quickly spot and address issues that affect performance.

• A Performance Database lets you flash back to the past: The Cisco NAM's Performance Database stores computed, historical data so you can flash back to the past to learn what happened on your network when a particular event occurred. Only too often do these anomalous events occur and are then gone. Now, with the Cisco NAM's Performance Database, you can look back, discover the facts, and solve the problem fast.

• NetFlow Version 9 Data Export extends network reporting: By exporting analytics in a standardized format, this new capability allows you to use computed NAM data to feed in-house or third-party reporting applications that you already own, building up additional value and building out existing investments.

• Site -based monitoring delivers reporting flexibility: This feature allows you to view network and application performance by logical groupings or sites that you can create to mirror your network topology. For example, you can create sites by geographic locations, departments, or even managed customer networks and view performance data on a per site basis making it easier to obtain both a global and local view of how your applications are performing.

• Network-Based Application Recognition (NBAR) improves application identification consistency: The Cisco NAM now supports standardized application identifiers generated by Cisco's homegrown application classification technology, NBAR, to discover and identify applications, simplifying your user experience by helping bring consistency to application recognition across the network.

• Packet Capture Error Scan finds problems fast: The Cisco NAM's new Packet Capture Error Scan feature highlights packet-level anomalies to accelerate root-cause analysis and avoid your having to manually inspect the packet data to find the "needle in the haystack."