Choosing your deployment strategy

To use ORS effectively, you must understand how you have Observer and its probes deployed in your network.

Where you install Observer Reporting Server (ORS), Observer Suite, and probes will depend on the size and traffic levels of your network. In general,high-traffic installations should have a dedicated ORS system, resulting in a three-tier distribution of ORS functionality:

Observer Reporting Server

Observer Suite analyzer(s)

Probe instances that actually collect the data

We highly recommend that any probe, Observer Suite, or Observer Infrastructure be installed on a system with a static IP address. Having a dynamic address may cause confusion with reports should the address for a system change. It becomes very difficult to correlate problems or history when addresses change.

Tip! Create a unique probe instance on every probe that will be used for the sole purpose of collecting network trending data for ORS and call it “ORS instance.”

For larger networks or heavier traffic

For larger networks, or networks with heavy traffic, Observer Reporting Server can be installed on a different system than the Observer analyzer used to collect network trending statistics. This forms a three-tier collection and reporting hierarchy with probes passing information to Observer and Observer passing information to ORS.

Figure 1. ORS with Observer Suite on a different system

For smaller networks or lighter traffic

For smaller networks, or networks with light traffic, the ORS appliance has ORS and Observer Suite pre-loaded to form a two-tier collection/reporting hierarchy.

Figure 2. ORS and Observer Suite on the same system