1-12
User Guide for the Cisco Network Analysis Module (NAM) Traffic Analyzer, 5.0
OL-22617-01
Chapter 1 Overview
Understanding How the NAM Works
Above the Statistics legend is a dropdown selector, which allows you to choose which of the metrics
shown in the “over-time” chart you would like reflected in the Statistics legend. For example, if the line
chart has Bytes or Packets in the check boxes above the line chart, the selector over the Statistics legend
will show the same choices, Bytes or Packets.

Context-Sensitive Online Help

The “Help” link on the top-right corner of the NAM Traffic Analyzer interface will bring you to the Help
page for that particular screen of the GUI..
In addition to the Help link on the top-right corner of each page, some pages also have a blue “i”, which
provides help for that specific subject.
Understanding How the NAM Works
The Network Analysis Module (NAM) product family addresses the following major functional areas:
• Network layer Traffic Analysis. The NAM provides comprehensive traffic analysis to identify what
applications are running over the network, how much network resources are consumed, and who is
using these applications. The NAM offers a rich set of reports with which to view traffic by Hosts,
Application or Conversations. See the discussions about Dashboards, starting with Traffic Summary,
page 3-4.
• Application Response Time. The NAM can provide passive measurement of TCP-based applications
for any given server or client, supplying a wide variety of statistics like response time, network flight
time, and transaction time.
• WAN Optimization insight. The NAM can provide insight into WAN Optimization offerings that
compress and optimize WAN Traffic for pre- and post-deployment scenarios. This is applicable for
Optimized and Passthru traffic.
• Voice Quality Analysis. The NAM provides application performance for real time applications like
Voice and Video. The NAM can compute MOS, as well as provide RTP analysis for the media
stream. See Media, page 3-37.