You enter the network, looking to the right and left for signs of trouble.

Email zips by your head, fat with data; you smile at the quality of service. Then in the distance, a server begins to smoke.

You float into the server's zone and see that web and SAP are glowing red as the server painfully tries to support the flood of traffic.

A quick call to system management team and they reel in a rogue backup schedule. The data cools off and the server turns blue-green in contentment. Time to visit another sector… (source)

A company called NetQoS has an interesting way of observing their network traffic: using a Gibsonesque video game metaphor to visualize aspects of network performance. The fascinating experiment, steered by Dr. Mike Johns of NetQoS, does not appear to be a product available on the market yet. Currently it serves as NetQoS's internal study of innovative ways to monitor network data while engaging the mind with less exertion. Watch it on YouTube here, or you can download the movie clip here.

I can't find any info yet on what specific engine was used for the experiment in their FAQ. Technically, the data isn't being processed in real-time, but minutes after the fact. Still, it's an amazing application of the technology, and would make an interesting partner to WhatsUp Gold or Naguis.

Thanks, TechCrunch, for this article where I first read about it.