Monitoring Cloud To Data Center

Serge Lucio is the VP and GM of Agile Operations Division, Broadcom Inc . As organizations have scaled their adoption of cloud based resources and distributed workplaces have become the norm, the data center is no longer the central hub for enterprise IT. The Internet has emerged as the new enterprise IT hub.

Rapid advances in networking technology have been critical to keeping pace with growing business demands, and enterprise organizations are evolving their IT infrastructure, displacing slower, more resource intensive, conventional networking models that backhaul traffic to the data center. Issues Driving Network Challenges Most network teams simply don’t have the tools and resources they need to effectively manage rapidly evolving networks and are facing several new challenges driven by: Infrastructure diversity: Today’s network teams need to monitor and manage networks they own, as well as those they do not, including on premises networks, ISP networks, CSP networks and wireless networks.

Network growth: The number of network devices, endpoints, components and interconnected systems that network teams need to manage and maintain continues to skyrocket. Multi vendor environments: Networking equipment and solutions from multiple vendors significantly increase the complexity of managing and integrating disparate technologies, configurations, workflows and protocols.

Software defined and virtualized networks: Virtualization technologies and software defined networking (SDN) introduce new multi layer virtual, logical and physical topologies that require specialized expertise to manage and configure. Distributed workforce: The growing demand for secure remote access and reliable connectivity for employees working from various locations imposes new requirements for designing the network, managing security and optimizing performance.

The traditional network management solutions that enterprise network teams have been using for years are not the answer. They were not designed to handle the accelerated pace of change, the interdependent layering of software defined networks and the transient, dynamic nature of modern inventories and services.

Compounding this is the requirement to be aligned with application owners. Today, the ultimate KPI is the user experience, not network performance. What Today’s Network Teams Need Network teams need a better convergence of operations, a platform that provides end to end visibility across the traditional network infrastructure, the software defined data center, and the ISP and CSP networks.

They need a new approach that enables them to: Eliminate network visibility gaps. Most organizations have embraced multi cloud, leveraging software as a service (SaaS), subscriptions to platform or infrastructure as a service (PaaS or IaaS) and other cloud service providers. While this allows them to match workloads to specific cloud provider attributes and to ensure availability in the event of an outage, moving workloads between clouds or to and from on premises infrastructure can create network visibility gaps.

Ensure network performance and reliability beyond corporate boundaries. An enterprise application that performs perfectly in the data center will not necessarily repeat that performance when delivered over the Internet, which wasn’t designed to deliver applications the same way that local area networks do.

Network teams need the ability to integrate legacy and cloud workloads over Internet connections and ensure network reliability in environments where entire applications may transit networks that they do not own. Manage the complexity of dynamic, multi layered SDN. Software defined networking is rapidly gaining popularity, and promises increased agility and flexibility by decoupling network deployment from the underlying hardware.

Many organizations are moving to converged or hyper converged infrastructure, which enables networks to expand and contract on demand but also introduces a new multi layered virtual, logical and physical topology, which dramatically increases management complexity. Rationalize and reduce networking tools for end to end visibility.

Many network teams responded to advances in networking technology and increasing business demands by adding a multiplicity of disparate tools. Because each of these tools is typically designed to manage or monitor a single aspect of the enterprise network, the resulting fragmented toolset can hinder end to end visibility and obscure service issues and accountability.

Adding more tools requires more network team resources, which can make them less effective at detecting problems and make their networks less stable. Conclusion For the past few years, rapid growth, new architectures and increasing complexity have made it progressively more difficult to effectively manage enterprise networks.

And there’s no indication that these challenges will be slowing down anytime soon. Network innovation and new technology adoption are accelerating and amplifying these challenges, driven by demands for greater bandwidth, agility and new business opportunities, which all continue to grow. To effectively manage their existing networks as well as future technologies, network teams need expanded visibility (both within and beyond corporate boundaries) and control, which requires these critical capabilities.

• Contextual diagnostic abilities combined with user experience analytics at scale for comprehensive visibility into every aspect of modern networks, resulting in better alignment of new technologies with key business initiatives. • Single network management platform that enables end to end, holistic awareness across domains and vendor technologies to help break down silos and reduce operational complexities.

• Unified support across traditional infrastructures and software defined networks, with expert views into both to streamline operations and reduce tool sprawl. • Extended reach into edge services, multi cloud and ISP networks, with visibility into every communication path and degradation point, from the core network to the end user.

• Intelligent analytics to improve network operations readiness to manage emerging requirements for next generation network technologies. Without these critical capabilities, poor network visibility and inadequate tools can lead to outages and other network issues that directly impact employees, partners and customers, potentially leading to compliance violations and negative press coverage.

Network teams who are already struggling with inadequate network tools and resources today will not be prepared to support a continuous influx of new network technology. Deployment and adoption of new network technology will be delayed, or even worse, deployed without adequate control and visibility, compounding network team challenges and putting the business at risk.

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