SD-WAN FEATURED ARTICLE

How to Scale Network Teams to Better Support Remote Sites and Workers

March 23, 2020

By Special Guest
Stefano Gridelli, CEO & Co-founder, NetBeez,

As companies build out their WANs and migrate to SD-WANs, networks are becoming even more strategic to business operations, and downtime events more costly.  With more of them encouraging remote work, network uptime and performance are even more important.




Before you spend on network upgrades and/or migration to SD-WAN, perhaps it’s time to rethink your approach to network monitoring.  With new capabilities your existing team can detect and solve issues faster than ever and free up more time for new projects and supporting more complex networks.

Here are some of the key network monitoring capabilities to look for and why they can make a difference.

  1. Fast data feeds (in seconds versus minutes): If your engineers can detect problems in seconds versus minutes it’s a considerable advantage in reducing help desk tickets.  It may seem like a trivial difference, but the ability to see a problem as soon as it occurs can be a game-changer, especially for serious incidents.  Equally important is the ability to quickly know if the problem is or isn’t the network, freeing up your team sooner to focus on network versus server, app, cloud or other problems. 
  2. Reporting raw data versus sampled data: With the ability to view raw data streams (greater context) instead of sampled data, your team can get valuable insight regarding frequency or enhance the identification of intermittent problems which could be caused by factors beyond the network.
  3. Distributed monitoring agents versus centralized servers: By collecting data from a variety of locations (versus simply relying upon network device status from a central collector) you can more quickly triangulate a problem and diagnose it with greater accuracy, even problems a few hops away in a service provider network.  Centralized tools are not as effective for isolating problems, especially in large, complex networks.
  4. Scale without latency: Older monitoring tools get slower as more devices are monitored.  Especially in large networks, you want to be able to scale without sacrificing performance when time is of the essence and data from multiple sources are needed to diagnose a problem.
  5. Management and installation: Many older tools require specialized IT skills to manage and install.  That means more travel for remote installs and more skills needed for reporting. 
  6. User perspective data: Many issues cannot be properly studied from the standpoint of device status.  Users are far more valuable in detecting a problem than network device data, from both a timing and depth of view perspective.  It also puts the team in a position of empathy versus denial, even if it wasn’t the network.

It’s all about speed and productivity, from the network team to the remote user.  While WANS have ushered in the era of the remote branch, they are also becoming connected to ever more complex webs of VPNs and carrier networks.  The good news is that much of the complexity can be managed by your existing team powered by network monitoring capabilities purpose-built for the distributed enterprise.

Stefano Gridelli is CEO and Co-founder of NetBeez.  Stefano worked as a network engineer, leading network design and implementation projects in complex network environments.  He earned his MBA at Carnegie Mellon University, where he got involved with Pittsburgh’s vibrant startup scene.  As CEO, he’s responsible for executing the company’s mission of delivering a network monitoring solution for large and distributed enterprise networks.



 

The benefits of and technology required to enable distributed workforces will be featured at SD-WAN Expo 2021.  This will be the fourth edition of SD-WAN Expo, coming to the brand new Miami Beach Convention Center, June 22-25, 2021, as part of the TechSuperShow.  The fourth edition of SD-WAN Expo will expand on many of the topics enterprise leaders need to know surrounding their connectivity needs, including deployment models, evolving standards, SASE, practitioner case studies, and more. The collection of TechSuperShow events – SD-WAN Expo, ITEXPOFuture of Work ExpoThe Blockchain EventMSP Expo, and more – deliver an unprecedented educational and networking opportunity, where business leaders have access to all the technology that is helping businesses create new revenue opportunities.




Edited by Erik Linask

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