Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

March 2021

Navigating the 5G Edge - Xhaul, Slicing and MEC

5G architectures are groundbreaking on several fronts.  Disaggregated RAN, virtualized core, edge cloud capabilities, and network slicing can all be combined to address an entirely new generation of use cases that create opportunities for disruptive operators to gain revenue and market share.      Most of these new technologies must be deployed very close to the customer network edge and require a nimble toolkit of fronthaul transport solutions, MEC solutions, and network slicing orchestration across all components.  This session will discuss these new ‘edge-related’ capabilities and how they can work together to maximize mobile operator differentiation.

Bigleaf with Big Problems: Does It Have the Solutions?

Your business seeks a high-performance, flexible, cost-effective, and more secure alternative to Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS). Welcome to software-defined wide area networks (SD-WANs)! An improvement over legacy dedicated MPLS circuits, SD-WAN solutions deliver easily manageable networks with a high quality of service (QoS). Yet, your IT team tells you that SD-WANs aren’t cloud-optimized or mobile-device friendly.

Network monitoring with Hosted Graphite

Network monitoring is the process of looking after your network with the help of various tools and techniques. These tools that are often called network monitoring systems constantly track various aspects concerning your network, such as bandwidth usage, traffic, etc. This tracking is important in case of outages as these systems notify the network administrator immediately. Moreover, network monitoring systems are essential for status updates so that you can improve your system’s efficiency.

What Is Topology?

Topology is a multilayered map showing how everything in the IT environment is related. It's similar to Google Maps, which gives you a bird's eye view into an area and how everything is interconnected. Also, in Google Maps, you can see how traffic is flowing and which intersections may be causing bottlenecks. A view into topology allows similar visibility. You can see how components of an IT system are laid out to interact with each other.

10 Best Cisco Switch Monitoring Tools for 2021

Network monitoring is critical to ensuring a business stays secure. Switches are crucial to the proper functioning of that network. Hence, continue reading about the ten best Cisco switch monitoring tools. Switches connect networks and serve as controllers that let organizations share resources and talk to each other for better productivity. Without them, organizations face crippled information sharing and resource allocation, not to mention unnecessary costs.

Why Your Business Should Consider Private And Direct Connections To Google Cloud

Although it entered the market later than Amazon and Microsoft, Google Cloud has established itself as one of the top 3 mainstream public clouds through its Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings, with a strong presence in Machine Learning, data analytics and AI (Artificial Intelligence). Google has also become known for an attractive pricing model for its cloud services.

How Eliminating Network Choke Points Can Help the DoD Plan for the Next Wave of the Pandemic

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, military IT leaders raced to expand network capacity and upgrade infrastructure to ensure it could meet their mission-critical workloads and support telework. Their successful efforts have established a proof of their own abilities to adapt and scale their networks with speed and agility. As more DoD personnel telework and government and home networks are pushed to the max, here are three things they must consider as plans for the impact on IT systems.

HAProxy Enterprise 2.3 and HAProxy 2.4 Support the Financial Information eXchange Protocol (FIX)

A floor of commotion bustling with people holding phones and shouting out purchase and sell orders, some using hand signals to communicate over the noise. This was a common scene on Wall Street in the 1980s. Nowadays, transactions happen at the push of a button with traders sitting directly in front of a computer. In fact, the computer has made it possible to automate the buying and selling of securities, leading to an era of high-frequency, algorithmic trading.

How to Increase Network Visibility with a Second Monitoring Session | Obkio

In today's tutorial, you will learn how to add a 2nd Public Monitoring Agent in Obkio’s app and how to create a 2nd Monitoring Session. When looking at the results of a Network Session, it tells us what the performance is between 2 points on the network. For example, let’s say you have a 1st Agent installed in your network and a 1st Public Monitoring Agent installed in Azure and you want to add a second 2nd remote Public Monitoring Agent

Auvik and TruMethods: Operational Excellence: Learn How to Be a World Class IT Service Provider

As your MSP evolves, it is critical to ensure profitability. Join Auvik’s Partner Success Manager Chrissy Little and TruMethods President Gary Pica as they discuss a simple framework to help. Topics covered in this session include an exercise for uncovering unrealized profitability, five metrics you can track for accountability, three changes to make to your service delivery, and more! If you want to save time managing networks and get deeper visibility into the key metrics, you’ll want to try Auvik’s network monitoring and management software.

Best 7 Automated Network Diagram Software + Guide

For your business’s network to thrive, you have to really know its details and intricacies. One of the best ways to understand your network is to make a network diagram, which is a visual representation of your network’s devices and how they connect to one another. You can manually create your own network diagram, which can help visualize complex networks. However, it can be difficult and time-consuming to build a coherent, accurate network diagram on your own.

What Is a Network Diagram?

Network diagrams are not only handy to have, but provide a vital look at the network topology for your team, your company, and your peace of mind. Let’s look at what a network diagram is, and why it’s so important. A network diagram is, simply put, a schematic or map of your existing network that illustrates the nodes and their connections. Network diagrams are very useful at mapping out your elements and device interactions, as well as illustrating different network topology types.

In Pursuit of the Dark NOC: Transforming the Future of Network Operations with Automation & AIOps

Network operations have evolved radically in the wake of digital transformation - and the increasing infrastructure complexity that accompanied it. As NetOps teams roll out and support next-generation technologies, they face a myriad of challenges and changes in their daily operations. Every network team is under unprecedented pressure to safeguard business continuity, network security, and quality of service at all costs. Reliable and high-performing connectivity has truly never been more important, making the role of the NOC more critical than ever before.

How To Monitor Network Performance for Microsoft Teams, Office & Azure

VoIP and Unified Communication apps, such as Microsoft Teams, are more sensitive to network performance than other applications. So whether you’re working from an office, or your own home, you want to make sure your VoIP and UC apps are performing as they should be. Whether you’re an IT pro or not, you can easily monitor Microsoft network performance and quickly find network problems affecting Microsoft apps.

Use Nmap for faster discovery in Cloud Migrations

When starting a cloud migration project, one of the most important and often challenging parts is to have an accurate understanding of what you are trying to migrate. Over time, companies start new projects, which means creating new infrastructure, adding servers, databases, etc. This is a normal part of the development cycle. However, despite best efforts, inventories get out of sync.

Unraveling open port threats and enhancing security with port scanning tools

From exposing your network vulnerabilities to becoming a passageway for intruders, open ports can pose several risk vectors that threaten your network’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability. This is why it’s a best practice to close your open ports. To tackle the risks introduced by open ports, network admins rely on port scanning tools to identify, inspect, analyze, and close open ports in their networks.

What Is the OSI Model?

As an IT professional, chances are you’ve come across the phrase Please Do Not Throw Sausage Pizza Away while hearing about protocols, network design, and implementation issues. How about Or Please Do Not Touch Steve’s Pet Alligator? If these ring a bell then you’re on the right track: These are smart memory aids linked to the seven layers of the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model.

10 Best Tools for Monitoring Wireless Access Points

Monitoring wireless access points is business-critical, allowing teams to facilitate day-to-day workflows. These wireless access points (APs or WAPs) provide strong Wi-Fi signals and transmission ranges for sending and receiving valued information. But wireless access points are susceptible to cyberattacks that jeopardize your revenue and reputation.

How to Monitor Network Traffic: Best Tips for IT Pros

What if I told you that monitoring network traffic is a lot less daunting than it actually seems? I think I have your attention. As a network has various moving parts, understanding it all can be a serious challenge. If something breaks or a component stops working correctly, implementing a quick troubleshooting process is essential. If you can't fix the issue right away, this could be detrimental for your end users, leading to more severe complications.

Cisco Network Monitoring: 6 Best Practices

It's often said that your network is the "backbone" of your IT infrastructure, underlying every other part of your enterprise IT. If your Cisco network infrastructure goes down or is experiencing performance issues, it's crucial that you have a real-time solution to identify and resolve the problem as soon as possible. But what does such a solution look like when it comes to Cisco networks?

Effortless Peering Across Europe With Console Connect

Did you know that you can now use Console Connect for high-performance, on-demand interconnection with peering partners in Europe? We’ve recently on-boarded three of Europe’s largest and most important Internet Exchanges to the Console Connect platform: AMS-IX, DE-CIX and LINX. Discover more about our new IX partners and what their availability on Console Connect means for you…

Using HAProxy as an API Gateway, Part 6 [Security]

In almost every case, APIs have changed how modern applications connect to their data. Mobile apps, single-page web apps, IoT devices, integration hooks between software—all of these things rely on APIs to fetch, update, delete, and create data. In fact, one set of APIs might serve as the backbone of a website, mobile app, voice assistant device, and more, meaning one data store owns a treasure trove of information about us, the human users.

7 Best Network Infrastructure Mapping Tools

Network infrastructure mapping tools that help you maintain up-to-date maps can be the difference between quickly diagnosing a problem or wasting hours of your time. Similarly, network maps can help everyone in your organization better understand and optimize a network you inherit. In many cases, however, network maps contain stale information or don’t exist at all.

Secure by Design | Securing the Software Development Build Environment

The recent SUNBURST cyberattack on the SolarWinds software build environment is a concerning new reality for the software industry, representing the increasingly sophisticated actions by outside nation-states on the supply chains and infrastructure on which we all rely. SolarWinds is committed to sharing our learnings about this attack broadly given the common development practices in the industry and our belief that transparency and cooperation are our best tools to help prevent and protect against future attacks.

Network Throughput vs Bandwidth and How to Measure It

Have you ever used the term bandwidth? Probably. Have you ever used the term network throughput? Maybe. Have you used them interchangeably? Most likely. So let’s see where we get these mixed up. Namely, let’s look at the key differences between network throughput and bandwidth. And while we’re at it, let’s cover the fundamentals of throughput and how to measure it, so you can keep your network flowing efficiently and cleanly.

How To Avoid Complex Pricing And Lengthy Contracts With Your Global Internet Access

When it comes to your business’s global internet access, network speed, security and performance are paramount. Many enterprises use a premium internet service to meet the needs of their global operations. One option available to them, which we have covered extensively already on this blog, is to use dedicated internet access across a private MPLS network. The other is to use an IP transit service.

Using HAProxy as an API Gateway, Part 5 [Monetization]

In our previous blog post, Using HAProxy as an API Gateway, Part 2 [Authentication], you learned that when you operate HAProxy as an API gateway, you can restrict access to your APIs to only clients that present a valid OAuth 2 access token. In this post, we take it a step further. You will learn how to leverage tokens to grant some users more access than others and then charge for the service.

Auvik and Cherwell Present: Processes for Managing Your Network

In this webinar, Auvik’s Technology Advocate Steve Petryschuk and Cherwell’s Principal Solution Consultant Ryan Counts walk you through a few critical steps you can take to make network operations more manageable. You’ll learn which two process factors will help you go from reactive to proactive, how to assess your current network management methods using a simple framework, and when to incorporate tools to automate processes.

VPN and Firewall Log Management

The hybrid workforce is here to stay. With that in mind, you should start putting more robust cybersecurity controls in place to mitigate risk. Virtual private networks (VPNs) help secure data, but they are also challenging to bring into your log monitoring and management strategy. VPN and firewall log management gives real-time visibility into security risks. Many VPN and firewall log monitoring problems are similar to log management in general.

How to Reduce Bandwidth Consumption for Your Network?

Do you know who interacts with whom, when, and for how long and how frequently in your network? Network administrators must have clear visibility of bandwidth utilization using a robust bandwidth monitoring tool, to find out slow loading yet crucial connections, to plan out the capacity of network properly or to control the Quality of Service.

Securing Your DNS

When the Domain Name System (DNS) was created in 1983 I imagine its creator Paul Mockapetris and his team had no idea that nearly 40 years later our interconnected world would be so reliant on the very simple, but critical, DNS network service. I have a love-hate relationship with DNS. I love all of the memes I see about how “It’s always DNS”, but I hate that it’s also true—I always forget to check that DNS is working correctly when troubleshooting network issues!

Everything You Need To Know About Data Centre Interconnection

Getting data centre interconnection right is essential for scalable growth and agility. Whether you’re a global enterprise with operations in multiple markets around the world or a SaaS provider looking to roll out in new geographies, data centre interconnection is a key building block for connecting to customers and ecosystem partners. Read on to find out more about.

How to Draw Network Diagrams

Drawing a good network diagram isn’t hard to make, but it can be distressingly rare. Even network engineers with years of experience often draw network diagrams that are jumbled and hard to understand. As a network administrator responsible for the network, it’s vitally important you have a detailed understanding of your network topology. Without this information, even basic troubleshooting can be unnecessarily difficult.

The HAProxy Enterprise WAF

The HAProxy Enterprise WAF with support for ModSecurity rulesets protects your web applications from sophisticated, Layer 7 threats left unhandled by network firewalls. Data breaches. Loss of consumer confidence. An endless cycle of companies being compromised. Not just fly-by-night, sketchy websites either. Large companies—companies that you’d think would do better—are being caught without reliable security measures in place.

Using Thola for monitoring your network devices

Once upon a time there was a small company in the south west of Germany that used an old check plugin for monitoring its network devices. But as their network got bigger and bigger over time, the plugin (written in Perl) became more greedy than ever before and swallowed all of the available resources. The CPUs were melting and the RAM was about to collapse. So a small team of creative software developers decided to take the fate of their company into their own hands.

Best Practices for Monitoring Your End-User Experience - SolarWinds Lab Episode #94

Knowing if a server has high CPU is helpful, but does it really matter if your end users can still access their apps without performance issues? If you're only monitoring the server side, then you don't have a complete picture of your environment. End-user monitoring can be an extremely valuable tool—if you know how to you use it. Join Product Manager Katie Cole and Head Geek Patrick Hubbard as they dive deep into best practices for Pingdom®, the SaaS-based, end-user experience monitoring tool from SolarWinds.

Monitor Juniper network devices with Datadog

Juniper Networks provides a range of IT network and security devices, including routers, switches, access points, and firewalls. As you scale your on-prem infrastructure with potentially thousands of devices distributed across multiple locations, getting visibility into your entire network can easily become a pain point.

5 Steps to Configure Cisco AnyConnect VPN

Because the world continues to work from home this year, I’ve had to configure Cisco AnyConnect VPNs on ASA firewalls for clients a few times. Unfortunately, the documentation from Cisco is extremely confusing, and I’ve seen a lot of organizations that do it wrong (by which I mean insecurely). The process itself is quite simple, though, so let’s go through the steps you’ll need to configure Cisco AnyConnect for your VPN.

Never Discount the Power of Convenience

Whenever I look broadly at my career in telecom, one area that always amuses me is the extent to which our collective business enjoys its peculiarities. Sort of like our own secret handshake society full of unique terms and abbreviations like AIN & ANI, DDI and CLID or CLECs and POTS. After all, the Bell System used to formally publish a list of abbreviations and acronyms. Maybe it is just in our DNA?

How To Prepare Your Business For High-Frequency Change

"The future-ready enterprise can only be understood as an ecosystem of interdependent components." In our latest webinar, Applied Futurist Tom Cheesewright and Console Connect’s Neil Templeton dug deeper into the findings of our ‘Building Tomorrow’s Interconnected Enterprise’ report, and highlighted how rapid technological change is disrupting traditional business models.