NETWORK VISIBILITY SOLUTION

 

What is a network visibility solution?

Network visibility is an awareness of the part and data within an enterprise computer network. The word mainly refers to the various tools enterprises use to increase awareness of their data and other network contents. 

• How important is corporate network visibility? 

The corporate network has undergone several adaptations in recent years with the proliferation of IoT devices, Cloud computing, cryptography, and new DevOps processes, among other technologies.

To deal with this new reality, it was necessary to create a capable “new network,” the SD-WAN. Unlike a traditional WAN, it can determine the most efficient way to route traffic to remote locations, simplify network configurations, provide greater agility and visibility, and reduce costs.

This makes it easier to monitor the quality of the network, making it easier for the IT department to make intelligent decisions based on the flow of application traffic.

However, with so many changes in corporate infrastructure, the other important point to ensure the evolution of the network has been the issue of cyber security.

• How to monitor all traffic with users using more and more devices to connect?  

The evolution of cyber security approaches has become indispensable for IT teams to deal with the limited visibility that prevented the implementation of  

• Effective threat detection and response capabilities. 

Security teams must access the traditional direction of vertical traffic and have visibility across offices, within the data center, in the Cloud, etc.

Therefore, for IT to deliver the level of performance and visibility that users expect, it is compulsory to implement a holistic network visibility strategy.

• SECURITY RISKS NETWORK VISIBILITY CAN SOLVE

Companies increasingly depend on cloud environments, mobile devices, hybrid IT, and other modern technologies. The widespread adoption of these services is transforming the nature of the enterprise network, pushing its limits beyond its capacity and creating a much more complex management landscape.

This has rapidly made the need for greater visibility of the entire environment when using monitoring and management solutions.

Network visibility consists of creating prevention strategies capable of identifying possible problems in the functioning of the corporate system, in addition to helping companies to be prepared in cases of network attacks.

It is vital to control the high traffic volumes, which can occur at peak times, and collect detailed information about users, systems, and applications most used during these periods.

In this way, its measures contribute to reducing time and resources in correcting problems and preventing cyber-attacks from reaching the corporate network.

Security risks that network visibility can help your customers solve:

• Critical data

Healthcare corporations, financial institutions, and government organizations have large amounts of critical information that require enhanced security. However, it is not just them who need to be concerned about this; all companies have sensitive data that need greater attention.

Today, most IT administrators do not have a complete picture of what is happening within the network. As a result, they cannot rely on automated analysis tools to quickly identify and eliminate threats.

Innovative visibility tools can help with this task. They can learn the patterns of attacks, even those that were unsuccessful, and use NPBs (Network packet brokers), devices that improve network management and security, to inspect and detect possible dangers

• Migration to Cloud

Most companies are already in the Cloud, and by choosing one of the models – public, private, or hybrid- they lose part of their network visibility. Therefore, it is necessary to complement this movement toward the Cloud with solutions that eliminate this “cloudiness” and obtain a high degree of real-time visibility into the functioning of the platforms.

Thus, corporations must look for a virtual infrastructure capable of offering an overview of the virtual environment and control tools that speak the language of the Cloud.

• The attack surface

In the past, organizations only had to worry about a single point of entry and exit for threats on the network. But now, with the increased use of mobile devices, Wi-Fi hotspots, cloud apps, and the implementation of the software-defined approach, the number of entry points for these dangers has multiplied.

By relying on visibility tools, it is possible to identify which servers receive the most network attacks and which types of vectors of these threats are most frequent. Thus, companies can adjust their security policies, restrict specific access, and strengthen targeted defenses.

• BYOD Practice

As more devices, equipment, and high-speed applications are adopted in the workplace, providing the same user experience becomes more challenging. In addition, after adopting the BYOD practice, employees began to add their switches, access points, and data storage, among other things, to the network, which ended up subverting the company’s security standards, opening doors for threats.

For IT, tracking every action from every device is virtually impossible. Instead, NPBs offer application intelligence that can follow the context of data processing, allowing filtering packets from layers 2 and 4 to reach layer 7. Thus, it is possible to identify hidden applications, mitigate threats, and improve network performance.

• Blind spots

The increasing complexity of the corporation ends up creating blind spots. The best solution is to implement visibility architecture to manage user behavior and the health of all network resources, thus enforcing company policies.

IT can leverage greater visibility to ensure network performance and quickly identify threats and service failures by building on best practices to address the various risks surrounding the corporate network.

• How to ensure holistic network visibility? 

The holistic network visibility strategy encompasses monitoring at multiple levels, including data packets, latency, and throughput. It allows you to understand where data originates, who requests it, where it is going and which path it will take.

This way, IT can more easily detect all performance and security issues that affect the corporate network and resolve them before something serious happens and prevents network availability.

To take this approach, you need:

• Complete SD-WAN

The solution allows you to monitor your entire network (on-premises and Cloud) through a single platform.

In this way, IT professionals can detect drops in application performance, whether in the Cloud or on-premises and compare relative performance to make more proactive decisions.

Through a single platform that offers this holistic view, it is possible to transform data points into valuable insights, in addition to avoiding problems and loss of continuity in a more agile way.

Infrastructure and operations leaders who manage the Cloud and edge infrastructure that is responsible for the network must first, monitor the level of proactivity and adapt to application performance issues by implementing network visibility.

Minimize network congestion and latency by distributing connectivity and increasing edge bandwidth.

Finally, improve application performance by leveraging solutions that provide end-to-end quality of service (QoS), WAN optimization, and half-mile acceleration.

Minimize the performance variability of broadband access connectivity by leveraging

the path selection functionality of SD-WAN solutions and provisioning multiple access circuits.”

• Benefits of Network Visibility for Business

According to Greg Mayfield, network visibility refers to the awareness of everything in and moving through the network with the help of network visibility tools. In the previous article, it was explained about the importance of network visibility in network monitoring. Yes, network visibility and network monitoring are related. For this article still on the same topic, let’s talk about the benefits of network visibility for your business. We have summarized the four most important benefits of network visibility in the following. Let’s see.

• Prevent Downtime   

With better network visibility, your network is less likely to experience Downtime. According to Danny Johnson in his article, although it can’t prevent Downtime overall, many of the problems that cause it can be overcome with good management practices and comprehensive network visibility.

• Better Security   

According to Mayfield, good network visibility can allow you to monitor network traffic and see or detect malicious behavior and potential threats on the network more closely. For example, you can detect malware hidden in encrypted traffic and when someone gains unauthorized access to the network, allowing security measures to respond quickly. Increasing network visibility alone can speed up the time to identify and contain threats and reduce the time, effort, and cost of mitigating security breaches.

• Contribute to Business Transformation  

It can increase security, and network visibility can also help your company transform. What does it mean? According to Mayfield, with comprehensive network visibility, you can quickly identify trends early on and see where and how your network data is improving. This way, you can plan for future growth and not get caught up in catch-up periods that can undermine business transformation projects such as big data and the Internet of Things (IoT).

• Important for Network Monitoring  

As the previous article explains, network visibility is vital in network monitoring. According to Mayfield, network monitoring applications can improve with better network visibility, allowing you to optimize overall application performance.

Those benefits of network visibility for your business, especially those with network monitoring tools. Meanwhile, for those looking forward to network monitoring for your company, one of the best choices is Net Monk, a network monitoring application, and network monitoring services.