What are the best ways to monitor a virtualized network?
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Virtualization is a technology that allows you to create multiple logical networks on a single physical infrastructure. It can help you save costs, improve performance, and increase flexibility. However, it also introduces new challenges for network monitoring, such as visibility, scalability, and security. How can you effectively monitor a virtualized network and ensure its optimal performance and reliability? Here are some best practices to follow.
You need tools that can monitor both the physical and the virtual layers of your network. They should be able to collect and analyze data from different sources, such as hypervisors, virtual switches, virtual machines, containers, and cloud services. They should also be able to provide a comprehensive and unified view of your network topology, traffic, and performance. Some examples of tools that can monitor virtualized networks are SolarWinds Virtualization Manager, VMware vRealize Network Insight, and Cisco AppDynamics.
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Matheus Joaquim Cofferri
Diretor na Cloud DC | Conselheiro Consultivo em Telecomunicações | Redes neutras | 5G | Provedores de Internet | Datacenter | Tecnologia | Top Telecommunications Voice
Monitoring a virtualized network is crucial in the modern IT landscape. Virtualization brings numerous benefits but also introduces complexities for network monitoring. Here are some best practices to ensure effective monitoring in a virtualized environment.
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Steven Cook
Senior Engineer, Service Delivery at Dell EMC
Initial research is very important. Find the right tool for the right job. Depending on your environment will determine how you want to monitor it. A home based business is going to have different needs than a corporation.
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Puneet Devadiga
Telco Industry Solutions Architect @ Google -Cloud & Edge Computing | Digital Transformation | Automation | App Modernization | Monetization | Opengateway API | ORAN | Energy Savings | Cloud GenAI
When evaluating tooling for network monitoring and automation, several key capabilities should be taken into account: 1. Unified Network View 2. Open Source Foundation 3. Avoidance of Custom Tooling 4. Integration with Automation Systems 5. Integration with Data Analytics and AI capabilities A good starting point for this can be https://landscape.cncf.io/guide#observability-and-analysis
Network segmentation is the process of dividing your network into smaller subnets or zones based on criteria such as function, location, or security level. It can help you isolate and protect your virtualized network from external and internal threats, as well as improve performance and efficiency. You can use different methods to segment your virtualized network, such as VLANs, firewalls, or micro-segmentation. You should also apply consistent policies and rules across your segments to ensure compliance and control.
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Steven Cook
Senior Engineer, Service Delivery at Dell EMC
Network segmentation is a good baseline with very few exceptions. Every network should be segmented by a professional to prevent any issues.
Automation can help you streamline and simplify your network monitoring tasks, such as data collection, analysis, reporting, and alerting. It can also help you reduce human errors, save time, and enhance productivity. You can use scripts, templates, or workflows to automate your network monitoring tasks, or use tools that have built-in automation features. For example, you can use PowerShell to automate tasks on Windows-based virtual machines, or use Nagios to automate network monitoring and alerting.
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Matheus Joaquim Cofferri
Diretor na Cloud DC | Conselheiro Consultivo em Telecomunicações | Redes neutras | 5G | Provedores de Internet | Datacenter | Tecnologia | Top Telecommunications Voice
Effective monitoring of virtualized networks is vital for performance and reliability. Virtualization offers significant advantages, but it's important to address monitoring challenges. These best practices can help you maintain optimal network performance and security.
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Puneet Devadiga
Telco Industry Solutions Architect @ Google -Cloud & Edge Computing | Digital Transformation | Automation | App Modernization | Monetization | Opengateway API | ORAN | Energy Savings | Cloud GenAI
A fairly new ideolgy to introduce here would be, "Monitoring as Code" which includes defining, managing and deploying your monitoring configurations using code and automation tools. How automation workflows can help implementing MaC 1. Automation & Orchestration 2. Dynamic Configuration Push 3. Configuration Audit and Compliance 4. Standardisation / Create Templates 5. Knowledge Base Integration 6. Intelligent Alerting 7. Integration with Ticketing Systems 8. Feedback Loop and Continuous Improvement
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Your network monitoring system should not work in isolation, but rather integrate with other systems that are relevant to your virtualized network, such as configuration management, incident management, or security management. This can help you improve collaboration, communication, and coordination across your teams and departments. It can also help you correlate and contextualize your network data with other information, such as configuration changes, incidents, or security events. You can use APIs, plugins, or connectors to integrate your network monitoring system with other systems.
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Mohit Luthra
Technical Consultant - Telco Transformation at Tech Mahindra | 5G Expert | From Business to Technology | Ex- Rakuten, Intel, Jio
From my experience, the integration of network monitoring with cross-domain systems is essential. It enables a comprehensive understanding and accelerates problem resolution. A shared knowledge base or inventory, or mechanisms that compile data from various sources, facilitates effortless correlation. This streamlines the process of pinpointing the root causes of issues. For instance, if an application fails, being able to quickly trace where it's deployed and which business service it affects allows us to identify whether a hardware issue or another factor is at play, and how it impacts the overall business operations. Such integration is key to efficient and proactive network management.
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You should regularly monitor and optimize your network performance and capacity to ensure that your virtualized network can meet the demands of your applications and users. You should measure and track key performance indicators (KPIs), such as latency, throughput, availability, and utilization. You should also identify and resolve any issues or bottlenecks that may affect your network performance, such as misconfigurations, congestion, or errors. You should also plan and manage your network capacity to avoid overprovisioning or underprovisioning of resources.
Your network monitoring strategy should not be static, but rather dynamic and adaptable to the changes and trends in your virtualized network. You should regularly review and update your network monitoring strategy to align it with your business goals, requirements, and best practices. You should also evaluate and improve your network monitoring tools, processes, and skills to ensure that they are effective and efficient. You should also seek feedback and input from your stakeholders and users to ensure that your network monitoring strategy meets their needs and expectations.
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Mohammad Fazel Salimi
Mobile Network Strategy Solution Architect
In recent years, the meaning of virtual networks have been changed to even enterprise networks or private networks which are all on top of a shared public network. As we see the increasing demand on these type of networks, it's important to make an E2E strategy for onboarding and maintaining these customers. This strategy should provide also an E2E view for every customer. Not only monitoring but even let them to manage and interact with their users. This is what we call EMP (Enterprise Management Platform) and recommend to every operator especially Mobile operators that want to monetize their 5G network by utilizing Network Slicing.
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Puneet Devadiga
Telco Industry Solutions Architect @ Google -Cloud & Edge Computing | Digital Transformation | Automation | App Modernization | Monetization | Opengateway API | ORAN | Energy Savings | Cloud GenAI
In a Telecommunications network, operational efficiency is a critical determinant of success. As organizations shift from conventional network setups to fully virtualized environments, it becomes imperative to prioritize network monitoring and automation. To ensure a seamless transition and to maximize the benefits, it's essential to maintain a holistic perspective of monitoring and automation at every stage of the network's evolution, starting from the design and development phases to onboarding and eventual production deployment. This approach is far more advantageous than attempting to retrofit monitoring and automation into an already established network infrastructure.
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Matheus Joaquim Cofferri
Diretor na Cloud DC | Conselheiro Consultivo em Telecomunicações | Redes neutras | 5G | Provedores de Internet | Datacenter | Tecnologia | Top Telecommunications Voice
In the realm of virtualized networks, monitoring is essential to ensure everything runs smoothly. Virtualization brings efficiency but demands meticulous monitoring. Here are some recommended strategies for effective network monitoring in virtualized environments.
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