SD-WAN Monitoring Survival Guide: Be the Master of Your Network

SD-WAN technology is a hot topic in the networking world, with many businesses transitioning to SD-WAN networks for the promise of improved performance and reliability. However, after migrating, numerous companies find themselves lacking in SD-WAN network visibility. This makes it difficult to identify and address performance issues and determine whether their SD-WAN service is meeting expectations.

Are you tired of feeling like you're driving blindfolded when it comes to your company's network? Are you ready to take off that blindfold and gain some visibility into your network's performance? Keep reading to learn about the ins and outs of SD-WAN monitoring for businesses.

SD-WAN stands for Software-Defined Wide Area Network. It is a technology that simplifies the management and operation of a Wide Area Network (WAN) by separating the networking hardware from its control mechanism. Large enterprises and network administrators use SD-WAN to manage their enterprise network, rather than relying on physical devices like routers and switches.

SD-WAN technology allows for centralized control and management of the WAN, regardless of where the network devices are physically located. It also enables organizations to use multiple types of connections, such as broadband and cellular, to connect remote locations and applications securely and efficiently. SD-WAN has become increasingly popular in recent years as more businesses seek to connect geographically dispersed locations, improve network performance, and reduce costs.

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Too many businesses don’t have visibility over their SD-WAN networks. While it’s true that SD-WAN technology provides better performance than older network technology, like MPLS, they’re still prone to experiencing performance issues. SD-WAN monitoring is important for that, and so much more:

1. Ensure the success of your SD-WAN migration: Many businesses have no visibility when migrating to SD-WAN - but this is crucial. Implement SD-WAN monitoring before your migration to identify problems that may hinder the migration before and after.

2. See what Service Providers can’t: SD-WAN vendors sell you impeccable SLAs and big promises about the performance of SD-WAN. But, like any other network, SD-WAN networks are still prone to network issues that vendors and Service Providers can’t see. So you need SD-WAN monitoring to catch performance issues yourself.

3. Measure the SD-WAN promise: SD-WAN vendors make promises about the capacity of the SD-WAN device to seamlessly perform load balancing on multiple links, and the ability of the SD-WAN management platform to provide visibility on the network performance. It's up to you to monitor your SD-WN network to ensure that your vendor upholds the promises they made for your SD-WAN performance.

4. Identify all SD-WAN performance issues: Despite its capabilities, SD-WAN, like any network, is susceptible to network issues that can impact user experience. High bandwidth and CPU usage are common SD-WAN issues that are likely to occur at some point. It’s crucial to use SD-WAN monitoring to proactively identify and resolve these issues.

5. Go further than SD-WAN native monitoring feature: Despite SD-WAN vendors' claims about the monitoring capabilities of their SD-WAN solutions, they don’t provide the 360-degree visibility needed for monitoring every SD-WAN network location. Additionally, they can’t perform SD-WAN monitoring from the user's point-of-view, which is crucial to determining whether the SD-WAN service is delivering on its promised performance.

6. Facilitate SD-WAN troubleshooting: Troubleshooting issues with SD-WAN Edge devices and in IPSec Tunnels can be exceptionally challenging without the right tools. When you then add Firewall as a Service (FWaaS) in the equation, it then involves a Service Provider and creates additional communication paths to monitor and troubleshoot - which also require SD-WAN monitoring tools.

7. Decrease the ping-pong with Service Providers: When there are Service Providers involved, troubleshooting can become a long process. In instances of performance issues, there can be significant communication between customers and Service Providers, as no one has the necessary visibility to determine the source of the problem or the party responsible for resolving it. Having the right visibility helps you provide to Service Providers that there is an issue, and give them the information to escalate your support case.

Ready to take your network monitoring to the next level? Try Obkio's SD-WAN monitoring solution today and gain valuable insights into the performance of your network.

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• Measure real-time network metrics
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Many businesses face a lack of visibility into their SD-WAN networks. SD-WAN vendors often overstate the capabilities of their network and application monitoring features, leaving organizations without the necessary depth and visibility required for monitoring modern WAN networks.

In reality, a significant 75% of IT professionals encounter substantial challenges with the native monitoring features provided by their SD-WAN services.

Furthermore, there is a scarcity of monitoring tools that can effectively track SD-WAN network performance from the user's perspective, which is crucial for understanding if the SD-WAN service is delivering as promised.

That's why we are presenting a guide on how to monitor SD-WAN network performance using advanced decentralized network monitoring solutions, such as Obkio. These solutions offer comprehensive monitoring capabilities to ensure that organizations have the visibility they need to monitor and optimize their SD-WAN networks effectively.

Monitoring SD-WAN networks with dedicated network monitoring tools offers several benefits compared to relying solely on SD-WAN native monitoring features. Here are some advantages:

• Comprehensive Visibility: Network monitoring tools provide a holistic view of the entire network infrastructure, including both SD-WAN and non-SD-WAN components. They offer a unified dashboard that consolidates data from various network devices, protocols, and vendors. This comprehensive visibility allows administrators to monitor the entire network ecosystem, detect issues that may impact SD-WAN performance, and troubleshoot problems effectively.
• Multi-Vendor Support: Network monitoring tools typically support a wide range of network devices and vendors. This flexibility enables organizations to monitor SD-WAN deployments that incorporate equipment from different manufacturers. Native SD-WAN monitoring features, on the other hand, may be limited to specific vendors' offerings. With network monitoring tools, organizations can achieve consistent monitoring across their entire network infrastructure, regardless of vendor diversity.
• Advanced Analytics and Reporting: Network monitoring tools often include advanced analytics capabilities to process and analyze network data. They can generate comprehensive reports, visualize network performance metrics, and provide insights into network behavior over time. These analytics features help administrators identify trends, anticipate issues, and make data-driven decisions for optimizing SD-WAN performance. Native SD-WAN monitoring features may not offer the same level of analytics and reporting capabilities.
• Customization and Alerting: Network monitoring tools allow administrators to customize monitoring thresholds, set up alerts, and define specific monitoring parameters based on their organization's needs. This flexibility ensures that administrators receive timely notifications when critical network metrics deviate from desired levels. Native SD-WAN monitoring features may have limited customization options and may not provide the same level of flexibility in terms of configuring alerts and notifications.
• Future-Proofing: Network monitoring tools are often designed to adapt to evolving technologies and network architectures. They can support the monitoring requirements of both traditional networks and newer technologies. By utilizing such tools, organizations can future-proof their monitoring capabilities and ensure they can effectively monitor SD-WAN networks as they evolve and incorporate new features and functionalities.

One of the main use cases for SD-WAN monitoring is to identify and troubleshoot some of the most common SD-WAN issues. Trust us, it’s not about if these problems will happen, it’s about when. So you better be prepared when they do.

Let’s go over some of the most common issues you should be aware of:

1. High CPU Usage: High CPU usage is very common in SD-WAN Devices and usually affects all network sessions. This generally occurs when a network device does not have enough available resources to manage the throughput.
2. High Bandwidth Usage: When the bandwidth capacity of an SD-WAN network is exceeded, network performance can degrade, leading to issues like latency and packet loss and poor user experience that affects critical business applications.
3. Local Loop Issues: Issues with the local loop, such as cabling problems or faulty equipment, can result in intermittent connectivity, slow data transfer rates, and even complete network outages. These problems can be particularly challenging to diagnose and resolve because they occur outside of the customer's network.
4. DNS Issues: DNS issues, such as incorrect or outdated DNS records, can lead to slow or intermittent connectivity, as devices may struggle to connect to the correct resources. Additionally, DNS attacks, such as DNS spoofing or cache poisoning, can cause significant security issues on an SD-WAN network.
5. Defective Cables or Connectors: The physical components of an SD-WAN network are critical to its performance, and defective cables or connectors can cause a range of issues, from intermittent connectivity to complete network outages. This can result in poor user experience and can also impact critical business applications that rely on the network.

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Now that you know why SD-WAN monitoring is important, and what performance issues you need to avoid when migrating to SD-WAN, let’s show you how to actually implement SD-WAN monitoring.

Traditional monitoring solutions that focus on your device won’t give you insight into your network’s performance, and SD-WAN native monitoring features can’t monitor from end to end. So your business needs a solution that monitors end-to-end SD-WAN performance to identify network problems before and after your SD-WAN migration.

Deploy an Agent-based solution, ​like Obkio Network Performance Monitoring software, with dedicated SD-WAN Monitoring capabilities that help you understand:

• If the SD-WAN service is performing as promised
• If it’s not, what problems are affecting their SD-WAN networks
• Where the problems happened (in their local network or Service Provider network)
• Who is responsible for troubleshooting the issue

Deploying a monitoring solution before an SD-WAN migration is crucial to compare the network's performance both before and after the migration. This will enable you to track any changes in network performance and identify any issues that may arise during or after the migration process.

Obkio monitors network performance using synthetic UDP traffic from Monitoring Agents deployed in key network locations. To monitor an SD-WAN migration, we recommend deploying Monitoring Agents in:

• Your Local Network
• And between network locations: remote offices and your company’s headquarters, data centers or clouds

In the screenshot above, a branch office migrated from a dedicated low-bandwidth MPLS connection to an SD-WAN service with two broadband connections.

• The migration occurred in the middle of the graph (around 18:20).
• A few minutes later, around 19:00, the SD-WAN service switched from the primary ISP to the secondary ISP due to high packet loss for about 15 minutes.
• There is just a little bit of packet loss during the failover because it took a few seconds for the SD-WAN appliance to failover

Congrats! At this point, you would have migrated to your new SD-WAN service. Now you need to monitor it. To adequately deploy SD-WAN monitoring, you need to understand the design of your network so you can adapt that design to your monitoring setup to the network design.

The image below shows an SD-WAN network site communicating with either a Data Center, Head Office or IaaS.

In an SD-WAN Architecture, SD-WAN issues can come from many different places:

• The Internet
• Internet Local Loop
• Internet Provider’s Edge Router
• ISP Backbone
• ISP Peering Point
• Internet VPN IPSec between the site and ZScaler (Firewall As A Service)

• IPsec Tunnel from one site to another
• The LAN
• SD-WAN Edge
• Core & Distribution Switches
• Access Switches

• 80% of companies using SD-WAN experience performance issues on the last mile of the network. The last mile generally has the lowest speeds, the least route diversity and the most single points of failure.

• If your business also has Firewall As A Service (FWaaS), you’ll need to open a support ticket with your Service Provider if the problem.

To complete your deployment, you need to install Network Monitoring Agents in the customer LAN, behind the SD-WAN appliance, for SD-WAN monitoring from the end-user perspective.

This is the setup we recommend:

1. A Local Agent per network location (data centers, remote offices etc.)
2. Public Monitoring Agents to monitor the Internet

With this setup, you’ll also have visibility of:

• ISP #1 connection
• ISP #2 connection
• The End-User (load balanced between the connection using the SD-WAN algorithm)
• The SASE Service

Once deployed, the Agents create Monitoring Sessions and use synthetic UDP traffic to monitor every network path, measure performance metrics, identify issues and raise alerts.

One of the goals of SD-WAN monitoring is to monitor SD-WAN performance and the SLA or promise made by your vendors. To do so, monitor performance from the end-user perspective, as well as the underlay connections themself to compare the performance.

Here is an example of this setup with three monitoring sessions configured between:

• A local Monitoring Agent behind the SD-WAN appliance
• And three remote Monitoring Agents that are located at the same location (either cloud, data center or head office)

The three network monitoring sessions monitor the network performance between the two locations using different connections:

• The performance as seen by the end-user (load balanced between the connection using the SD-WAN algorithm) - top graph
• The performance of the ISP A connection - middle graph
• The performance of the ISP B connection - bottom graph

This setup is used by many of our customers using SD-WAN technologies. This way, they are able to confirm the real network performance of the end-users traffic and also monitor each ISP connection.

At this point, you’ll now have a continuous SD-WAN monitoring setup. Obkio’s solution will now begin measuring network metrics and identifying performance issues.

Your business’ users may be complaining about slow application performance or disconnection, and you need to detect the issues. Start with Obkio’s automatic alerts and Chord Diagram and look at what’s going on in your network right now.

Obkio’s Chord Diagram shows you exactly what is happening in your network right now. If you look a the screenshot below, you can see:

• The names of all the Monitoring Agents: All the Local Agents & Public Monitoring Agents you’ve deployed in your network.
• The performance between the Monitoring Agents: Represented by the lines and network sessions.
• The severity levels: These correspond to the severity level of the performance issues, red being the most severe.

You always want to troubleshoot the most severe issues affecting your SD-WAN network (the red sessions), in the most impacted network locations.

For example: In the screenshot below, we’ve isolated Branch 3 as the worst because all of its sessions are being affected by performance issues.

To get more information about what the exact problem is, when it started, and what the pattern is, switch to the Dashboard View to view all key network metrics towards that branch on a single page. Here you can also compare all the information from the Monitoring Agents.

In the screenshot below is a Dashboard for Branch 3 with various performance graphs.

• You can also change the selected time frame of the graphs.
• The selected view shows performance over the last 8 hours.

• Column 1 shows the UDP monitoring session performance from the Branch 3 Monitoring Agent towards the SD-WAN user experience Monitoring Agents.

  • The first graph shows the Internet SD-WAN user experience
  • The 2 bottom graphs below show the experience of the Internet connections (ISP 1 & ISP 2)

• Column 2 shows SNMP Polling (Device Monitoring) on the SD-WAN Edge Equipment. Obkio will perform SNMP Polling on the Monitoring Agent and, in the graphs under, show metrics for:

  • CPU Usage
  • Bandwidth Usage

• Column 3 shows Zoom performance and Microsoft Teams performance, which Obkio also provides. It shows:

  • HTTP Application Performance
  • VoIP Quality

After analyzing the information above, we can see that:

• There is poor performance affecting all the traffic
• Both ISP 1 and ISP 2 are being affected

How can this happen? Well, for ISP 1 & 2 to be affected, this means that the network problem is happening on a network segment that is common to both ISPs. This could be in the LAN, or directly on the SD-WAN Edge Router.

This is caused by high CPU usage which leads to high packet loss. This is a very common issue which means that the device does not have enough available resources to manage the throughput.

Now you can Analyze the historical data on the dashboard to find a trigger, a pattern or a deviation from your baseline to pinpoint:

• When the problem first happened
• Is the problem continuous or intermittent?
• Is the problem flapping?

In the screenshot above, there is a pattern. The issue is an intermittent network problem (happens on and off) and doesn’t follow a specific pattern but the high CPU usage is very clear.

Wink, wink. Why don't you follow along while using Obkio's free trial.

The magic of SD-WAN monitoring doesn’t stop here. You can drill down even deeper to find the root cause of your issue.

To do this, we’ll be using Obkio Vision, Obkio’s free Visual Traceroute tool that runs continuously to interpret Traceroute results to identify network problems in your WAN and over the Internet.

Obkio Vision Quality Matrix

Note: If the network problem is happening on your end, you don’t need to do this step. It’ll just confirm that conclusion.

By using Traceroutes, the Network Map, and the Quality Matrix you’ll be able to identify if:

1. The problem is happening specifically towards a specific location over the Internet. So only one specific site is being affected.

2. The problem is on your ISP’s side and you need to open a support case with all the information you can collect.

Obkio Vision Traceroutes

You’re almost in the clear! Now you know what the problem is, where and when it happened, and who is responsible for solving it, you need to resolve it.

• Contact your ISP to get technical support using the screenshots of Monitoring Sessions, Dashboards or Traceroutes in Vision.
• Use Live Monitoring mode for real-time updates and share results of Live Traceroutes with your ISP using a public link.
• If your ISP wants to analyze your data further, you can create a temporary Read-Only User in your Obkio account for them.

If you find CPU or Bandwidth issues, this likely means that the problem is in your company’s network and you need to troubleshoot internally. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Upgrade your Internet connection bandwidth with your ISP if you’re running out of bandwidth or resources.

2. Analyze network devices to determine why they’re experiencing high CPU usage and missing resources. This could be due to software problems, outdated firmware, or a lack of resources on the device. In some cases, upgrading to a larger device may be necessary to address the problem effectively.

3. Look into what network traffic is being used. Examine the firewall logs to determine whether the network traffic is legitimate or not. Illegitimate traffic may indicate a security breach, such as data exfiltration or unauthorized access, or it could be due to large data backups occurring during business hours instead of during off-peak hours.

4. Manage priorities in your Firewall to mitigate the impact of congestion on critical applications. Prioritizing certain traffic can reduce the impact of congestion on affected applications and ensure that critical applications continue to function as expected.

When it comes to SD-WAN monitoring, several key components of your SD-WAN network should be monitored for effective performance management. That's why we always put the focus on end-to-end network monitoring.

Here are the essential parts to focus on:

• WAN Links: Monitor the performance and availability of your WAN links. Track metrics such as link utilization, latency, packet loss, and jitter to identify any issues that may impact network performance.
• Application Performance: Monitor the performance of critical applications running over the SD-WAN network. Keep an eye on metrics like response times, throughput, and availability to ensure optimal application delivery and user experience.
• Network Traffic and Bandwidth Usage: Monitor network traffic patterns and bandwidth usage to understand how network resources are being utilized. This information helps in optimizing traffic routing, allocating bandwidth appropriately, and ensuring efficient resource utilization.
• Security Events and Threats: Monitor for security events and threats to maintain a secure SD-WAN network. Detect intrusion attempts, malware outbreaks, and anomalous behavior to promptly respond to and mitigate potential security breaches.
• Quality of Service (QoS) Policies: Monitor the effectiveness of QoS policies to ensure that critical applications receive the required priority and resources. Verify that the intended traffic prioritization and resource allocations are being enforced correctly.
• SD-WAN Device Health and Performance: Monitor the health and performance of SD-WAN devices such as edge routers, gateways, or controllers. Keep track of device status, CPU and memory utilization, firmware versions, and connectivity to identify any hardware failures, software issues, or configuration errors.
• Service Level Agreement (SLA) Compliance: SLA monitoring ensures that service providers meet their agreed-upon performance levels. Monitor key SLA metrics such as link uptime, latency, packet loss, and availability to hold service providers accountable and address performance gaps.
• User Experience: Monitor SD-WAN network performance from the user perspective. Understand how users experience the network and applications to ensure that the SD-WAN service is delivering as promised.

By monitoring these critical components, you can gain valuable insights into the performance, security, and overall health of your SD-WAN network. This enables proactive troubleshooting, optimization of network resources, adherence to SLAs, and an enhanced user experience.

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SD-WAN monitoring plays a critical role in measuring the promise of SD-WAN by providing valuable insights into the performance, reliability, and overall effectiveness of the SD-WAN deployment. Here's how SD-WAN monitoring helps measure the SD-WAN promise:

1. Performance Monitoring: SD-WAN monitoring tools allow you to track and analyze key performance metrics of your SD-WAN network, such as link utilization, latency, packet loss, and jitter. By monitoring these metrics, you can assess whether the SD-WAN solution is delivering the expected performance improvements compared to traditional WAN architectures.
2. Application Visibility: SD-WAN promises to enhance application performance by optimizing traffic routing and providing prioritization mechanisms. Monitoring application-level performance metrics, such as response times and throughput, helps you gauge whether critical applications are experiencing improved performance as promised.
3. Traffic Optimization: SD-WAN solutions offer traffic optimization capabilities, such as path selection and traffic shaping, to ensure efficient utilization of available network resources. Monitoring traffic patterns and bandwidth usage allows you to evaluate whether the SD-WAN solution is effectively optimizing traffic and allocating resources to maximize network efficiency.
4. Service Level Agreement (SLA) Compliance: Many SD-WAN deployments involve service providers who offer specific performance guarantees outlined in SLAs. SD-WAN monitoring enables you to monitor SLA metrics, such as link uptime, latency, and packet loss, to verify whether the service provider is meeting the agreed-upon service levels.
5. Troubleshooting and Issue Resolution: SD-WAN monitoring tools provide real-time visibility into the network, enabling proactive identification and resolution of issues. Monitoring alerts, event logs, and performance trends helps you quickly pinpoint problems, analyze root causes, and take appropriate corrective actions, ensuring that the SD-WAN solution lives up to its promise of improved network reliability and reduced downtime.
6. User Experience Monitoring: SD-WAN promises to enhance the user experience by providing faster and more reliable connectivity. Monitoring the user experience from various locations and perspectives helps you assess whether the SD-WAN solution is delivering on its promise of improved application performance, reduced latency, and seamless connectivity for end-users.

By leveraging SD-WAN monitoring, organizations can effectively measure and validate the promised benefits of SD-WAN, ensuring that the deployment aligns with the expected improvements in network performance, application delivery, user experience, and overall return on investment.

Several network metrics are essential for effective SD-WAN monitoring. These metrics provide valuable insights into the performance, availability, and overall health of your SD-WAN network.

P.S. Monitor all the essential network metrics with Obkio's SD-WAN monitoring solution! Obkio provides the tools and insights to proactively address issues and optimize your SD-WAN network for improved performance and user satisfaction.

Here are some key network metrics to consider:

1. Latency: Measure the round-trip time for data packets to travel between different network endpoints. Monitoring latency helps assess network responsiveness and application performance.
2. Packet Loss: Monitor the percentage of packets that are lost or not delivered successfully. Packet loss can impact application performance and user experience, so keeping it within acceptable limits is crucial.
3. Jitter: Jitter refers to the variation in packet delay. High jitter can result in inconsistent application performance. Monitoring jitter helps ensure stable and predictable network performance.
4. Throughput: Track the amount of data transferred per unit of time. Monitoring throughput allows you to understand the capacity and efficiency of your network links.
5. Quality of Service (QoS): Monitor the performance of QoS policies implemented in your SD-WAN network. QoS metrics include measures such as priority queues, bandwidth allocations, and application-specific performance guarantees.
6. Network Availability: Monitor the uptime and availability of your network components, including WAN links, routers, and SD-WAN devices. Network availability metrics help assess the reliability of your SD-WAN network.
7. Link Utilization: Monitor the utilization of your WAN links to ensure efficient use of available bandwidth. Tracking link utilization helps identify potential bottlenecks and capacity issues.
8. Path Performance: Monitor the performance characteristics of different paths or links in your SD-WAN network. This includes metrics such as latency, packet loss, and jitter for each path, enabling intelligent traffic routing decisions.
9. Application Performance: Measure the performance of critical applications running over your SD-WAN network. Application-specific metrics include response times, throughput, and error rates, helping ensure optimal application delivery.

By monitoring these essential network metrics, organizations can gain valuable insights into the performance, reliability, and overall health of their SD-WAN networks. These insights enable proactive troubleshooting, optimization of network resources, adherence to SLAs, and an enhanced user experience.

Vendor neutrality is a critical factor to consider when in SD-WAN monitoring. It ensures that your SD-WAN monitoring tool can seamlessly integrate with and support multiple vendors' equipment, offering consistent monitoring capabilities across the entire network infrastructure.

Here's why vendor neutrality is highly important when selecting a tool to monitor SD-WAN networks:

• Multi-Vendor Environment: Many organizations have a heterogeneous network environment, utilizing networking equipment and solutions from various vendors. In SD-WAN deployments, this can include different SD-WAN vendors, routers, switches, and other network devices. A vendor-neutral monitoring tool can seamlessly integrate with and support multiple vendors' equipment, providing consistent monitoring capabilities across the entire network infrastructure.
• Flexibility and Scalability: Vendor-neutral monitoring tools offer flexibility and scalability to adapt to changing network requirements and future expansions. As organizations grow and evolve, they may introduce new vendors, technologies, or network devices. A vendor-neutral tool can accommodate these changes without requiring a complete overhaul of the monitoring system, providing scalability and cost-efficiency.
• Avoiding Vendor Lock-In: Vendor lock-in occurs when an organization becomes dependent on a specific vendor's solutions and finds it challenging to switch or integrate other products. By choosing a vendor-neutral monitoring tool, organizations can avoid being locked into a single vendor's ecosystem. This independence allows for freedom of choice and the ability to select the most suitable networking solutions without constraints.
• Interoperability and Integration: Vendor-neutral monitoring tools typically offer better interoperability and integration capabilities with various systems and platforms. They can integrate with other IT management tools such as ticketing systems, configuration management databases (CMDBs), or security information and event management (SIEM) systems. This integration streamlines workflows, enhances collaboration among IT teams, and facilitates centralized management and reporting.
• Reduced Complexity and Cost: Implementing a vendor-neutral monitoring tool simplifies the overall network management and monitoring landscape. It eliminates the need for multiple monitoring tools specific to each vendor, reducing complexity and operational costs associated with managing separate monitoring solutions. Additionally, a single vendor-neutral tool allows for centralized monitoring, reporting, and troubleshooting across the entire SD-WAN infrastructure.
• Best-of-Breed Approach: Vendor neutrality enables organizations to adopt a best-of-breed approach by selecting the most suitable solutions from different vendors. This approach allows organizations to leverage the strengths of various vendors' offerings, choosing the best solution for each aspect of their network infrastructure. A vendor-neutral monitoring tool aligns with this approach, enabling organizations to select the most effective monitoring solution regardless of the SD-WAN vendor they choose.
• Future-Proofing: Vendor-neutral monitoring tools are designed to be adaptable and compatible with evolving technologies and network architectures. They are more likely to support new SD-WAN vendors, emerging protocols, or network innovations. By adopting a vendor-neutral approach, organizations ensure their monitoring capabilities can keep pace with industry advancements, allowing for future-proofing of their SD-WAN networks.

With an end-to-end network and SD-WAN monitoring tool like Obkio, you gain the ability to monitor the performance of your SD-WAN network, regardless of the vendor you have chosen.

Typically, SD-WAN networks incorporate various components from different vendors, including routers, switches, SD-WAN controllers, and more. Each vendor may provide its own monitoring tools, but these tools often lack the capability to provide a comprehensive view of the entire network infrastructure.

However, with an end-to-end network and SD-WAN monitoring tool like Obkio, you can overcome this limitation. Obkio offers vendor-neutral monitoring, meaning it can integrate seamlessly with diverse SD-WAN solutions and networking equipment from different vendors.

Monitor all SD-WAN networks like:

Fortinet SD-WAN delivers fast, scalable, and flexible Secure SD-WAN on-premises and in the cloud. Fortinet Secure SD-WAN supports cloud-first, security-sensitive, and global enterprises, as well as the hybrid workforce. Their Secure Networking approach uses one operating system and consolidates SD-WAN, next-generation firewall (NGFW), advanced routing, and ZTNA application gateway functions

Cisco SD-WAN, powered by Cisco IOS XE Software, is a secure, cloud-scale architecture that is open, programmable, and scalable. Through the Cisco vManage console, businesses quickly establish an SD-WAN overlay fabric and use it to connect data centers, branches, campuses, and colocation facilities to improve network speed, security, and efficiency.

Fortigate SD-WAN is a solution offered by Fortinet, a leading cybersecurity and network infrastructure company. FortiGate SD-WAN combines software-defined networking (SDN) and wide area network (WAN) capabilities to provide organizations with enhanced network connectivity, security, and performance.

The FortiGate SD-WAN solution is built upon Fortinet's FortiGate next-generation firewall platform, which integrates advanced security features with WAN optimization and routing functionalities.

Viptela SD-WAN, now known as Cisco SD-WAN, is a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) solution developed by Viptela, which was later acquired by Cisco Systems. Cisco SD-WAN provides organizations with a scalable and secure way to connect and manage their wide area networks.

Viptela/Cisco SD-WAN leverages a cloud-first approach to networking, allowing organizations to efficiently connect and manage distributed branch offices, data centers, and cloud resources.

Velocloud SD-WAN, now known as VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud, is a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) solution developed by Velocloud, which was later acquired by VMware. VMware SD-WAN provides organizations with a scalable and flexible way to connect and manage their wide area networks.

VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud simplifies the management and operation of WANs by leveraging software-defined networking principles. It allows organizations to securely connect their branch offices, data centers, and cloud resources, optimizing network performance and delivering a high-quality user experience.

So, there you have it - a crash course on SD-WAN monitoring! Don't let your network turn into a wild, uncharted jungle.

With the right monitoring tools and practices, you can navigate through any network challenge that comes your way. Remember to stay proactive, monitor your network constantly, and be prepared to troubleshoot any issues that arise.

Put It to the Test: Trying Is the Ultimate Way to Learn!

Networks may be complex. But Obkio makes SD-WAN monitoring easy. Monitor, measure, pinpoint, troubleshoot, and solve network problems.

• 14-day free trial of all premium features
• Deploy in just 10 minutes
• Monitor performance in all key network locations
• Measure real-time network metrics
• Identify and troubleshoot live network problems

Start monitoring your SD-WAN like a pro and ensure a smooth, speedy, and secure network experience. Try Obkio today and let the fun of network monitoring begin!