What is Network Visibility?
Network visibility is the term used for the collection, aggregation, distribution, and analysis of data traffic flows within and across a network.
With network visibility, you can have great control over network traffic, application, network performance, data analytics, and network resources. This way, you can make informed decisions regarding the traffic and protection of data.
What are the Benefits of Network Visibility?
- Monitor and Limit Bandwidth Abuse:
It let you monitor and control users, devices, and applications. If you have more employees or applications in your network, network visibility will let you monitor that source and adjust their access accordingly.
With a better understanding of bandwidth usage, you can create a better quality of service policy.
- Minimized Downtime:
A detailed view of your entire network lets you locate the source of any problem. Visibility means you can examine problems before they affect your network.
- Risk Prevention:
It also helps to detect threats. Besides, it lets you identify abnormal network behavior. With improved network visibility, you can view threats and create a security plan accordingly. For example, unauthorized access can be tracked whenever it happens. The same thing goes for detecting malware within encrypted network traffic. You can create and analyze network logs and security devices.
- Efficient Troubleshooting:
The proactive issue detection system can be planned with network intelligence. Instead of randomly detecting issues, a network admin can troubleshoot the issues with a more detailed and focused approach.
How Cloud and Mobile Pose Challenges to Network Visibility?
There is no doubt that visibility helps you consolidate your data security as you can detect certain issues. But things might get challenging if your network also includes cloud and mobile technology.
The modern WAN is composed of technologies like Internet VPNs, mobile and cloud services, making it difficult for the traditional network monitoring tool to provide visibility across the WAN. Even worse, an organization can be misguided by a false sense of security as they view all the traffic goes over the MPLS link.
Traditionally, network visibility is done by certain security and network monitoring tools such as firewalls, endpoint sensors, and security appliances. While these tools can work effectively when traffic moves within the WAN, they are likely to lose their efficiency when cloud and mobile enter the network.
Luckily, cloud-based SD-WAN can help in this scenario. Read the next point to find out how.
How Cloud-Based SD-WAN Can Help in Network Visibility?
Traditional tools are not effective when cloud and mobile come into play.
Enter cloud-based SD-WAN.
SD-WAN is more effective and flexible than traditional WAN. It is a virtual WAN architecture that lets you use any combination of services—including MPLS, LTE and broadband internet services. This technology uses a centralized control function to securely direct traffic across the WAN. SD-WAN technology comes with a wide range of sophisticated security features, such as IPS, NGFW, encryption and sandboxing to add an extra layer of security to your network.
Software-Defined WAN helps you track what’s going on in the network, including online and registered appliances. Consequently, you can monitor network events, site and tunnel status, report-based usages, and availability of data on your overall network.
In a nutshell, SD-WAN should be preferred if your network includes cloud and mobile technology.
Network visibility helps determine the behavior of data as well as the detection of issues over your network.
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