SD-WAN customers seek greater observability into their network, emphasizing visibility and monitoring as the key to improved troubleshooting and debugging capabilities for a better user experience. Flows are a key feature that help network administrators understand and troubleshoot their networks. Building on the Flow Visibility feature introduced in VeloCloud SD-WAN 5.1, we are introducing Live Flow Visibility as part of the VeloCloud SD-WAN 6.1 release. This feature will address critical use cases for customers who want to better monitor and understand how data flows in the network.
As part of observability, this blog will discuss a pivotal feature in Insights: Flow visibility. We will explore the concepts of flow, the introduction of flow visibility, and, with the latest release, the evolution to real-time flow insights.
What is a flow and what is flow visibility?
A flow refers to traffic in the network, characterized by network tuples such as source/destination IPs, ports, protocols, and timestamps. Based on these characteristics, attributes such as applications, hops, routes, and policies are derived. Flow visibility is the ability to visualize traffic flows and comprehend the flow patterns within the network. This capability is used for monitoring, analyzing, visualizing, and troubleshooting networks.
The evolution and beginnings of flow visibility
When we introduced Flow Visibility in the VeloCloud SD-WAN 5.1.0 release, it proved to be significant for network administrators in terms of flow visualization. Customers now have comprehensive insights into their network which include the following attributes:
Application and application categories associated with the flow
Source and destination traffic to identify end-to-end traffic
Protocol data to better understand if it’s TCP or UDP, for troubleshooting the network
Business and security policies applied to each of the flows
Start and end times of network traffic
Total bytes transferred for a better understanding of data usage
In this release, a new Flows tab is introduced on the VeloCloud Orchestrator (VCO) monitoring page. It displays historical flow traffic and attributes per edge in table format for easy consumption. This capability allows customers to analyze traffic trends over time, spot potential bottlenecks, and make insightful decisions about network resource allocation. It also includes granular search and multi-filter functions, making the tool powerful for businesses for targeted troubleshooting. With the ability to export flow data for offline debugging, customers will now be able to analyze and understand network traffic patterns better.
Figure 1: Flow visibility tab in the VeloCloud Orchestrator
Evolving to address the modern networking needs of organizations
As organizations increasingly rely on SaaS applications and real-time services, the demand for instantaneous network insights has surged. While flow visibility provided rich data about historical flows, administrators needed more real-time application monitoring. There was a need to evolve this feature to provide live flow insights, which not only offer instant visibility into network activity but also help network administrators monitor and respond quickly to traffic issues, thereby improving overall network efficiency.
Introducing Live Flow Visibility in VeloCloud 6.1.0
With the release of 6.1.0, VeloCloud SD-WAN is introducing Live Flow Visibility, a powerful new feature that allows customers to visualize any flows in real-time on the network across the topology. It’s a new way to view flows, revolutionizing how network performance can be monitored and managed. It will also help visualize the power of VeloCloud’s Dynamic Multipath Optimization™ (DMPO) technology, showcasing key capabilities like continuous monitoring, and dynamic application steering.
The key highlights of Live Flow Visibility include:
Augment existing flow visibility feature to enable live flows: Customers are already familiar with the flow visibility browser. Integrating live flows will be seamless and significantly boost network monitoring capabilities.
Enable real-time flow monitoring in the network: Customers can now monitor any flows as they occur live, helping immediately identify and troubleshoot issues.
Compare up to four different flows: Network administrators can compare different flows, helping to determine whether issues are due to the network or the applications.
Break down the flows to view path information: Customers can now break down each flow on all transports, which will help them visualize how VeloCloud SD-WAN monitors and adapts to changes in WAN transports in real-time.
In addition to these key features, customers will be able to:
Customize filters to troubleshoot critical applications: Customers can filter specific flows to visualize, focusing on critical applications during troubleshooting sessions.
Search within the selected flows for better debugging: Search any parameters of flows and activate live mode for the selected flows for real-time insights.
Use new filtering parameters such as:
Next-hop filtering: Allow users to filter based on the next-hop parameter
Route filtering: Administrators will now be able to differentiate and filter between branch-to-branch paths and non-SD-WAN destination (NSD) paths via Gateways or Edges.
Figure 2: Live Flow visibility
We believe that by combining historical flow insights and real-time monitoring capabilities, organizations will now have unmatched control over their network performance. These tools will empower administrators to respond to network issues swiftly by identifying and pinpointing problems and resolving them efficiently to ensure smooth operations of critical applications.
Observability leads the charge with commitment to AI-driven insights
The era of improved network management is here, with observability at its core. This will enable greater monitoring capabilities, enhanced real-time insights, and improved troubleshooting. Looking ahead, our focus will be on leveraging advancements in AI and ML to further enhance these innovative features for a more informed and seamless customer experience. With these advances, VeloCloud will continue to innovate, maintaining a robust and efficient network environment. Stay tuned!
