Application Visibility, Performance Monitoring and Security

Introduction

Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN is revolutionizing how organizations manage wide-area networks, offering resilience and efficiency. A crucial aspect of effective SD-WAN infrastructure management lies in application visibility, real-time performance monitoring, and security monitoring. In this blog, we delve into the best practices for achieving these objectives using Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN.

Application Visibility Best Practices

1. Customizable Orchestrator Dashboard: EdgeConnect empowers you with a customizable dashboard to monitor your network’s health and application performance. Tailor widgets to visualize top talkers, domains, licenses, and appliance health, facilitating network visualization as per your requirements.
2. NetFlow and IPFIX: Leverage these essential technologies to gain insights into network traffic. Configure EdgeConnect appliances to export NetFlow and IPFIX data to monitoring tools, providing valuable information on application usage, traffic patterns, and bandwidth utilization.
3. Orchestrator and ECOS REST API: Aruba Orchestrator and EdgeConnect offer comprehensive REST APIs, allowing network engineers to programmatically interact with the SD-WAN infrastructure. This access provides real-time information on applications, network health, and performance, facilitating data-driven decisions.
4. Polling EdgeConnect Loopback: Pin management traffic to EdgeConnect loopback for better control over application traffic. This practice streamlines the monitoring and management of specific application flows effectively.

Real-time Performance Monitoring Best Practices

1. Retrieve Stats from EdgeConnect and Orchestrator: Regularly retrieve and analyze performance metrics from EdgeConnect appliances and Orchestrator to monitor network health, link utilization, and application performance. This proactive approach ensures prompt issue identification and troubleshooting.
2. APIs for Performance Monitoring: Utilize Aruba’s APIs to collect data about network devices and their performance. These APIs provide insights into interface statistics, CPU usage, memory utilization, and more, simplifying network monitoring.
3. Understand Overlay vs. Underlay Tunnels: Distinguish between overlay (Business Intent Overlays – BIOs) and underlay tunnels for effective SD-WAN management. BIOs are crucial for application matching and forwarding, and monitoring both overlay and underlay tunnel performance is essential for optimal application delivery.
4. Steering Synthetic Polling: Use features like AppExpress to measure the performance of specific network paths by steering synthetic polling across selected underlay tunnels. This approach helps make informed routing decisions.

Security Monitoring Best Practices

1. Export Syslog Data: Export firewall logs, audit trails, and alarms to a central syslog server. This is vital for security monitoring and compliance, enabling efficient analysis of security events and rapid response to potential threats.
2. Understanding Traceroute Behavior: Be aware that traceroute behavior across the SD-WAN fabric may differ from traditional networks due to overlay tunnels. Understanding this behavior helps diagnose connectivity issues accurately.

Conclusion

Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN offers robust capabilities for application visibility, real-time performance monitoring, and security monitoring. By incorporating these best practices, such as using NetFlow and IPFIX, REST APIs, and steering traffic across specific underlay tunnels, organizations can improve network visibility, optimize performance, and ensure a secure SD-WAN infrastructure. Understanding the behavior of overlay and underlay tunnels and implementing security monitoring best practices are essential for achieving a resilient and efficient SD-WAN deployment.

Stay tuned for more insights on how Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN is reshaping the future of network management.