How do you deal with network virtualization and cloud failures?

1 Monitor your network

The first step to deal with network virtualization and cloud failures and outages is to monitor your network constantly and proactively. You need to have visibility into the health and performance of your virtual and physical network devices, your cloud services and applications, and your traffic and bandwidth. It's also important to have alerting and reporting mechanisms that can notify you of any anomalies or problems in real time. Monitoring your network can help you identify and troubleshoot issues before they escalate and affect your users.

3 Adopt automation and orchestration

By adopting automation and orchestration tools and processes, you can simplify and streamline your network management and operations. You can use automation tools that can perform tasks such as provisioning, configuration, testing, patching, and updating of your network devices and services automatically and consistently. There are also orchestration tools that can coordinate and integrate your network resources and workflows across different platforms and domains. Automation and orchestration can help you reduce human errors, optimize network performance, and respond to network changes and events faster.

4 Review your SLAs and contracts

Another key step in dealing with network virtualization and cloud failures and outages is to review your service level agreements (SLAs) and contracts with your network vendors and providers. You need to understand the terms and conditions of your network services and applications, such as the availability, reliability, performance, security, and support guarantees. You also need to know the responsibilities and obligations of your network vendors and providers, such as the notification, compensation, and remediation policies. Reviewing your SLAs and contracts can help you set realistic expectations, evaluate your network risks, and protect your rights and interests.

5 Train your staff and users

It's critical to train your staff and users on how to use and maintain your network effectively and efficiently, and to do this, you need to educate your staff and users on the benefits and challenges of network virtualization and cloud computing, the best practices and standards of network security and compliance, and the procedures and protocols of network incident management and recovery. You also need to provide your staff and users with the necessary tools and resources to access, monitor, and troubleshoot your network. Training your staff and users can help you improve your network awareness, readiness, and resilience.

6 Learn from your experience

The final step to dealing with network virtualization and cloud failures and outages is to learn from your experience and improve your network continuously. Take time to analyze your network performance and incidents regularly and identify the root causes, impacts, and lessons of your network failures and outages. You also need to update your network design, architecture, policies, and processes based on your findings and feedback. Learning from your experience can help you prevent or mitigate future network problems and enhance your network quality and reliability.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?