Hybrid cloud observability represents the ability for IT, SOC, compliance and other operations-oriented functions to observe, manage, secure and audit the network activity traversing a company’s physical and cloud deployments.?It represents awareness and the ability to respond to the what, when, where, and why a certain event or activity took place in a network.?In an ideal world, enterprise environments would all have observability over their network and would quickly be able to glean insights and actionable data from their observability tools.?This is not the case, however, due to a few key challenges particularly in the cloud space:
- Cloud deployments can be a black box.?Cloud Service Providers (CSP) each have their own products and tooling which enable monitoring and visibility use cases.?A couple of common examples would be?Amazon CloudWatch
?or?Azure Monitor
.?While these tools are usable, they are disparate and unique across cloud platforms, they do not integrate with existing on-prem tools or protocols (i.e. SNMP), and they have their own costs and manageability concerns.?They are also subject to limitations instituted by the CSP, which are outside of customer control.
- Replicating packets in the cloud can be challenging.??In scenarios where packet-level granularity is required for a security or performance monitoring tools, native CSP capabilities leave a lot to be desired.?While it is possible to replicate packets using traffic mirroring, this capability is not supported by all CSPs, is susceptible to dropped packets and observability gaps, and users are limited to a single copy of a packet when relying on native traffic mirroring services.?View my recent?Webinar on LinkedIn
?for more details.
- Expertise may be limited.??Companies with a heavy data center presence who are newer to cloud computing can sometimes suffer when trying to migrate applications and workflows to cloud infrastructure.?As the complexity of a cloud deployment increases over time, so does the required expertise to efficiently manage a cloud deployment and implement relevant tooling which enables cloud observability.
There are many benefits to implementing an observability solution within your hybrid cloud deployment, including:
- Enhanced Security Posture.?Implementing an observability solution which gives you reliable access to packets and powerful network analytics can pay dividends when trying to secure your deployment and respond to threats and incidents.?By having a single solution across both your physical and cloud presence, security teams can respond more quickly and eliminate unnecessary swivel chairing.
- Powerful Troubleshooting Capabilities.?Knowing what, when, where, and why events are taking place in your network is crucial when trying to root cause complex network incidents.?Observability tools can become your first stop when trying to RCA certain issues.?In addition, they can enhance the fidelity of data being provided to other tools utilized in troubleshooting workflows with packet-level granularity and the ability to look back in time using packet capture and packet replay capabilities.?
- Improved User Experiences.??The ability to respond more quickly and pinpoint complex issues within your network helps to improve user experiences and customer satisfaction.?Introducing advanced observability tools often leads to reducing mean time to resolution (MTTR) for an IT organization, paying dividends for IT teams and network users alike.?
cPacket Networks provides a variety of tools across the physical, cloud and virtual spaces which deliver best-in-class observability for your hybrid cloud deployment.?Below we’ll quickly review the key cPacket components which enable a complete observability solution.
- Next-Generation Packet Brokering.??The cVu NG is cPacket’s flagship hardware packet brokering platform supporting up to 100Gbps ports with a non-blocking, zero packet-loss design and advanced filtering capabilities.?cVu-V, cPacket’s virtual packet broker offering, is capable of being deployed across all 3 major CSPs along with advanced filtering capabilities and packet replication to up to 10 out-of-band tools.?
- High Performance Packet Capture.??The cStor S family is cPacket’s flagship packet capture platform, capable of ultra-fast packet capture querying and sustained capture capabilities exceeding 60Gbps and peaking at over 100Gbps.?cStor-V, cPacket’s virtual packet capture appliance, is capable of being deployed across all 3 major CSPs and allows for seamless cloud packet capture and can be used in conjunction with cVu-V or native CSP mirroring services.
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- Actionable Analytics.??The cStor S and cStor-V appliances are capable of generating rich analytics and network monitoring capabilities in addition to their packet capture abilities.?Rich analytics include key network attributes such as TCP KPIs, round trip time, latency characterization, jitter analysis, zero-window sessions and so much more.?
- Single Pane of Glass Visibility.??cClear (physical) and cClear-V (virtual) are cPacket’s single-pane-of-glass solutions capable of delivering a single, unified view into your hybrid cloud deployment.?Advanced management capabilities simplify management and orchestration of physical and virtual appliances.?cClear is also capable of powerful analytics and visualization capabilities with a Grafana instance running on the appliance, allowing for quick access to reports and the ability to create custom dashboards.
cPacket Networks delivers observability for today’s hybrid and multi-cloud networks to de-risk your business against downtime and security attacks.?For more information about how cPacket can advance your observability strategy,?contact us
?today to learn more about our products or to schedule a demo.?Visit us at?cpacket.com
?for more information.
