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Overview: Anuta ATOM Network Compliance Solution

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Network Automation - How long does it take to automate your networks?

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Closed Loop Automation by Anuta ATOM

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Assurance, Telemetry & Orchestration for Multi-Vendor Networks

Anuta ATOM SaaS enables enterprises and service providers to rapidly design and provision network services, collect real-time telemetry, develop in-depth network analytics, ensure compliance and provide service assurance for multi-vendor physical and virtual infrastructure. Anuta ATOM SaaS offering takes a cloud-first approach and is hosted within a Tier-1 cloud. The underlying infrastructure is validated and is governed by quality assurance and regulatory compliance process. With Anuta ATOM SaaS, networking teams can deliver services faster, eliminate human errors, avoid security violations, reduce OpEx and meet SLAs with exceptional high availability.

Agility

Anuta ATOM SaaS improves your operations team productivity with hassle-free deployments and automatic upgrades. You can experiment quickly and scale rapidly to achieve faster time to value and improved business agility.

Flexibility

Anuta ATOM SaaS offers flexible monthly pay per use plans with no upfront CapEx requirement. You can customize the solution to integrate with your specific environment containing 3rd party on-prem and SaaS software. With multiple connectivity options, Anuta ATOM SaaS enables on-demand network orchestration and assurance from anywhere in the world.

Stability

Enjoy the Security, and Availability provided by a Tier-1 Cloud provider. Minimize business risk with periodic backups and proactive customer support. With detailed billing and usage reports, passing the compliance and audit tests will be a breeze.

Anuta ATOM SaaS Advantages

Hassle-free deployments and upgrades

Flexible and Secure connectivity to enterprise networks

Network Orchestration and Closed-Loop Assurance for 45+ vendors

Auto-Scale to satisfy fluctuations in demand

Real-time Analytics and Historical Reports

Flexible Pay as you Grow license model

SDK and other productivity tools for rapid customization

For more details visit

www.anutanetworks.com

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SD-WAN Simplified with Anuta ATOM Multi-Vendor Automation

Challenges with SD-WAN Implementations

SD-WAN is making a mark in the service provider and enterprise  markets. It is by far the most cost-effective and efficient way to route  enterprise traffic to remote locations. However, service providers have  an uphill task of SD-WAN automation.To summarize, SD-WAN technology is not standardized, and a single  vendor approach is not optimal given the requirements for new features  and service agility. On the other hand, managing multiple SD-WAN  solutions creates added complexity due to the additional management  layers.Furthermore, new SD-WAN infrastructure cannot replace existing branch  networking within enterprise deployments given the need for  extensibility to handle the breadth of products already deployed.  Consequently, enterprises must depend on individual components to  achieve security and WAN optimization benefits since not all vendors  support these features.

Anuta ATOM Multi-Vendor SD-WAN Automation

How can Anuta Networks help? Through its ATOM Multi-Vendor SD-WAN  Automation , the platform can orchestrate and automate the deployment of  SD-WAN infrastructure. ATOM has a horizontally scalable cloud-native  architecture and can run on-premises or on public clouds like AWS,  Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. The open-designed nature of ATOM also  allows comprehensive support of more than 45 vendors and 100 platforms including SD-WAN controllers and CPEs.Anuta ATOM Features for Multi-Vendor SD-WAN Automation

Anuta ATOM Features for Multi-Vendor SD-WAN Automation

Anuta Networks ATOM’s Multi-Vendor SD-WAN Automation delivers unique features that make it an ideal fit for any SD-WAN implementation including zero-touch provisioning, support for existing network infrastructure, assurance and analytics, and integration.

1. Instant Deployment using Zero Touch Provisioning

According to industry sources, branch offices serve more than 70% of businesses. Provisioning and management of branch offices is a tedious,  time-consuming and costly affair. Lack of IT resources at remote sites  also drives up cost due to truck rolls. Additionally, multi-vendor  SD-WAN infrastructure typically demands the need for multi-skilled  networking professionals thus also escalating operating expenses. Anuta’s ATOM Multi-Vendor SD-WAN Automation offers Zero Touch  Provisioning which can perform instant deployment of branch  infrastructure. ATOM can provision underlay and overlay network devices  as well as push templatized configurations to branch CPE (physical,  virtual, universal) enabling communication with SD-WAN controllers. ATOM  also offers software image management and upgrades with in-built pre  and post-checks across WAN infrastructure.

2. Embrace your existing infrastructure using ATOM’s Brownfield Support

Enterprises are excited about adding SD-WAN capabilities into their  branch infrastructure. However, they intend to do this only while  preserving existing WAN service investments.Anuta’s ATOM Multi-Vendor SD-WAN Automation supports onboarding of  both greenfield and brownfield networks. The device and service  discovery aspects of ATOM helps to onboard devices and build a topology  of the network. ATOM imports the configurations from multi-vendor,  multi-platform networks and normalizes it for service modeling.The abstraction capabilities of ATOM also enable service chaining  across multi-vendor platforms including SD-WAN CPE, next-generation  firewalls, WAN optimization devices, and other existing branch  infrastructure with a single click. Furthermore, ATOM’s horizontally  scalable microservices based architecture enables support of more than  1M+ devices.

3. Ensure compliance using ATOM’s Service Assurance & Analytics

Day-to-day operations of networking professionals across multiple  platforms in SD-WAN and other WAN infrastructure will be challenging.ATOM’s powerful analytics capabilities combined with its Closed Loop Automation  feature provides unified, end-to-end visibility, control, and faster  troubleshooting. The platform closely monitors network activities and  leverages Big data analytics and machine learning to derive actionable  insights.ATOM also utilizes industry-leading visualization and logging tools  to deliver optimized network awareness. Based on real-time analytics,  ATOM’s closed loop automation capabilities help to provision WAN  policies in managing traffic across multiple underlay networks. This  ultimately improves SLA compliance through MTTR and reduces operating  expenses.

4. Integration with existing tools through the Anuta ATOM open platform

Service providers and enterprises deploy a management framework  spanning operational and network domains. This framework includes  traditional tools such as OSS/BSS, CRM tools such as Salesforce and  next-generation ticketing tools such as ServiceNow and Jira. New SD-WAN  infrastructure is expected to fit within this framework, and  multi-vendor support of APIs and integration has to be accommodated. Anuta ATOM Multi-Vendor SD-WAN Automation is an open platform  enabling integration into any operational and management framework. It  supports integration into OSS/BSS, CRM and incident management tools  like ServiceNow and Jira. These support systems can talk directly to the  ATOM’s intuitive workflow automation suite to facilitate the approval  process during the service provisioning of SD-WAN infrastructure.ATOM also provides a self-service portal which aids in multi-level  service provisioning, device discovery, compliance, reconciliation,  assurance through analytics and reporting of SD-WAN infrastructure. ATOM  can act as a single-pane-of-glass in many use cases across enterprises  opting for a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) model of SD-WAN implementation. This  dramatically simplifies both day zero deployment and on-going network  management.Read More : how Anuta’s ATOM Multi-Vendor SD-WAN Automation solution helped TATA Communication’s IZO™ SD-WAN to transform  their managed services.

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80% of unplanned network outages occur annually due to a network configuration change. Only a mere 3% get rectified before they cause network disruptions. These disruptions also result in a loss of more than $46 million annually. Read more..

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Should you build or buy a network automation solution?

As networks grow in complexity, the demand for automation is ever increasing. Every network architect is looking for ways to eliminate tedious, error-prone manual operations and embrace automation to free time for more value-added activity. From onboarding multi-vendor,  multi-domain devices to monitoring, troubleshooting, and remediating network issues – automation has the capability to revolutionize networking.

When do you require network automation?

Are you excited about an entirely self-driven autonomous smart car?  Probably not. However, you probably appreciate automatic transmission as well as cruise control and other features that facilitate easy driving.  Much like smart cars, the journey towards network automation will be gradual. Are network architects and network administrators ready for a  self-driving network? Possibly, but most architects want some level of control in steering network operations and are unwilling to take the back seat. However, solutions that can automate mundane tasks are overwhelmingly welcomed. In a network world of multi-vendor infrastructure and devices, on-boarding, maintaining configuration, and detecting and remediating compliance violations becomes a daunting task. It is nearly impossible to monitor and troubleshoot a vast network manually or draw any insights given the lack of scalability. Automation tools have been trying to solve this challenge and have been successful in providing some value to the administrators. Tools such as Ansible help you push configuration changes to devices automatically. Netbox,  Github, and others help track configuration drifts, and Python is used to add intelligence into the automation framework. Collected network data can also be stored in open source time-series databases like  Prometheus and Influx, which when integrated with Grafana help provide visibility and insights into the network. While you can get started quickly with these tools and achieve some level of automation, what is required in the long run is a more robust and comprehensive automation solution.

What constitutes a comprehensive network automation solution?

Network administrators and architects have been test-driving various in-house,  open-sourced and commercial automation solutions for quite some time.  While some solutions are low code and easy to deploy, many lack the capacity and scalability for long term needs. On the other end of the spectrum, there are robust offerings equipped with shock absorbing and disaster recovery features, but they require a large footprint and have limited compatibility with only a small subset of vendors. A comprehensive network automation solution automates the complete end-to-end device and service lifecycle. Moreover, it can scale to support a large number of vendors as well as provision devices, collect specific network information, and provide analytics distinct to particular use cases. An easily scalable solution with a small footprint, allows network operators to start small and grow with automation confidence. Constant monitoring of all devices anticipates possible configuration, compliance or other network issues and automatically remediates issues with known solutions. The solution also integrates with ServiceNow, Jira, and other ticketing and billing systems to provide you a complete end to end closed-loop automation platform.

Look before you leap

The first instinct towards automating your network is the confidence that it can be done in-house with standard tools or custom scripting. Some common pitfalls include: Let’s try it ourselves. There is a ton of free automation tools. Many companies have done it internally. We have already automated a part of our network so why should we waste money by buying a packaged solution? While a homegrown automation solution might appear plausible initially, it may be wiser to ask the following questions:

How many automation tools can we learn and handle?  Each tool is specialized in its area – such as Ansible for configuration, Netbox for IPAM, Prometheus for database, and Python for intelligence. Comprehending and maintaining every tool can become cumbersome.

How much integration support do we get?  For a complete closed loop automation integration with ticketing/billing/OSS/BSS are the fundamental underlying requirements.  If the tools do not comprehend these capabilities, is the support readily available or will it have to be built?

How do I develop automation scripts? Developing an automation framework itself becomes a project on its own.  Significant resources will have to be allocated in order to plan for software versioning, maintenance, and upgrades of automation scripts.

How do we handle scripting issues? You have to worry not only about your network but also your script bugs that can adversely impact your automation system. You will have to learn low-level OS integrations to optimally scale scripts.

How many resources can I dedicate towards automation? A project of significant size and scope requires dedicated resources to create and maintain various automation scripts.

How much risk am I willing to take? A  project of this scale may take years to complete. Even then, it may not meet intent or expectations of the lines of businesses that are supported. Are you willing to risk failure?

Will my network get locked to a single vendor?  It’s easy to automate when there is uniformity. If all scripts are tailored towards a particular single vendor, it could become exceedingly difficult to move to other vendors that might bring a best of breed approach for a particular workflow or set of applications.

What happens if key team members leave? This is perhaps one of the most challenging questions to answer. If your key team members that designed and developed the automation system leave  the organization, how could it impact ongoing network operations?

When should you consider deploying a packaged automation solution?

Smaller networks might lend themselves to an internally developed automation solution, but maintenance and future scalability are still risk points.  On the other hand, larger, more extensive multi-vendor and multi-domain networks will benefit greatly from a packaged, microservices based automation solution. The following checklist might provide insight into determining the fit of a packaged solution:

Is there a need to automate more than 500 devices on a given network?

Are there more than 2 vendors in a given network?

Do network operations need to be tied to business operations? I.e. integration of network workflows with ServiceNow/Jira, etc.

Is a single pane of glass desired to manage a given network, or can it be managed with multiple, distributed interfaces?

Is efficient provisioning required to effectively scale an automation framework as a network grows?

Is network enhancement and future proofing a long term objective?

If the answer is yes to any of these questions, consider Anuta Networks ATOM for your network automation needs. Wantto learn more? Visit

www.anutanetworks.com

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