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Multicloud Network Management

Enterprises and Service Providers plan to be multicloud ready to  minimize business risk. Hence, the automation solution must be able to  support multicloud network management.

Multicloud Ready

The Anuta ATOM platform is composed of many microservices  or docker containers that provide functionality such as discovering the  devices, building the topology, collecting the telemetry data, creating  a service chain across multiple vendor devices as well as delivering  analytics and visualization of the network infrastructure. Anuta ATOM  uses kubernettes to manage the various docker containers, so these can  be deployed on-prem, or these can be deployed in public clouds such as  AWS, Azure, and GCP.

Multicloud Migration

As Enterprises shift from on-prem deployments to multicloud, Anuta  ATOM eases the migration by building secure VPN tunnels on-demand.

Multicloud Management

From the single ATOM GUI, operators can manage the on-prem as well as  multicloud networks including IPAM, Security Policy, Standard  templates, and complex workflows that span hybrid networks.

Multicloud VNF Lifecycle

In addition, Anuta ATOM offers lifecycle management for various  virtual appliances (VNFs) whether they are hosted in hypervisors or  deployed as docker containers in the hybrid cloud networks.

For more information visit: www.anutanetworks.com

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Be Compliant 24×7 with ATOM’s Advanced Multi-Vendor Network Compliance Solution

Formulating a well-defined network compliance policy, automated validations and enforcement mechanisms is essential in ensuring network consistency and business continuity. At the end of the day, automated compliance functions as a safety check when humans fail to execute their tasks.

We have keenly listened to our customers, and we have heard the need for a network compliance solution that enables monitoring and management of the entire network from a single instance. That’s why the Anuta ATOM platform delivers advanced compliance management capabilities, making it an all-encompassing solution for any compliance needs.

With rich multi-vendor support and a horizontally scalable platform, Anuta ATOM can automate your entire network and provides centralized compliance management.

ATOM Network Compliance

Save Time, Eliminate Frustration and Define Complicated Policies with Ease

Defining a policy is like painting – better the quality of brush, finer the emphasis on details.

Your network compliance policies include several configurations for security, device/application onboarding, DNS, IP Mapping among others. The small set of compliance policies that you started with, has grown into a long confusing and indecipherable list. Anuta ATOM Policy Builder is designed to provide you an easy and intuitive interface to define complex policies with ease. Use the traditional string templates or advanced python-jinja based templates to define parameterized baseline or expected configurations as well as the action taken with a given policy violation.

Improve Network Efficiency and Mitigate Security Threats with In-Depth Analytics

Anuta ATOM’s compliance dashboard presents you with all of the essential information needed to make critical business decisions. You can view a summary of compliant, non-compliant and reconciled devices and services as well as observe past trends and validate network behavior. ATOM also monitors and displays detailed information across your multi-vendor and multi-domain networks and helps provide actionable in-depth insights.

CLI compliance summary

Remain Compliant Around-the-Clock

Compliance is not a one-time occurrence. Even a small lapse has the potential to severely undermine your network and business reputation. You must audit the network regularly and remediate any non-compliant service or devices quickly. Non-compliance to password policy, as a common example, can lead to a massive security breach with dire consequences. Therefore, it is critical to identify and fix such non-compliance issues promptly. ATOM can schedule and run a network audit at a time and frequency of your choosing and helps you to identify such problems quickly. You can also manually trigger a network audit.

Innovate and Focus on your Network, not CLI

Anuta ATOM handles all of the low-level tedious tasks such as device configuration and enables you to focus your time and energy on more critical activities focused on network management and security. With extensive device support covering 45+ vendors, a variety of communication support – CLI, API, Yang or Netconf, and comprehensive hybrid multi-cloud support, ATOM empowers you to drive real value back into the core lines of business in the form of agility and responsiveness.

Live Stress-Free with Automated Remediation

Get rid of incessant alarms, urgent fixes and sleepless nights. Anuta ATOM’s auto-remediation feature enables you to define remediation action to be taken on a rule violation. The ATOM correlation engine also monitors and validates all rules continuously. Upon discovery of any violations, ATOM notifies and alerts administrators through email, slack notifications, dashboard alerts or any other pre-defined means. ATOM can also preview the suggested fixes so the administrator can approve changes quickly and easily as well as automatically schedule jobs to remediate the offending service or device.

Document Everything Specific to Your Business

CLI compliance Report

Reliable documentation is a must. Documentation and reports help track all aspects of compliance management – compliant and non-compliant devices/services across vendors and platforms, policies validated, remediation actions taken, and much more. Every business has unique documentation needs and it is mission critical that reports are generated specifically to business need. The Anuta ATOM platform facilitates the creation and generation of custom reports specific to your network and business. This enables you to focus on KPIs of your interest. ATOM also enables troubleshooting and forensic analytics by tracking compliance history.

ATOM constantly monitors your network, runs compliance checks for thousands of devices across multiple vendors, and remediates any violation – keeping your network compliant while ensuring the highest user satisfaction and, eliminating potential business losses and/or legal actions.

Anuta ATOM Platform delivers compliance, ensures consistency and secures your multivendor and multidomain network

Click here to know more www.anutanetworks.com

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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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