SOLUTION BRIEF Reducing the Cost of NetOps NetBrain has embraced the long-standing promise of While we may be conditioned to think of enterprise Intent-Based Networking to deliver a fundamentally networks as stacks of box-shaped appliances and miles of different approach to network management at scale. network cable, beyond the physical (or virtual) shell of It allows you to continuously verify your multi-vendor network infrastructure, networks are comprised of tens of hybrid network’s ability to do essential work and thousands of desired behaviors or “network intents.” verifies it’s compliance with design, performance and Network intents simply put, are the outcomes we expect security requirements. our network infrastructure to deliver for a specific need NetBrain focuses on the delivery of IT services over the (like the proper delivery of an application or service). lifespan of your network (Day 2), not only the health of For example, a typical network of 1,000 devices can easily the underlying equipment. In this way, it continuously be described as 100,000 Network Intents, when you verifies the compilations of network intents to consider all the unique and overlapping application proactively prevent misconfiguration from manifesting specific network requirements. into network outages or service degradations, Intents include things such as network design, performance reported or not. expectations, security policies, and application paths, among many others. They range from the purely technical (e.g., packet size) to domain specific (e.g., access control Day 2 Network Automation policy) to business-driven (e.g., throughput or latency for a Used by network teams in some midsize and customer-facing or real-time application). larger enterprises, across multiple network How does Intent-based Automation work? domains Primarily to address troubleshooting and Network Intents describe any hybrid infrastructure as a incidents/tickets function of the services each part delivers. Intents describe the Provides guided troubleshooting and ties in points of connectivity with their expected performance and with ticketing systems the security profile and policies that you put into effect for that These are more event-driven (site down, connection. A typical network is described by up to 100 times performance issue, ticket generated) the number of hardware, software and virtual devices that Often helps to automate collection of device are actually deployed, with the specific needs of each and operational state every application codified into network intents. Can be called by SOAR tools as part of a security playbook More mature enterprises evolve to anomaly detection after evolving from primarily reactive alert type triggers (for example, ticket initiated, yet after user affecting incidents have occurred) Preventing network outages and service degradations has been the most sought-after holy grail of network operations for years. NetBrain intent-based automation enables customers to attain this capability, and quickly becomes a key means to dramatically reduce operational costs and risk. NetBrain’s Problem Diagnosis Automation System (PDAS) uses Network Intents to verify, enforce and report on the Networks Intents are Business Intents status of the network in real-time to support remediation While there are many general-purpose network efforts, automatically in response to external events, or automation solutions on the market that focus on proactively to assure the network is in a known state. making sure networks are deployed correctly and Whereas all other network management solutions focus on optimized based on best practices, the ability to apply the health of the network equipment, NetBrain focuses on the automation to the much bigger issue of on-going ability for the network to deliver services. Intent-Based NetOps challenge has eluded the marketplace. automation speeds network diagnostics when: The challenge has always been attempting to manage • service tasks arise by helping technicians investigate a network at the device level, rather than focusing on network issues the desired outcomes of the network. NetBrain changes • a service desk has initiated a network issue request, or all of that and manages the hybrid multi-vendor • proactively by continuously verifying network functions to network based on what services it can deliver, rather prevent small issues from manifesting into outages or than at the underlying device level. services degradations.