NetBrainAutomateProblemDiagnosisWithIntentSolutionBrief_5-12-23

SOLUTION BRIEF Automate Problem Diagnosis with Intent Benefits Modern businesses rely on their hybrid network infrastructures which need to be up ® and running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It’s their lifeblood. These hybrid networks Automates up to 95% of must support edge, data centers, cloud-based services, and a litany of software- tickets deﬁned networking technologies, each of which dramatically increases the overall MTTR can be reduced by complexity and the amount of ongoing operations required. half or more The result? A myriad of network service tickets, continuously ﬂowing to keep the Prevents up to 50% of network up and running in support of the business. And these network service tickets tickets may number into the hundreds or thousands per week – many of them solving the same issues that have already been resolved countless times before. With average Leverages existing SME Mean-Time-To-Repair of several hours, the total operational resources required adds resources up quickly. No-Code required for Repeatedly troubleshooting the same common issues is time-consuming, tedious, and setup and usage ineﬃcient. Although adding more service desk personnel historically has been a Setup preventive measures common and tactical solution to this problem, it fails to achieve the desired results - to stop future problems higher service availability, lower operational costs, shorter task duration, and more consistent ticket resolutions. With skilled candidates even harder to ﬁnd today due to a wealth of global socio-economic pressures, scaling through headcount is simply not a strategic plan for IT Operations. There must be a better way - a way that leverages existing resources by magnifying their eﬀorts. NetBrain Next-Gen, as a tightly integrated part of your IT Service Management (ITSM) strategy, makes your network operations more intelligent and more repeatable. And when you integrate NetBrain into your Incident workﬂows, it does most of the work before your operators even get involved! This dramatically reduces your MTTR by decreasing the reliance on network operators’ manual processes. NetBrain Eases Problem Diagnosis Challenges Repetitive Impact to Critical Transient Self-Service Incidents Functions Problems Needs Close repetitive Accelerate Identify and resolve Shift workloads tickets faster by remediation of random complaints left from human leveraging existing abnormal critical of slow and poor- to machine to knowledge as application network performing increase user automation functions including applications when satisfaction failover and security they occur

SOLUTION BRIEF Automate Problem Diagnosis with Intent Solution Overview NetBrain Next-Gen is the only no-code network And it lets users conﬁdently make network conﬁguration automation platform that manages any hybrid network changes by redeﬁning the intended behaviors of the by capturing, replicating, and enforcing network design network, not forcing them to adjust the individual devices intents to eases problem diagnosis and maintain ideal themselves. By understanding the intentions of application network conditions. When connected to an ITSM system architects and business leadership, NetBrain Next-Gen like ServiceNow, Ivanti, Jira, and others, it allows dramatically simpliﬁes the management of any network. enterprises to address of up to 95% of their network service And since managing business intentions is much more tickets, commonly reducing their ticket service times by at easily understood by business leadership (versus the least half. When used proactively, it even prevents up to litany of diverse device detail already in place), NetBrain 50% of abnormal network conditions that would otherwise Next-Gen allows you to easily apply intent-based lead to the creation of even more service tickets. automation across the entire network, without the need NetBrain Next-Gen is based on a fundamental for operators to understand the minutia of every device. understanding of the intent of any network. Whereas all other network operations solutions treat hybrid networks Automating Incident Workﬂows as the compilation of thousands of connected devices With so many processes updating service tickets, most that must be individually managed, NetBrain Next-Gen become just noise to operators. Automation can help tune looks at hybrid networks as the realization of thousands out the noise by auto opening and closing status tickets. In of network design intents. addition, when a trouble ticket is created from an external As such, NetBrain Next-Gen automates IT service system, it triggers NetBrain Next-Gen to automatically map delivery by assuring that network intentions are deﬁned the network area, verify symptoms, perform impact analysis, and preserved. and check known problems against existing intents. NetBrain automates incident workﬂows Your Workflow Enhanced with NetBrain Via self-service automation bot User Reports Issue Ticket Tier 1 Tier 2 Remediate Close Created Diagnosis Diagnosis Ticket Monitoring System Automation Troubleshoot No-Code Make changes in Auto-Close/Open triggered with Collaboration accordance with Tickets to run automation (Bot and Portal) network intents Generates map Single pane of glass for 3rd- Verifies symptom party data Determines network impact Checks for known problems

SOLUTION BRIEF Automate Problem Diagnosis with Intent The key to lower MTTR is a Triggered Event-Triggered Automation Automation Framework System-wide operations management simpliﬁes the NetBrain Next-Gen automates every aspect of the incident continuous automation of any complex hybrid network at workﬂow from ticket creation to diagnosis to notiﬁcation. scale by conﬁguring events to run checks at scheduled • Automating a “best ﬁrst response” diagnosis for 95% times, based on network conditions, triggered by external of all problems. Service tickets trigger Next-Gen to ﬁnd events (API calls), from a self-service bot, and on-demand the automation most applicable to the ticket type. via a map to auto-validate its state, condition, and performance. • Automatically identifying the vicinity of the ticket After conﬁguration, the ITSM automatically triggers reported and generating speciﬁc topology maps NetBrain Next-Gen to begin problem diagnosis the instant (physical and logical) for that reported condition. any service ticket is generated, not hours or days after the problem has been reported, facilitating the resolution of Automated Service Ticket Handling intermittent or transient issues. Once triggered, NetBrain Next-Gen automatically springs Problem Diagnosis into action and ﬁnds the network information it needs from the service ticket record using advanced traﬃc path Capture Context discovery. NetBrain Next-Gen takes real-time information Perform Diagnosis from routing tables, NAT policies, ACLs, VRFs, MAC address Dynamic Map tables, and even layer 2 devices into consideration when discovering the problem. Then, it generates a real-time visual map of all the involved network devices in the problem area, including the devices, paths, and intents. • Empowering network operators to collaborate and Map-Driven Diagnostics leverage members of the team using a library of Leverage pre-built automation assets such as Intents/ automated runbooks increasing the intelligence Maps/Paths organized by devices to visually troubleshoot when taking additional actions. network problems on maps and paths. Next-Gen enhances • Automatically documenting the full ticket response the ability to perform follow-up diagnostics to downstream investigation and subsequent operator-led or related devices, if a change is detected, and for tickets remediations, preserving the context of each service reporting errors. The system leverages pre-built intents to operation for future reference. automatically generate contextual color-coded diagnostics • Identiﬁes when the network can no longer support the on maps. required application-deﬁned connectivity intents to proactively prevent abnormal conditions from aﬀecting production. Events TRIGGER No-Code Network Automation NOTIFY API ation tiﬁc o N 34 s t Alert en t n I iagnoses assed D 280 P 100 es vic e D Checks for known problems

SOLUTION BRIEF Automate Problem Diagnosis with Intent Self-Service and Collaborative Deep Integrations Automate Ticket Automation Handling An Automation Bot lets anyone intuitively execute multi- NetBrain extends the ITSM capabilities to your hybrid step intent-based automations to solve real-world network to reduce your MTTR and prevent outages. challenges fast using a simple chat conversation. Pull and Automation uses ticket data to streamline network share maps, prompt users, and share ﬁndings with others troubleshooting workﬂows by auto-triggering diagnostic to speed troubleshooting, compliance tasks and change automation. management. If the Bot ﬁnds an issue it can open a ticket Intents and maps are the cornerstone of the Next-Gen or send an email to the appropriate team and yes will platform and now can be added to incidents for execute the proper intent and draw a map. troubleshooting transient problems, periodic ongoing If Next-Gen cannot match the incident to an existing issue compliance execution, and to correlate data with 3rd-party or further troubleshooting is required, you can also use tools. Use intents to perform diagnostics on API-based SDN chatbot for fast collaboration to communicate and share and cloud networks while integrating data from external information with anyone via the Incident Portal. observability systems for a uniﬁed view. Pre-built API connectors provide a single source of truth Interactive Automation Framework integrating data and events from your existing systems. NetBrain Next-Gen enhances Level 2 troubleshooting Pre-program notiﬁcations to alert the right teams fast via diagnosis with real-time collaboration. 1) Email to ITSM system (ServiceNow) to create tickets or use the 2) Webhook API to send data to 3rd-party systems, • Incident Portal – a shared environment to securely like Splunk. share ﬁndings, provide access to an incident page, As a result, NetOps reduces ticket duration and overall MTTR and collaborate with non-NetBrain users. by automating the most common tasks associated with your • SmartCLI - allows user to compare live data with most common problems. In most cases, up to 95% of all historical data and highlight changes for root cause tickets can have their duration reduced by half. troubleshooting. troubleshoot by running live CLI commands and comparing CLI command output ServiceNow Integration against a baseline, then save, share, or use in a Runbook. Runbooks can execute CLI/API-based NetBrain’s out-of-the-box connector for ServiceNow tightly diagnosis automation, document diagnosis process joins the two systems together enriching the value of your and knowledge for sharing and execute changes and ticket system deployment. And the connector setup is simple: impact analysis. once the connector installed, the NetBrain administrator • Runbooks - automation that runs against abstract performs all remaining conﬁguration steps without the need data model, often interactively, automating CLI-based to involve ITSM admins. troubleshooting steps. NetBrain enhances all event processing stages as deﬁned Automated Notiﬁcations by ServiceNow, including Problem, Incident, and Change. After generating detailed maps of the problem area Achieve successful outcomes with automated notiﬁcations referenced in the ticket, the user deﬁnes the most applicable such as email alerts so the right team can act immediately types of automation to execute, including health and with the relevant information to resolve any problem. performance checks. Dashboard Report The Report and Dashboard organizes, analyzes, and lets you share data easily by summarizing data for NetBrain automation assets including intents, maps, devices, paths, and applications over time. Checks for known problems

SOLUTION BRIEF Automate Problem Diagnosis with Intent NetBrain handles the most common and repetitive Ultimately, the MSP has a stronger and more diﬀerentiated diagnostics which would otherwise be executed by business service-delivery oﬀering when their NetBrain and responding engineers or operators. These include ServiceNow solutions are interconnected. NetBrain PDAs checking networking device CPU and memory utilization, enables the MSP to oﬀer services with lower MTTR. port status, OSPF neighbor status, path integrity, QoS Read more about ServiceNow integration parameters, protocol and address security ﬁlters, forward/backward paths, and much more. Ultimately all this diagnostic information, along with the maps that had Decreasing the Number of Service Tickets been previously generated are made available to the through Preventive Automation ServiceNow system. In addition to decreasing the duration of handling service tickets through the triggered automation sequences described elsewhere, NetBrain Next-Gen becomes more intelligent over time, allowing intentions to be captured and executed in an on-going fashion to enforce service delivery as the business applications demand. • Guided remediation is available from network intelligence via a library (IBA Center) of pre-built automation units. Operators can use Next-Gen, along with these pre-built automation units, as they complete ticket resolution. • Continuous validation of desired network intents ensures the production hybrid network delivers the connectivity services as required by the software application architects. Now, you can prevent unexpected changes to the network and avoid problems from arising using the Preventive The result? The NetBrain documentation and diagnostic Automation Framework. Since NetBrain Next-Gen captures results are populated and available inside the ServiceNow ticket analysis, design analysis, best practice rules, it can ticket itself. The provided detail shows each step of the continuously monitor the network for deviations from triggered events with the timestamps, such as creating an normal conditions. incident, creating a map, and each of the steps executed Events can trigger preventive probes that check network within a Runbook. conﬁgurations and performance conditions for any issues. And since NetBrain stores all reference detail back inside • If there are any changes, the system triggers special the service ticket, responding network technicians and ‘looking glass’ probes to run on key or upstream devices engineers can streamline their continued remediation to ﬁnd the problem. eﬀorts, shaving hours oﬀ the time it takes to resolve any ticket. And if the user needs more detail, he/she can open • Eﬃcient polling can detect thousands of changes from a the Incident Portal directly to get richer data and other single polling using inherent network technology: route related diagnostic history. table check, BGP table, CAM table, MPLS tag, etc. Multi-tenant for Managed Service NetBrain Maximizes Automation Value Provider (MSP) By connecting directly at the program level, NetBrain The diagnosis trigger supports multiple tenants and Next-Gen triages and documents every network service domains for MSPs to manage their clients’ networks in ticket, including a full set of diagnostic tests, before isolation. The connector supports the multi-tenant operators begin working on any service ticket. With environment by mapping the related ServiceNow data NetBrain, more than 95% of all network service tickets can (called Scope) to NetBrain tenants and domains. The be automated, reducing their duration by more than half. ServiceNow Scope is used to match a triggered API call to And moreover, it can detect abnormal network conditions a NetBrain tenant. The Scope is the display name (label) before they impact production, further reducing the identifying which client a ServiceNow ticket belongs to, number of service tickets that IT must handle. This serves to such as company name and customer ID. lower the risk proﬁles of the entire network infrastructure, since risk-producing abnormalities are corrected before they aﬀect business.

Multi-tenant for Managed Service Provider (MSP) The diagnosis trigger supports multiple tenants and domains for MSPs to manage their clients’ networks in isolation. The connector supports the multi-tenant environment by mapping the related ServiceNow data (called Scope) to NetBrain tenants and domains. The ServiceNow Scope is used to match a triggered API call to a NetBrain tenant. The Scope is the display name (label) identifying which client a ServiceNow ticket belongs to, such as company name and customer ID. SOLUTION BRIEF Automate Problem Diagnosis with Intent NetBrain is built upon the concept of network intents. No-code technology allow the network to be deﬁned as a series of network intent, rather than an aggregation of hundreds or thousands of box-level devices. This simpliﬁes the goal of network management to be service-delivery oriented. NetBrain focuses on maintaining service delivery, and when problems occur, reducing the time it takes to address each. NetBrain redeﬁnes network automation, making it more intelligent, more available, and more responsive to supporting the business. Let us help you explore the possibilities. About NetBrain Founded in 2004, NetBrain is the market leader for NetOps automation, providing network engineers with dynamic visibility across their hybrid networks and low-code/no- code automation for key tasks across IT workﬂows. Today, more than 2,500 of the world’s largest enterprises and managed service providers use NetBrain to automate network documentation, accelerate troubleshooting, and strengthen network security—while integrating with a rich ecosystem of partners. NetBrain is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, with locations in London, United Kingdom; Munich, Germany; Toronto, Canada; and Beijing, China. For more information, visit www.netbrain.com. +1 (800) 605-7964 Copyright © 2023 NetBrain Technologies, Inc. All trademarks referenced herein belong to NetBrain Technologies, Inc [email protected] NB-SB-APDWI-051223 www.netbraintech.com