Software-defined WAN promises a simplified, cost-effective way to manage multiple types of broadband Internet connections. While most enterprises today are only in the very early stages of piloting or implementing SD-WAN, Gartner predicts that by the end of 2019, 30 percent of enterprises will have deployed SD-WAN technology in their branches, up from less than 1 percent today.
Among the early adopters is Triton Management Services, a retail service provider based in Carlsbad, Calif., that operates Two Jinn Insurance and Aladdin Bail Bonds.
"We have just a handful of IT personnel responsible for supporting more than 60 retail offices with different business and homegrown applications supported by a fractured hub-and-spoke network system made up of MPLS/T1 and DSL broadband connectivity," says Carsel Bester, network administrator at Triton Management Services.
VeloCloud
The company turned to VeloCloud for its SD-WAN offering, a cloud-based system for configuring and optimizing branch office networks that use a variety of transport connections.
Bester, along with Dave Edwards, director of IT at Triton, shared their reasons for naming VeloCloud a personal favorite: We like VeloCloud because of its subscription-based pricing, the performance and network monitoring it gives us, and the fact that it provides a hybrid WAN solution that utilizes our two MPLS private links, AT&T U-verse with cable, or any of our broadband DSL links.
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Performance monitoring across disparate WAN links was a challenge for Triton before implementing VeloCloud's technology. But "with VeloCloud, we went from near-zero to near-100 percent network visibility, giving our IT team 24/7 monitoring and troubleshooting across all 60+ stores, without our staff needing to be on premise," Bester says.
VeloCloud's SD-WAN also significantly mitigated Triton's latency issues and allowed the company to retire some of its network hardware. "One VeloCloud box replaced a Cisco 5510 ASA, a Netgear router and other multiple boxes," Bester says.
In addition to improved application performance and increased network visibility, the VeloCloud technology has made it easier for Triton to meet compliance with retail security standards, such as Payment Card Industry (PCI) requirements. "For our retail stores, point-of-sale traffic is now able to comply with PCI 3.0 audit requirements easily," Bester says.
Infoblox
Triton isn't the only enterprise that shared an indispensable network technology in our annual Fave Raves feature. At the Council Rock School District (CRSD) in southeastern Pennsylvania, a range of network management and security tools from Infoblox have won over the district's IT department.
CRSD initially tapped Infoblox's DNS, DHCP and IP address management tools and NetMRI network configuration and change management product as part of an effort to replace outdated Microsoft DHCP servers and better manage the districts' switches, says Matthew Frederickson, director of IT at CRSD.
"We found the centralized visibility and management so impressive that we decided to bring in Infoblox DNS Firewall to secure our DNS servers," Frederickson says. "The result is a network that allows us to take full advantage of our fiber connection without worrying about day-to-day configuration or security issues."
Before deploying the Infoblox gear, managing and securing the school district's resources -- including more than 5,000 devices connected to the network -- was a complex task, Frederickson says.
"With the Infoblox solutions in place, we've not only prevented security compromises, such as curious students attempting an internal denial-of-service attack, but also enabled our IT department to identify ongoing issues, such as a machine infected with a botnet, which was resolved in five minutes of work," Frederickson says. "Without Infoblox DNS Firewall, it would have taken three weeks of troubleshooting to solve the problem."
Visibility and control are also greatly improved. "We can see the current state of all network switches at a glance, and the centralized DHCP control with role-based access gives technicians insight into current conditions without the possibility of accidental configuration changes," Frederickson says.
Paessler PRTG
For James Ott, Paessler PRTG stands out as a network favorite.
"PRTG is extremely reliable and very flexible. This product has become one interface for many different aspects of our network," says Ott, who is IT administrator and network engineer at two-way radio and enterprise dispatch solution provider Pegasus Radio Corp/Federal Radio. "In addition, PRTG is compatible with one of our vendor's products that no other software can work with. PRTG has truly been a lifesaver for us."
Paessler's network monitoring software provides data that Pegasus Radio Corp/Federal Radio didn't always have access to in the past, Ott says, and he uses it to improve uptime and device availability, for example. "By using the Extended MIB data from our devices, I was able to create sensors that in turn generate alarms when those devices begin to fail. This has saved us from disastrous failures. It has also greatly reduced our downtime, which makes our customers very happy."
Dynatrace Ruxit
Another monitoring solution won praise from Mark Kaplan, director of IT at national bar review provider Barbri. Kaplan raved about Dynatrace Ruxit: "It has helped simplify our monitoring and alert systems into one, all-inclusive package that provides full visibility into our environment," Kaplan says. Benefits include "less downtime, less time identifying and resolving issues."
Wireshark
Meanwhile, Stan Leszczynski, network practice lead at nfrastructure, touted the benefits of Wireshark network protocol analyzer.
"Wireshark is an excellent tool that enables deep analysis and packet inspection to help network engineers quickly monitor, diagnose, and fix most networking issues. It's also a great tool to learn about how computer networks operate at a low level, and how different vendors implement the same protocols," Leszczynski says. "It's always the first tool I install on my laptop, and I often recommend its use to customers and fellow engineers. It has a great user community, with many people willing to help you learn and use the tool. Best of all, it's free!"
Leszczynski relied on Wireshark recently to help a client whose users were having issues with poor voice quality. "We utilized Wireshark to first baseline the traffic, and then track down the errors. We found significant backup traffic was causing congestion on some of the uplinks between switches. We also found that the phone system was not properly tagging packets with the appropriate Quality of Service (QoS) values," Leszczynski says. "Once we made the changes, we again utilized Wireshark to validate the right QoS tags were present, and that the voice quality issues were now resolved."
For more IT pro favorites, check out the entire Fave Raves collection.
This story, "5 must-have network tools " was originally published by Network World.