Setting up and implementing services is just part of the IT journey – managing them and making sure they keep running at top efficiency is the real challenge.
This is where the enterprise systems management (ESM) and cloud business unit at Networks Unlimited (NU) makes its mark.
“ESM and cloud focuses on the management side of the IT industry,” explains GM Hannes Rheeder. “We cover the totality of systems management with a number of different product sets.”
The division is fairly new within the NU stable, although some of the product lines will be familiar to customers. “We are still growing this division, still making our mark,” says Rheeder.
The solutions are complex and definitely not able to be represented by just any partners, he adds. “We have to be pretty selective about the partner base. Since we’re largely responsible for the brands, we have to ensure that resellers have the relevant skills and resources to support the technology and help customers.
“As a result, we don’t have a lot of partners out there, and those we do have are typically focused on the enterprise management space.”
Solution line-up
The ESM division of NU aims to make it easier for CIOs and network managers to understand their infrastructure and to manage it effectively.
The foundation for any IT system is the infrastructure: the cabling, routers and switches that connect the servers, laptops and workstations.
Managing all this infrastructure, and ensuring it’s performing at optimum levels is critical to system success.
This is where NU’s SevOne digital infrastructure performance management technology comes to the fore – an analytical tool that lets administrators know what’s going on in the infrastructure and helps them to provide capacity planning.
“For example, if there is a problem on a server, port or switch – in fact, on any device – SevOne gathers the different metrics to help administrators make informed decisions.
This management can extend beyond the core IT infrastructure to include uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), solar panels, rectifiers and more.
“So you always know what is happening in your environment,” Rheeder explains.
Because tools like SevOne let administrators understand how parts of the system are behaving, they are able to plan for future expansion as well.
“From a capacity planning point of view, if I can get information from my servers, hard drive, switches and more, I can understand how they are being utilised and what is needed to increase capacity.
“This helps with planning and budgeting.”
This visibility extends to bandwidth utilisation too, although it’s not the system’s primary function.
Originally designed for deep packet inspection, NetScout adds to SevOne’s capabilities by analysing the traffic on the network and infrastructure.
“It lets administrators analyse the actual packets, drawing a lot of detail about what the network is being used for, and how it can be optimised.”
Service assurance technology, also a feature of NetScout, lets administrators understand what is happening in the overall environment from a software perspective.
“To get service assurance, I need an insight into the business to make sure the service I am paying for or providing to end users is in line with relevant service level agreements (SLAs),” says Rheeder.
“By analysing what is happening, you can determine where service assurance problems are exactly – because you have visibility of the actual packets.”
The addition of Arbor to the NetScout product stable makes it possible to implement distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, whether originating from the Internet service provider (ISP) or the on-premise data centre.
“So NetScout gathers information from the network to enable service assurance, and the same technology can now also help with security assurance,” says Rheeder.
When issues with service or security are identified, administrators can intervene to correct the problems – but this could cause additional problems.
“In a normal IT environment you typically have a head office with branches,” Rheeder explains. “These branches are connected in different ways, with different communication configurations.
“Typically, you have an IP address associated to a specific environment and a specific configuration associated to that on the router. Under normal circumstances, the bulk of environments would have some kind of connectivity whereby they can manage remote branches as well.
“Best practice says to make a backup before changing any configuration – but, in the real world, very few technicians do that.
“Normally, they would send out a new configuration and if it works everyone is happy; if it doesn’t work there is a problem which typically would have to be rectified by someone driving out to the remote site, connecting at console level to the router that is now misconfigured, and rectify it.
“UpLogix is an appliance on site at branch level that essentially replaces this technician. It has the intelligence to talk to the device, and actually manages them as if the technician was sitting right there.”
Not only that, UpLogix lets administrators do full health checks on all devices at 30-second intervals. “A normal simple network management protocol (SNMP) device let’s head office check in every five minutes, which is a long time to let a problem run.
“With UpLogix, within 30 seconds, a probe can be automatically kicked off and remedial action taken – so you can be back online within a minute-and-a-half without human intervention.”
Using UpLogix also enables bare metal provisioning for branch automation and a high level of network automation as well.
A valuable feature is its ability to create an out-of-band connection. “If a device is dead, UpLogix can create a connection using whatever technology is available to give the administrator access from a management point of view, as well as an alternative link to the remote site.
“A lot of remote sites, like retail shows, are connected to head office and rely on that connection to complete a transaction,” Rheeder explains. “Now, they can use out-of-band connectivity as an alternative link.”
Importantly, UpLogix was built in a military environment, so users can rest assured it is completely secure.
The rise of ransomware and other corporate threats has in turn boosted demand for off-site backup solutions. There is a growing requirement for stronger security at every point in the IT ecosystem, and backup is no exception.
As Rheeder says: “Data is the most important aspect of your computer – the ultimate reason why these devices exist is to capture, store and analyse data. Your computer hardware can fail, and computers can be lost, stolen, or destroyed, but for businesses and individuals today, the loss of data is the most painful loss of all. You may be able to reinstall operating systems and applications, but if your original data is lost forever, this is ultimately where the real damage is done.
“Data backup software can help you protect and restore your data when something goes wrong – and in today’s world, this includes the growing harm posed by threat actors as well as human error, or damage or theft of the actual hardware.”
With most organisations around the world, including South Africa, contemplating a move to cloud, managing cloud infrastructure is becoming more important than ever.
NU makes this possible with its Rubrik and Altaro solutions.
Rheeder explains that these systems sit between the operational and storage environments and let administrators spin up new workloads quickly and easily.
Rubrik focuses on the enterprise environment, catering to sites with more than 1 000 users, while Altaro offers solutions for data centres with 1 000 or fewer users.
Rubrik is the fastest growing storage virtualisation vendor in the market, with solutions predominantly focused on backup and recovery.
Rheeder explains that Rubrik is one of a new breed of data management applications that mirrors the rise of hyper-converged infrastructure by bundling backup software and storage that is purpose-built for cloud.
“As a data management platform, Rubrik provides data management services such as backup and recovery targeting enterprises that run hybrid cloud environments. Rubrik software can run on-premise, as well as in the cloud, to protect, manage and secure data.”
Rubrik simplifies backup and recovery for hybrid cloud environments. It eliminates legacy backup complexity by integrating data orchestration, catalogue management, and deduplicated storage into a single software platform. With Rubrik, enterprises can unlock cloud for long-term data retention or disaster recovery and deliver automation with an API-first software platform. It is designed to be vendor-agnostic and supports leading operating systems, databases, hypervisors, clouds, and SaaS applications.
NU recently announced a partnership agreement with Altaro, a leader in backup solutions for managed service providers (MSPs), IT resellers and IT departments.
“We are very excited to bring this new product on board,” says Rheeder. “Finding a reliable backup and replication solution for Hyper-V and VMware can be challenging. Through our partnership with Altaro, we are able to offer easy and affordable protection of Hyper-V and VMware virtualised environments.”
Altaro provides solid backup solutions that are intuitive, easy to use, well-priced and backed by excellent support. The company’s flagship solution is Altaro VM Backup, which was specifically designed to simplify the backing up and restoring of virtual machines (VMs) in a cost-effective and reliable manner.
Altaro VM Backup boasts best-of-breed augmented inline deduplication technology that significantly speeds up backups and reduces storage requirements. Its Boot from Backup makes it possible to boot any VM version from the backup location instantly without affecting its integrity.
The latest version of the solution introduces WAN-Optimised Replication functionality, which permits a business to make an ongoing copy of its VMs to a remote site and to switch to that copy with immediacy should anything go wrong with the live VMs, such as damage due to storms, fires or flooding.
Backup scheduling using schedule groups is an additional useful feature, while its retention policies work to automatically clear older backup versions from your backup storage.
The NU value-add
The ESM and cloud business unit tends to work with enterprise-level partners that offer its solutions either as a service or a product.
“In my space we partner with a lot of ISPs who would typically buy the technology and on-sell it as a service,” Rheeder explains.
Even at this level, he stresses that NU never competes with its partner base. “We do a lot of direct marketing, but fulfilment is always via channel.”
As with all its solutions, NU offers its partners access to its high-level skills and technical resources.
“We are seen as an extension of the vendor in most instances, and we have skilled and qualified people who can support and maintain the technology.”
Products in the ESM and cloud business unit at Networks Unlimited
SevOne
SevOne provides the world’s largest CSPs, MSPs and enterprises with the most comprehensive technology portfolio to collect, analyse and visualise network and infrastructure performance data to deliver actionable insights to compete and win in the connected world.
The patented SevOne Cluster architecture leverages distributed computing to scale infinitely and collect millions of objects to provide realtime reporting down to the second and help organisations prevent outages.
Products in the SevOne stable include:
- NFV Service Assurance – together with Red Hat, SevOne enables CSPs to implement and operate an NFV-based infrastructure, and gain greater insight into their virtual network services and cloud infrastructure.
- Backhaul Compliance – The SevOne Backhaul Compliance Solution 1.0 allows wireless carriers and multi-service providers to immediately prove customer-specific contracted service levels are in compliance across their multi-vendor backhaul infrastructure. With this increased SLA transparency, providers can proactively isolate and alert on SLA compliance ahead of service impacting events to meet and exceed customer expectations.
- Network Monitoring – SevOne ClusterTM SevOne uses a patented, next-generation architecture built on the concepts of distributed computing. It can monitor millions of objects from a single pane of glass, excelling at handling the volume, variety, and velocity of data typical of today’s networks.
- 4G LTE Monitoring – SevOne lets adminstrators monitor end-to-end LTE performance across complex architecture; quickly deliver dashboards, reports and alerts, and ensure satisfaction with speed, performance and overall mobile experience.
- SD-WAN Monitoring – The SevOne SD-WAN Monitoring Solution 2.0 is specifically designed to enable enterprises and multi-tenant managed services providers to greatly reduce or eliminate network management and monitoring risks as they introduce SD-WANs into their network infrastructures.
NetScout
NetScout is a leading provider of business assurance, a powerful combination of service assurance, cyber security and business intelligence solutions. Its business assurance products are designed to provide pervasive, end-to-end visibility across physical and virtual environments, speed issue resolution, and deliver actionable intelligence, enabling you to improve service, network and application performance.
The NetScout product line-up includes the nGeniusONE Service Assurance Platform; nGeniusPULSE for insight into the evolving IT infrastructure; the TruView application monitoring, network performance monitoring and management tool; AirMagent Enterprise for vendor-agnostic performance and security monitoring; nGeniusONE for Carrier Service Provider offer critical insights into network and service performance, availability and usage; nGenius Business Analytics to uncover the data hidden in their high-volume network traffic; TrueCall geoanalytics; Roaming and Interconnect Assurance; RF propagation modelling; an ISNG Platform to consolidate multiple specialised analytics tools and feed common metadata to analytics stacks; vStream for application and network assurance; Packet Flow Switches and Taps; WiFi Solutions; Wired Solutions; Test Optimisation; Iris/GeoProbe Platform; GeoSoft and ISNG RAN.
UpLogix
When it comes to out-of-band access, Uplogix goes beyond traditional console servers with a proactive, intelligent appliance that delivers: automated remediation; detection, analysis and implementing of initial runbook actions; and high security.
Uplogix is a closed appliance, meaning the underlying OS is locked down. It works with the organisation’s TACACS/Radius and offers options for secure connections. It is also FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certified.
UpLogix makes a number of connectivity options available, including: cellular, POTS lines, fibre, a secondary Ethernet link, even a LEO satellite that offers connectivity anywhere on the planet.
Uplogix is the most reliable and secure out-band-access solution on the market today, with more options for linking to your gear over a secondary network path. Uplogix Local Managers deliver the widest array of on-demand WAN alternative network connection options including dial-up, cellular, fiber or satellite modems provides a reliable management connection to remote gear.
Rubrik
Rubrik offers live data access for recovery and application development by fusing enterprise data management with web-scale IT, and eliminating backup software. This marks the end of a decade-long innovation drought in backup and recovery, the backbone of IT. Within minutes, businesses can manage the explosion of data across private and public clouds.
Instantaneous application recovery and data delivery remain elusive challenges for any IT organisation. Businesses demand instant recovery from failures, quick access to test and development resources, and the latest data for business intelligence and analytics. To solve data management challenges, IT needs to integrate multiple points of technologies based on a legacy architecture
Rubrik works with a variety of databases and file servers, including instant access for your SQL databases for recovery, test/dev, and ad-hoc table or row queries. It also offer simplicity with policy-driven data management built for Oracle RMAN.
When it comes to Windows and Linux, Rubrik allows for automated discovery and compliance in a single platform built for infinite scale.
It also offers native NAS protection at infinite scale, making it possible to natively integrate with any vendor or protocol with data management built for scale-out NAS.
Altaro
Ataro is a fast-growing developer of easy-to-use backup solutions for managed service providers (MSPs), IT resellers and IT departments.
It specialises in backup for virtualised and cloud environments, providing affordable enterprise-class functionality while avoiding unnecessary features that add cost and undue complexity.
With more than 50 000 customers, 10 000 partners globally and 2 000 MSPs around the world, the company’s flagship solution is Altaro VM Backup, which has gained traction as the natural choice for Hyper-V and VMware backup and replication.
Altaro also provides an annual subscription solution to back up and restore Office 365 mailboxes, Altaro Office 365 Backup. Both are also available as monthly subscription programs for MSPs.