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When a user calls the helpdesk with a network on-boarding issue:

  • How long does it take your IT team to troubleshoot the issue? 
  • How many tools do they use to determine what it is? 
  • Is an on-site visit needed to fully resolve it? 

If your organization is like most, the process is a lot like looking for a needle in a haystack—which is fine if you have an infinite amount of time. But most of us don’t have that luxury.

End-to-end network visibility with an intent-based networking (IBN) platform is one way to re-claim your time and direct it to more strategic business initiatives that add value to your organization.

Time-intensive troubleshooting of network issues
Too often, the process of troubleshooting network issues involves looking through multiple systems to find the one offending system, determine the physical location of the issue and locate the devices that are involved—a time-intensive process, to say the least.

As Cisco SVP/GM of Enterprise Networking Scott Harrell said in a recent blog post:

“IT teams spend 43 percent of their time troubleshooting network issues. They are challenged with finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. There are over 100 places where things can go wrong between the user and application and, as a result, IT spends 4X more time collecting data as they do analyzing and resolving the issue.” 

So, what if this time could be greatly reduced by getting end-to-end visibility of your network through a single tool?  Good news, it can through an intent-based networking assurance platform.

End-to-end network visibility with an intent-based networking assurance platform
An intent-based networking assurance platform (IBN) provides a single dashboard with 360-degree views of users and devices. With this kind of end-to-end visibility, you can easily monitor overall network health, identify issue root causes and remediate issues. Add greater context and actionable insights, and you can troubleshoot issues faster and increase IT productivity for optimal network performance.

  • Real-time visibility – With everything as a sensor, data is collected from multiple sources—devices, applications, users, endpoints, etc.—and advanced analytics algorithms go to work to uncover issues and suggest remediation.
  • Point-in-time troubleshooting – All information on users or network devices “rewinds” to a specific point in time so you can understand the network state when the issue occurred. This network “time travel” stores data for up to 14 days so you can see critical events and reproduce the problem.
  • Problem resolution – Detailed drilldowns help to quickly identify the impact of an issue, so you can take immediate steps to resolve it with guided remediation. You can also proactively spot issues and glean insights from sensors by creating a sensor test schedule.
  • Streaming telemetry – Cut delays in data collection by enabling network devices to send near-real-time telemetry information to the dashboard.
  • Network path troubleshooting – Run a path trace from source to destination to quickly get key performance statistics for each device along the network path and identify issues or misconfigurations that may be affecting traffic flow.

Increase IT productivity with Logicalis
Logicalis can help you increase IT productivity with intent-based networking assurance solutions from Cisco. We can design, implement, and support an IBN solution for you, and create a phased migration path for smooth transition from your current network.

We offer solutions for wired and wireless campus and branch networks, data center networks and WANs. We can also help with network access and segmentation.

Our Network Assessments provide an excellent starting point for understanding the intricacies of your network, so you can make informed decisions from a position of knowledge and strength.

Schedule your Network Assessment today and see how you can get more from your network—and how you can re-direct your efforts to the overall business strategy.

Troy Sempsrott is Director of Architecture at Logicalis, responsible for go-to-market strategies and solution development for networking and collaboration.