Slides from Bob Smetana's presentation at the November 2017 user group : Automation and Monitoring in AWS Talk 2: "Monitoring VNS3 infrastructure health and status with DataDog" - Bob Smetana, Network solutions architect at Cohesive Networks License: CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

1. Using VNS3’s plugin system and Datadog to create a
secure, distributed, monitored layer 3 network
@
Bob Smetana
Network Solutions Architect

2. Who we are / what we do
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software-only virtual appliance

3. Who we are / what we do
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VNS3 provides an flat, encrypted, overlay network which can be spread across multiple regions and
clouds.
This network is entirely yours, and provides a layer of separation between the hypervisor and your
layer3 network.
Management of distributed applications’ networks becomes easy to understand and implement.
VNS3 Controller
VNS3:ms
Public Cloud
West Europe
Public Cloud
East US
Overlay Network
Peered Mesh
Overlay IP: 172.31.1.100 Overlay IP: 172.31.1.100
Primary Application Resource Network Subnet

4. VNS3 plugin system
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Customers can run networking applications “on top” of VNS3 controllers
Containers can provide services such as:
NIDS / WAF
SSL termination
Monitoring services
Proxy / reverse proxy services
Application host load balancing
Application host HA / failover

5. Active IPsec Tunnel
VNS3 Controller 1 VNS3 Controller 2 VNS3 Controller 3
VNS3 Overlay Network - 172.31.1.0/24
Peered Peered
Overlay IP: 172.31.1.1
Cloud Server A
Overlay IP: 172.31.1.2
Cloud Server B
Overlay IP: 172.31.1.3
Cloud Server C
Overlay IP: 172.31.1.4
Primary DB
Overlay IP: 172.31.1.5
Backup DB
us-west-2 eu-central-1
Data Center 2
London
Data Center 1
Seattle, WA
Failover IPsec Tunnel
vpc 1 vpc 2 vpc 3
VNS3:ha 1
us-west-1
Example VNS3 topology
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6. Example: DataDog monitoring plugin
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• Hosts the DataDog agent
• Gathers information via SNMP and the VNS3 API
• Reports custom metrics to DataDog
• Offers users an “at-a-glance” overview of overlay network and appliance health
• Alerts can be configured based on predefined conditions or abnormal statistics
• Can predict network issues so that proactive action can be taken

7. overlay network in AWS with failover

8. network device failover in overlay network

9. server failover in overlay network

10. Example network health dashboard
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