Abstract: Enterprise networks are becoming increasingly complex, with applications living on hybrid clouds and network connectivity being provided by multiple mediums (wired, wireless, VPN, etc.) This complexity has made end-user experience visibility more important than ever. One very effective solution to the problem of end-user visibility is distributed network monitoring. In distributed network monitoring, multiple sensors are deployed within the network infrastructure to measure network and application performance and detect connectivity and performance degradation issues that could impact network users and critical applications. The performance data generated by the sensors is collected in a central repository for further processing and analysis. External systems like data analytics and software-defined network controllers stand to benefit from this data. Consequently, having application program interfaces (APIs) and integration with third party tools is very important. In this session, we will introduce a commercial distributed network monitoring solution called NetBeez, and show how NetBeez integrates with other tools like Splunk and Slack to enable network operators to be more proactive and effective in solving user-affecting network issues.

1. Distributed network monitoring
Stefano Gridelli
Co-Founder/CEO
IEEE IRI 2016

2. AGENDA
2
• NetBeez: Team and Company History
• Distributed Network Monitoring: Problem and Solution
• Introduction to NetBeez
• Integrations Available in NetBeez
• Future Integrations
• Closing Remarks

3. NETBEEZ TEAM
Stefano Gridelli, Co-Founder/CEO
Senior Network Engineer
Ms in Computer Science at the University of Milan and MBA from CMU
Designed and implemented enterprise networks for mission-critical business and
healthcare operations.
Panickos Neophytou, Co-Founder/CTO
PhD Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh
Researcher at the Advanced Data Management lab of the University of Pittsburgh
Developed a workflow execution model for a NSF funded project for monitoring
astronomical objects and events.
Panos Vouzis, Co-Founder
PhD Computer Engineering (Lehigh University)
Postdoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University
Holds two patents in automation control and developed parallel processing algorithms
on FPGAs and GPUs for bioinformatics applications.
3

4. COMPANY HISTORY
Jan 2013 Team accepted into the AlphaLab startup incubator
May 2013 Received funding from Carnegie Mellon University
Jul 2013 First beta installation at eiNetwork
2014 Private beta installations
Feb 2015 Commercial launch at Networking Field Day 9
Jan 2016 NetBeez accepted into the Y Combinator accelerator
INVESTORS
4

5. PROBLEM
Network Admins can’t tell if users have connectivity.
Users have to call the help-desk to report problems.
Problems happen at remote sites where there are users.
5

6. CONNECTIVITY IS VITAL
DIGITAL CONNECTEDANALOG
80’s 90’s
DATA STORAGE DATA STORAGE DATA STORAGE
ENABLER ENABLER
TOOLS TOOLS TOOLS
ENABLER
2000
6

7. Data Center
(Monitoring server)
Internet
Connection
Office
User traffic
Office
Office
Expensive
Leased Line
Internet
Expensive leased lines are paired with a common Internet connection
LEGACY WAN DESIGN
7

8. Data Center
Internet
Office
Office
Office
Commodity
Internet
Connection
Business-grade Internet lines are paired with multi-link or SD-WAN technologies
VPN tunnel
EMERGING WAN DESIGN
8

9. Remote Office
NYC
?
?
?
Remote Office
LAX
Remote Office
ATL
✓
DATA CENTER
(MONITORING SERVER)
Detection and escalation of network and application issues are left to the users
LIMITED NETWORK VISIBILITY
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10. NETWORK SENSOR
PLUG-AND-PLAY, SOFTWARE, AND WIRELESS
10

11. Data Center
Branch
Office
Synthetic tests
Internet
VPN tunnel
Continuous network connectivity and application performance testing
ACTIVE MONITORING
11

12. Remote Office
NYC
Network Operation Center
(IT headquarters)
✓
Remote Office
LAX
Remote Office
ATL
✓
✓
✓
NetBeez sensors proactively detect network and application issues
DISTRIBUTED MONITORING
12

13. OUTAGE DETECTION
NO PROBLEMS
IN PARIS
DEGRADED WIRELESS
IN PITTSBURGH
USERS CAN’T GET
TO SALESFORCE
!
13

14. PERFORMANCE DATA
14
Test Data Usage
PING RTT, Packet Loss
Network and service availability, uptime,
and performance
DNS DNS Resolution Time DNS availability and performance
HTTP HTTP GET Time HTTP availability and performance
Traceroute Routing, RTT/Hop, Path-MTU Routing and network performance
Iperf Bandwidth, Packet Loss, Jitter
Network capacity and performance, QoS
validation
VoIP Mean Opinion Score VoIP call quality estimate
Speedtest Download and upload speed Internet bandwidth verification
Type Rule Usage
Up/Down IF x consecutive measurements are NULL Loss of connectivity, service down
Performance Baseline IF short_term_avg is y times long_term_avg Performance degradation issue
Performance Watermark IF short_term_avg is > z [%/ms/s] Service Level Agreement enforcement

15. INTEGRATIONS
15
System Usage Example Method
Network Monitoring
Tools
Complementary tools
based on SNMP
IBM Tivoli, Solarwinds, … SNMP Traps
Data Visualization
Correlate alerts from
multiple systems for root
cause analysis
Splunk, Grafana
Syslog, RestfulAPI,
Middleware
Outage Escalation
Systems
Handle the escalation
process of alerts to assure
acknowledgement
PagerDuty Restful API
Collaboration Tools
Allow teams to
communicate and share
documents in real-time
Slack Webhooks, Slack Bot API
Software-Defined
Controllers
Enable network devices
to make intelligent
routing decisions
Cisco, Juniper, …
Proprietary and Open API
(OpenFlow)

16. SNMP TRAPS
16
Integration Benefits
• Complement end-to-end and service status from NetBeez with device
information from SNMP server
HTTP GET
web serverbeez
NetBeez
Server
SNMP
Server
ctrl_channel
snmp_get

17. SNMP TRAPS
17
Integration Benefits
• Complement end-to-end and service status from NetBeez with device
information from SNMP polls (SNMP GET)
HTTP GET
web serverbeez
NetBeez
Server
SNMP
Server
ctrl_channel
snmp_get

18. SNMP TRAPS
18
Integration Benefits
• Complement end-to-end and service status from NetBeez with device
information from SNMP server
HTTP GET
web serverbeez
NetBeez
Server
SNMP
Server
ctrl_channel
snmp_get

19. SNMP TRAPS
19
Integration Benefits
• Complement end-to-end and service status from NetBeez with device
information from SNMP server
HTTP GET
web serverbeez
NetBeez
Server
SNMP
Server
ctrl_channel
snmp_get

20. SNMP TRAPS
20
Integration Benefits
• Complement end-to-end and service status from NetBeez with device
information from SNMP server
HTTP GET
web serverbeez
NetBeez
Server
SNMP
Server
ctrl_channel
snmp_trap
snmp_get

21. THIRD PARTY TOOLS
21

22. PAGER DUTY
22
Integration Benefits
• Escalation policies based on priority levels, day of the week, time of the
day, …
• Other alerting methodologies like SMS, phone calls, …
• Service grouping

23. PAGER DUTY
23

24. PAGER DUTY
24

25. SLACK: ALERTS FORWARDING
25

26. SLACK BOT
26

27. SPLUNK/GRAFANA
27

28. FUTURE INTEGRATIONS
28
https://netbeez.net/2015/08/18/closed-loop-network-monitoring/

29. SOFTWARE-DEFINED …
29
SDN Controller
NetBeez Server
beez A beez B
RTT(beez A, beez B, path_1) = 20 ms

30. SOFTWARE-DEFINED …
30
SDN Controller
NetBeez Server
beez A beez B
change_path

31. SOFTWARE-DEFINED …
31
SDN Controller
NetBeez Server
path_changed

32. SOFTWARE-DEFINED …
32
SDN Controller
NetBeez Server
RTT(beez A, beez B, path_2) = 15 ms

33. CLOSING REMARKS
33
Exciting time for networking
Distributed network monitoring for distributed networks
Integrations are key for distributed applications
Presentation available at: http://www.slideshare.net/netbeez