Working on the Edge: Overcoming Network Uncertainty

IT professionals today are increasingly on edge. Or more precisely, they’re working on the edge.

According to a recent Eclipse Foundation survey, adoption of edge computing is on the rise, with 54 percent of organizations either using or planning to use edge computing technologies within 12 months and another 30 percent planning to evaluate edge deployments over the next one to two years.

One of the biggest challenges IT faces in migrating to the cloud and taking advantage of edge computing is moving on-premises apps. Apps created for the cloud are different than traditional on-prem architected apps. The subtle differences can result in technical complexities that may have negative impacts on the user experience. Worst of all, these problems may not reveal themselves until IT starts receiving complaints from end users.

This “awareness gap” can be solved by only one thing—greater visibility.

Visibility into Dependencies and Interconnections Is Key

The many edges involved in today’s hybrid cloud infrastructures can create blind spots for IT, making it difficult to quickly identify the source of issues. Adding to the challenge, cloud environments are fluid, constantly changing and morphing to improve efficiency, performance, scalability, and security.

Success before and after cloud migration requires visibility into the numerous dependencies and interconnections between apps and everything they touch. The easiest way to accomplish this is by capturing and analyzing network packets to identify and map all the application connection points.

Such packet-based visibility, from on-prem to the cloud, enables IT to continually evaluate the impact of the cloud’s shifting environment on application performance and interactions. This is key to making much-needed modifications to apps or the environment before problems can adversely affect the user experience.

The Virtues of Smart Edge Monitoring

Monitoring is essential for meeting the needs of today’s highly complex, multi-edge environments. Instrumentation placed at key vantage points enables effective monitoring and troubleshooting of application performance issues that threaten the end-user experience. Smart edge monitoring leverages packet data gathered at the network and service edges with synthetic testing data from the client edge to provide rich analysis from these powerful vantage points.

Synthetic testing, which includes business transaction testing capabilities, makes it possible for IT professionals to simulate an end user’s interactions with an enterprise’s applications. This allows IT to get their hands on detailed performance and availability data, thus enabling them to quickly identify problems. In a best-case scenario, these problems are uncovered before they ever impact the end-user experience.

NETSCOUT is an innovator and industry leader in the field of smart edge monitoring. Our Smart Edge Monitoring solution provides comprehensive, borderless monitoring and visibility. It is the most effective way to assure user experience before and after cloud migration.

As enterprises move applications from on-prem environments to the cloud, it is imperative to identify interconnections and dependencies that may interfere with performance at any point throughout the many edges of the infrastructure. One of the surest ways to gain this much-needed visibility is via packet-based monitoring and synthetic testing.

A true smart edge monitoring solution can uncover infrastructure blind spots and deliver unobstructed visibility into what’s happening within apps, regardless where they reside. Today’s highly complex hybrid environments demand nothing less.

Explore more ideas on cloud migration visibility in Charles Araujo’s Intellyx white paper “How to Overcome the Hidden Risk to User Experience when Migrating to the Cloud.”