Network Observability
Distributed client-server applications, mashups and microservices running on top of modern networks are large distributed systems. A significant amount of conversational (and in some cases, practical) energy has been expended in addressing the configuration problems of such systems. However, little has been addressed when it comes to observability of such systems, specifically the networking piece.
In this webinar, we'll discuss what is observability, how its different from monitoring, and why this matters. While the ideas and concepts presented have broad applicability, the author's own familiarity with the data center space, implies that examples and anecdotes will be more data-center specific. For example, the implications of EVPN on observability, while specific to the data center (and VXLAN), may be applicable in other areas where overlays are used.
We will examine how network architecture and judicious use of modern technologies can help observability. We'll cover different models of network observability, look at some toolkits - old and new - and conclude with a discussion of a prototype for an open source observability platform and application.
Author
Dinesh Dutt has been in the networking industry for the past 20 years, most of it at Cisco Systems. Most recently, he was the Chief Scientist at Cumulus Networks, working on simplifying configuration and operations with inventions such as BGP Unnumbered and NetQ. Before Cumulus, he was a Fellow at Cisco Systems. He has been involved in enterprise and data center networking technologies, including the design of many of the ASICs that powered Cisco's mega-switches such as Cat6K and the Nexus family of switches. He also has experience in storage networking from his days at Andiamo Systems and in the design of FCoE. He is a co-author of TRILL and VxLAN and has filed for over 40 patents.