Autonomic Networking System™ (ANS): a system that governs itself

Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System (ANS™) is at the heart of Ipanema’s ability to connect network infrastructure to your enterprise’s business goals.

Self-learning, self-configuring and self-optimizing, ANS is the first and only system to deliver fully automated Application Visibility, QoS & Control, WAN Optimization and Dynamic WAN Selection over an enterprise’s global network, whatever its size and transport technology.

Now is the time for autonomic networking

Enterprise networking means tens-of-thousands of users, thousands of sites and hundreds of applications. Traffic patterns constantly change with new initiatives (cloud-computing, desktop virtualization, telepresence, data center consolidation), new applications (peer-to-peer collaboration, voice, video, social networking) and real-time user activity. Moreover, non-critical traffic increases exponentially, threatening business applications and putting the network and IT budget under pressure.

Traditional traffic management tools are typically “policy-based" and no longer fit this increasing complexity. Their configurations rely on site-per-site, partial information which must be manually processed by engineers to make only best guesses for appropriate policies for each device. The tools are cumbersome to configure and not agile enough to adapt to the ever changing traffic patterns flowing over the network. As a result, the performance delivered to end-users does not match expectations.

The time has come for autonomic networking, which enables automated, second-by-second decision making by distributed components that exchange information quickly and accurately. Autonomic networking re-focuses the efforts of the networking team on the more important tasks of defining overall Applications Performance Objectives and controlling the achievement of objectives with reporting against application-based SLAs.

Autonomic networking is a fundamental step forward – bringing simple management to the constantly evolving complexity of enterprise network and application environments. Ipanema’s ANS is leading the way in the commercial implementation of autonomic networking for enterprise WANs, introducing unique functionalities such as:

• Carrier-class central management software allied to distributed cooperative components
• Global performance management based on high-level Application Performance Objectives
• Complete visibility of network traffic and application performance – from global to fully detailed views
• A very cost effective deployment scheme
   

Carrier-class central management software allied to cooperative components

Ipanema's ANS uses carrier-class central management software, called SALSA®, which is available in both enterprise and service provider versions. The software automates back-office functions such as global configuration and supervision, as well as measurement collection and consolidation. It provides a portal for entering Application Performance Objectives and accessing reports.

Dedicated cooperative devices called ip|engines® are typically positioned in-line between the access router (CPE) and the LAN. It is not necessary to install ip|engines at every site, only on main sites like data centers and headquarters. Bidirectional application flows are managed cooperatively between ip|engines, according to network performance and Application Performance Objectives.

Unequipped sites are “tele-managed” through emulated appliances called tele|engines. The tele|engines are the result of collaboration among all ip|engines in the ANS configuration communicating with the unequipped site. tele|engines provide most of the ip|engine Application Visibility and QoS & Control features without the need to deploy any hardware or software in branches.

Designed with this combination of cooperative devices and SALSA central management software, Ipanema's ANS provides:

• A carrier-class solution
• Support for complex networks, including asymmetric routing, redundant configurations, sites with multiple VPNs, hybrid networks, etc.
• High resiliency at the device level with an embedded hardware failsafe
• High resiliency at the system level, using self-healing capabilities to ensure service continuity in case of device failure
• Compatibility with any transport technology, including MPLS classes of service, frame relay, Internet, etc.
• Scalability that is extremely easy to grow with a centralized and global management model and configuration-less distributed devices
   

Global performance management from high-level Application Performance Objectives (APOs)

Ipanema's ANS manages application performance using APOs that are globally defined in central management software and communicated to all available ip|engines. The ip|engines form a distributed system that constantly evolves to satisfy and even exceed the APOs.

ip|engines perform a continuous real-time analysis of the application traffic and performance. Using the APOs, they continuously calculate the optimal way to handle all traffic. This includes complex situations like full traffic mesh and elastic flows, deducing the local policies that need to be applied locally and enforcing them in real time.

Ipanema's ANS removes single-point-of-failure vulnerability:

• If the central management server goes down, the system continues to function correctly on the network as there is no change in the APOs
• In the rare eventuality of an ip|engine failure, the other ip|engines would automatically collaborate to manage the corresponding traffic on behalf of the faulty device
   

Complete visibility of network traffic and application performance

Information about site-to-site application traffic is transmitted by ip|engines to the central management software. Measures are then collected and aggregated each and every minute. The ip|engines are all synchronized within a millisecond. This allows building a coherent multi-dimensional table of all application flows on the network. This global table contains detailed information about each flow, including application identity, volume, source, destination and quality. The table can be used for long-term reporting, real-time traffic monitoring, network troubleshooting and alarming.

Historical views of applications, sites, etc. can be analyzed for any time period - from minutes to years. Custom reports focus on specific areas of the network, providing a very flexible and complete visibility on applications behavior over the entire network.

A cost effective deployment scheme

Ipanema’s ANS fits globally and cost-effectively into any network topology:

• In star or hub-and-spoke topologies, only the data center needs to be equipped, the other sites being tele-managed.
• In multi-star topologies, where branches communicate simultaneously with multiple data centers, only the different data centers need to be equipped. The cooperating ip|engines manage meshed situations without the need for devices in branches, reducing the cost and complexity of application traffic management in large networks. Where there are high-delay or bandwidth-limited sites, additional ip|engines can be deployed to provide acceleration of application response times and additional virtual bandwidth.
• In fully meshed topologies, where branches are communicating with any and all network sites, each branch needs to be equipped. The cooperation between ip|engines ensures total control of application performance for all protocols (including TCP and UDP).

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