Ipanema’s Autonomic Networking - a system that governs itself to meet your goals
The Ipanema Autonomic Networking System is at the heart of Ipanema’s ability to connect the network infrastructure to business goals. Thanks to its Autonomic Networking foundation, the Ipanema System is the first to deliver truly global, automated WAN optimization and application performance management.
Now is the time for Autonomic Networking
Enterprise networks face relentlessly increasing complexity. For the largest companies, this means tens-of-thousands of users, thousands of sites and hundreds of applications. The only constant is change, since traffic patterns shift with new initiatives (datacenter consolidation, desktop virtualization…), new applications (peer-to-peer, voice…) and the realities of supporting operations across many time zones. Non-critical traffic increases exponentially, threatening business applications and putting the network and budget under pressure. It was to effectively address this reality that Ipanema turned to Autonomic Networking.
Traditional management principles and tools that network teams use so-called “policy-based management" approaches have not kept pace because they have not changed at all. They still rely on partial information collected site-by-site from local devices (routers, probes) which is then hand-processed by engineers who must make their best guesses for appropriate policies for each network device. Despite their best efforts, guesses are rarely optimal—it takes an Autonomic Networking system to derive optimal choices and update them continuously.
Manual network management has not met the challenges of change and complexity that modern global and agile enterprises face. The time has come for Autonomic Networking, enabling high-speed, second-by-second decision making by distributed components that can exchange information quickly and accurately, while re-focusing the efforts of the networking team on the more important tasks of defining the overall objectives and controlling their achievement with reporting and SLAs.
Autonomic Networking is a fundamental step forward, bringing simple management to the constantly evolving complexity of enterprise network and application environments. The Ipanema System is leading the way in the commercial implementation of Autonomic Networking applied to the management of enterprise WANs.
Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System uses carrier-class central management software and cooperative devices
Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System uses carrier-class central management software and cooperative devices called ip|engines. These ip|engines are typically positioned in-line between the CPE router and the site LAN. It is not necessary to put devices at every site. Application flows can be managed remotely via cooperation between all of the ip|engines that handle traffic for the unequipped sites, a feature called Tele-Management provided by so-called virtual ip|engine.
The Ipanema System is purpose-designed to be a carrier class solution:
- Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System is purpose-designed to be a carrier-class solution.
- The Autonomic Networking System supports asymmetric routing, redundant router configurations and sites with multiple VPNs (using multi-VRF).
- The Autonomic Networking System is highly resilient at the device level, incorporating an embedded hardware failsafe; and at the system level, using self-healing capabilities that ensure service continuity in case of device failure.
- The Autonomic Networking System is fully compatible with any IP transport technology and is compatible with MPLS Classes of Service through TOS/DSCP marking.
- The Autonomic Networking System is extremely easy to extend and grow due to its fully centralized, modular architecture where all the distributed devices are managed and configured centrally.
Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System’s global Application Performance Objectives manage application performance dynamically across the entire network
Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System manages application performance using global Application Performance Objectives. Unlike any other solution on the market, no local device configuration is required to optimize the application flows and optimize the WAN. The objectives are defined in the central management software which then communicates them to the ip|engines. The ip|engines cooperate with each other to form a fully distributed system under the control of the global objectives. In this system there is no single point of failure: if the central management server goes down, the Autonomic Networking system continues to function correctly on the network.
The ip|engines perform a continuous real-time analysis of the traffic mix. Based on this analysis and on the Application Performance Objectives, they globally calculate the optimal local device parameters every second. Unlike competitive products, the WAN optimization, application acceleration and QoS parameters are fully dynamic; they are not static and manually configured.
Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System provides real-time, global drill-down views into all of the network traffic
The ip|engines capture information about network traffic, which is then transmitted to the central management software. Autonomic Networking enables this collection and aggregation to be performed each-and-every minute. The ip|engines are all synchronized together using a clock with an accuracy of less than a millisecond in order to build a global, synchronized table of all the active application flows on the network. This global table contains detailed information about the flows, including both volume and quality information.
The table also contains information about topology and applications, and it is used by both the real-time monitoring and the alarming tools. By saving this information to a reporting database, the system builds a historical view of the flows. Custom views can be used on this global table to focus on specific areas of the network. Not only does Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System manage itself, it provides the best application-based visibility on the market.
Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System enables global deployment at the right cost
The Ipanema System fits globally and cost-effectively into any network topology.
As there is no significant delay in a domestic network, mitigating its impact makes no sense. Redundancy elimination makes no sense where bandwidth is not limited. Unlike all traditional WAN Optimization solutions, Ipanema can guarantee application performance globally without the need to deploy devices in each location.
- In star or hub-and-spoke topologies, only the datacenter needs to be equipped, the other sites are telemanaged.
- In multi-star topologies where branches are able to communicate simultaneously with multiple datacenters, again only the datacenters need to be equipped. The ip|engines’ ability to cooperate together is used to manage these meshed situations without the need for devices in branches. This feature is unique to Ipanema, representing the paradigm shift that is Autonomic Networking, greatly reducing the costs and complexity of application traffic management.
- In full meshed topologies where branches are able to communicate with any-and-all of the other sites in the network, each branch needs to be equipped. In such a fully meshed network, competition for resources occurs not only among applications but also among sites. The cooperation between ip|engines ensures total control of application performance for all protocols (including TCP- and UDP-based protocols).
- Where there are high-delay or bandwidth-limited sites, additional ip|engines can be deployed to provide dramatic acceleration of response times.
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