U S E C A S E B R I E F

Network Capacity Planning & Right-SizingCloudGenix takes the guess work out of WAN capacity planning

Network Design and Capacity Planning Issues

Most I/T organizations rely on loose back-of-the-envelope calculations to

determine how much capacity is needed at each site. In many cases, guide-

lines are provided by application vendors to help this process, but, these

guidelines are generally estimates based on similar customer deployments.

To make matters worse, most network designs backhaul application traf-

fic from remote locations to the data center using expensive private WAN

links, which adds substantial cost when compared to inexpensive, high-

bandwidth, commodity Internet connections (including broadband).

Configuring legacy networking devices to support multiple heterogeneous

WAN links in remote offices is clumsy at best, requiring configuration

gymnastics and in-depth expertise on such configurations. This makes the

problem of right-sizing your WAN even harder given that such configura-

tions are error-prone and leave most customers in a position where they

continue to use the private WAN for everything. Without having simple

visibility into how each WAN link is used—and more importantly, the ability

to control which WAN link is used for each application—I/T organizations

struggle with being able to appropriately design their WAN and manage

capacity needs.

CLOUDGENIX CLARITY IS A

FOUNDATIONAL COMPONENT OF THE

CLOUDGENIX SD-WAN SOLUTION

THAT PROVIDES END-TO-END

VISIBILITY AND ANALYTICS FOR YOUR

APPLICATIONS AND NETWORKS, AND

OPERATES INDEPENDENTLY OF THE

FULL SUITE OF CLOUDGENIX SD-WAN

CAPABILITIES.

Solution Requirements

In order to adequately solve the challenges listed above, any solution needs

to meet criteria in five key areas.

Introducing CloudGenix Clarity

CloudGenix Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) is the industry’s most com-

plete solution for customers that want to build hybrid networks consisting

of MPLS private WANs and commodity Internet connections for cloud ap-

plication adoption, remote office high availability, application performance,

and end-to-end visibility. Powered by CloudGenix Instant-On Networks

(ION) devices deployed in locations where visibility and control are desired,

CloudGenix SD-WAN allows you to create policies based on business intent

rather than a series of fragmented networking features, enables dynamic

path selection using the highest performing network, and provides visibility

into performance and availability for applications and networks.

CloudGenix Clarity is a founda-

tional component of the CloudGe-

nix SD-WAN solution that provides

end-to-end visibility and analytics

for your applications and networks,

and operates independently of the

full suite of CloudGenix SD-WAN

capabilities. When the full suite of

SD-WAN capabilities are added,

CloudGenix begins using the action-

able data gleaned from Clarity to

self-heal your network in an auto-

mated manner.

CloudGenix ION

WAN Router

LAN Switch

Users & Computers

Clarity SD-WAN

MPLSInternet

CloudGenix ION

LAN Switch

Users & Computers

MPLSInternet

FIGURE 1: CLOUDGENIX CLARITY ENABLES SEAMLESS TRANSITION TO FULL SD-WAN CAPABILITIES.

COMPLETE VISIBILITY

The solution must see all applications, over all networks, using any WAN link, and provide visibility into performance, health, and quality

ACTIONABLE DATA

Analytics and informa-tion presented by the solution must be useful and actionable while providing guidance based on machine learning

NATIVE SOLUTION

The solution must be native to eliminate complexity and require no additional hardware or software, connectors to third-party systems, agents, or new protocols or interfaces

CLOUD DELIVERED

The solution must be fully cloud-delivered to eliminate the otherwise substantial server and storage cost while also providing simple data ac-cess through export func-tions and a RESTful API

SELF-HEALING NETWORK

Actionable data gleaned from application, site, and WAN link visibility must also able to be used to drive policy enforcement decisions to automatically heal the network accord-ing to policy

C L O U D G E N I X | U S E C A S E B R I E F | N E T W O R K C A P A C I T Y P L A N N I N G & R I G H T - S I Z I N G | 2

Heterogeneous WAN Connections Made Easy

With CloudGenix, Instant-On Net-

work (ION) devices deployed in

each of your locations automati-

cally establish a secure VPN be-

tween sites with full understanding

of the available WAN links, even

if they are heterogeneous. Global

policies defined by business intent

for application performance, secu-

rity, and compliance requirements

can easily be configured to define

behavior and requirements for each application and which WAN links can be

used. This allows you to take advantage of low-cost broadband, freeing your

private WAN for application traffic that needs to go to the data center, while

providing better performance and availability for your applications. Each

node monitors several key performance indicators for every application flow

on your network to not only ensure policy requirements are satisfied, but

also to help identify why application performance may be suffering, helping

to eliminate finger-pointing when performance issues are encountered.

Simple Network Planning and Easy Right-Sizing

Along with measuring application

performance and performance indi-

cators, CloudGenix Clarity monitors

utilization over every WAN link to

help I/T correctly size WAN con-

nections between sites and plan

for the deployment of new links.

Visibility into how the WAN is be-

ing used and directing traffic over

the appropriate WAN type allows you to more accurately size your WAN.

Private WAN links such as MPLS—which are more expensive but gener-

ally more reliable than broadband—can be used for application traffic that

is back-hauled to the data center, while lower-cost broadband and even

cellular links can be used for traffic destined to the public cloud, general

Internet traffic, or as an Internet VPN.

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FIGURE 2 : CLOUDGENIX CLARITY HIGHLIGHTS HOW EACH OF YOUR WAN LINKS ARE BEING UTILIZED, AND BY WHICH APPLICATIONS.

FIGURE 3: CLOUDGENIX CLARITY HELPS YOU UNDERSTAND HOW EACH OF YOUR WAN LINKS ARE BEING UTILIZED.

© 2017 Cloudgenix inc. All rights reserved.

ABOUT CLOUDGENIXCloudGenix provides a software-defined WAN solution with AppFabric technology that enables you to build a global WAN based

on business policies for application performance, compliance, and security, across all sites and users. Unlike router-based solutions,

CloudGenix AppFabric allows you to define top-down global policies based on business intent rather than fragmented bottoms-up

configuration changes based on technical implementation. With CloudGenix, you can easily integrate heterogeneous WAN connections

for any site, take advantage of cloud and SaaS applications, improve visibility for app performance and SLAs, and dramatically simplify

network operations.

SEE FOR YOURSELF

SEE CLOUDGENIX IN ACTION FOR YOURSELF! VISIT WWW.CLOUDGENIX.COM/TRIAL TO REGISTER FOR A NO-RISK FREE TRIAL TODAY.

With CloudGenix Clarity, a series of simple yet informative charts quickly

expose how each WAN link is being used, by which applications, and what

the bandwidth consumption is for each link. These provide key insights into

when congestion occurs, which application is causing the congestion, and

where additional bandwidth may be needed—and in some cases, where

reducing available bandwidth would have no impact to the business. Only

CloudGenix provides this level of insight into your WAN, allowing you to

accurately plan your WAN and implement the right links and right capacity

for your needs.

Summary

In addition to powering the next-generation WAN—giving I/T the ability

to eliminate unnecessary cost and complexity—the CloudGenix SD-WAN

solution includes unmatched visibility and analytics in the CloudGenix Clar-

ity suite. These tools allow you to understand your network from both a

top-down and bottom-up point of view and see how your WAN links and

applications are performing, without requiring additional complex hardware,

software, or configuration gymnastics on legacy networking devices. This

level of insight makes it easy to accurately control how your WAN links are

being used and correctly plan for capacity in each of your locations.

C L O U D G E N I X | U S E C A S E B R I E F | N E T W O R K C A P A C I T Y P L A N N I N G & R I G H T - S I Z I N G | 4

2665 North First St., #110 San Jose, CA 95134 | 1.844.800.CGNX | info@cloudgenix.com