3 Ways to Improve Network Visibility in Hybrid Multi Cloud Environments

Hello everyone, Chris here, solutions
architect at IP Fabric and today we’re
going to be talking about observability.
Most organizations are investing heavily
in the term observability today. Whether
it’s logs, random metrics, net flow
information all being collected into a
singular place and they’re trying to get
insights about their infrastructure.
There is a critical piece that I think
is missing today and it is some of the
feature sets that IP Fabric offers.
Today we’re going to talk about how an
end toend flow inside of IP Fabric can
help out with observability and how IP
Fabric has a unique way to think about
observing the network. Most modern-day
observability platforms, they stop at
the edge of the network. Your
application performance monitoring
system might say your application is
having issues. Your log system, your
your SIM might say the backend is
healthy. Net flow is showing you you
might have some traffic issues, but
there’s no actual concrete evidence of
what the issue is. So come in with that
endtoend flow from IP Fabric and you’ll
be able to quickly see where in the
network you might be having issues. How
does IP Fabric do this? We’re going to
take snapshots of your network and
you’re going to be able to reference
different moments in time and gain the
context as to why the network might be
having an issue. What we’re looking at
here given a source and destination IP
address, IP fabric can map the entire
flow that this source and destination IP
address is taking. You can see every
element in the network. Here I can zoom
in. We can move these elements around.
Here we can see light blue represents
layer 2 connections. Pink represents
layer 3.
yellow or orange might represent MLS or
IPSec.
And we come back down layer three to
layer two to the end. Now you’ll notice
there are some red firewalls here in the
middle.
This is indicating that a traffic is
being that traffic is being blocked by a
zone firewall policy or an ACL or some
type of security mechanism. We’ll also
notice there’s a green router here and
this indicates that there might be like
a PBR issue or maybe an ACL on a router
that’s blocking traffic. I can
rightclick anywhere along this path and
press explore. You’ll get taken to this
inspector that I have here down at the
bottom. What we call the path inspector.
You can actually see the packets headers
and how they would have looked as
information is traversing these firewall
interfaces.
And here in the middle I can see all the
security decisions that need to be made
for this packet in order to move on to
the next hop. So if there was an adding
applied we would have seen it here.
We can see there was a route table match
on this firewall. But more importantly
we see there’s a zone firewall policy
blocking traffic. I can click on the
name of that zone firewall policy and
actually see this is a default deny
that’s denying traffic. And on the left
side of my screen here, we can see the
actual settings that I’m using for this
path lookup. So, we’re test we’re
testing out TCP port 5432
and traffic’s being denied by the
default deny. Now, if 5432 the port used
in this path lookup is a critical port
for a critical application, meaning uh
maybe Postgress database runs on port
5432. So this could represent a critical
application path that is now being
blocked somewhere in the network. This
level of observability that you get
hasn’t really been available using
modern network monitoring systems.
Right? These network monitoring systems
don’t necessarily have the ability to
tell you why a packet is making its
decision to move to the next hop.
Because you have this information
available to you, you can now make a
decision intuitively whether to add a
new zone firewall policy rule to this
firewall to allow traffic or if you
should modify an existing policy. Moving
on to the next part of the path, we
actually see there’s another firewall
blocking traffic. Just another increase
amount of observability you gain by
utilizing IP fabric to see that there is
indeed two firewalls, not just one, that
could be blocking traffic here. Another
core piece of observability when it
comes to IP fabric is the ability to see
that these paths indeed change over
time. Traditional observability tools
are generally lacking, right? That
ability to see any type of flow that you
see on the screen here. IP fabric is a
snapshot based solution. So being able
to move back in time as we collect new
snapshot information gives you the
ability to see how these paths may have
changed over time. Right? Right. So here
we can see this path indeed change
between two days. Uh I have two
snapshots here. One that represents
pre-change, one that represents
postchange. And we can see the path
completely changes between these two
snapshot days. Right? We can see there
might have been suboptimal path
selection. Maybe this green router over
here was performed in PBR or policy
based routing and we don’t want it to.
So pre-change the path looks like this.
Post change the path looks like this. We
can actually compare that right in the
UI and show the delta between two
moments in time. When people are
complaining that the network might be an
issue, actually having the documentation
and proof that the network is changing
and paths are selecting the appropriate
ways to go across the network, you know,
really does help expedite that
troubleshooting process, that proof
process, that meanantime to resolution.
It decreases those metrics by just
giving you the access to network
information that traditionally has been
non-existent. Right? Those network
monitoring systems do not give you the
clarity that IP fabric gives you uh in
this simple view.
To quickly touch on
more how IP fabric relates to
observability, just taking a quick look
at our dashboard here. IP Fabra collects
thousands of data points, hundreds of
columns, you know, hundreds of tables,
and we’re able to organize the results
of this data and give you advanced
insights into it. I don’t want to spend
too much time on what these data points
represent. The point that I want to make
is you have the ability to organize them
into specific elements that prove the
certain posture of your network
infrastructure. So if you have um PCI
compliance maybe as an example here, you
know, we we know on the IP fabric side,
what elements we want to check in the
network that relate to PCI. So PCI
requires to have specific logging
enabled, AAA settings, SNMP configured
correctly. So what you see down here is
this health assessment of how your PCI
environment is properly configured to
prove compliancy. Right? So your
security posture matches the compliance
you’re telling your customers. You know,
if you’re processing payments, you have
to have these settings enabled. If you
don’t, you could be in violation of
certain compliancy metrics and that
that’s going to be a problem for
whatever organization, you know, we’re
talking about here. When it comes to
observability in IP Fabric, another
critical part of that is access to
information in general. What makes IP
fabric unique is this ability to be
vendor agnostic and capture critical
data points about your network
infrastructure and give you a simplified
view into those data points. If I go
over here to the addressing managed IPv4
table here, we can see every single
interface that is configured in my
network. Which IP address is assigned to
it, which network it’s a part of. It
doesn’t matter if this is a Cisco,
Arista, a Juniper, a Forigate, uh an HP
device. Doesn’t matter what vendor or
what platform that operating system is
running. We’re able to normalize this
data into a single view and give you
insights into how your entire network is
configured. Now, as organizations scale,
complexity grows. So, most organizations
are moving away from a single vendor
solution in their network. And this
requires them to have tools in their
environment that are vendor agnostic.
So, IP Fabric supports a lot of
different vendors here. You can actually
see on this table here all the different
vendors that IP Fabric supports plus the
operating systems that are supported as
well. And again, we give you that
normalized view into that information.
So whether you’re looking for again all
the IP addresses and what interface they
belong to, you could be thinking here
how do I update my IPAM records
from data from the network? you know
this is exactly the table that you would
use in that scenario or it could be what
VLANs are configured in my network and
where they are configured. It also be
you know a unified route table so I can
see all the routes in my environment
regardless of vendor and query them the
same way a network engineer would query
a route table traditionally on a router
CLI.
So this allows again moving back into
that observability conversation. This
allows you to gain insight and access
into a normalized data structure that
traditionally most network monitoring
systems do not give. If you want to hear
more, please contact your IP Fabric
representative, whether it’s your
solutions architect or your account
manager, and we’ll be happy to inform
you.

AI does not magically fix bad data. So often times in our modern environments, we’re dealing with multiple vendors, whether those are on prim in the cloud, different vendors for routing, switching, wireless, uh, firewall. So what we end up with is with a hodgepodge of tools oftent times with different gooies for management, different operating systems, and even different APIs, logs only show a small portion of the picture. Whereas with IP Fabric or network snapshots, you’re getting a complete view of how that network is architectured, configured, and operating. Our mission at IP Fabric is to democratize your network data. We try to empower everyone in the organization, whether they’re admin, engineer, automation engineer, AI developer. We try to democratize that data so they all can have that power to do that automation and make those consistent decisions and understand their network infrastructure.

Hello, I’m Christian Giebner, solution
architect here at IP Fabric and today we
are going to show you how we present and
talk about compliance.
One of the most common initiatives we
encounter with our prospects is
compliance. As it’s been mandated to
enterprises, they are required to solve
that task which creates a strong need
and as it also carries a lot of
penalties when it’s not done right. Um
it is a very challenging thing to get it
right in practice.
So what’s the deal when talking about uh
compliance? Usually an auditor comes
into an uh company to a prospect and
needs to verify do they match the
requirements for let’s say NIS 2 or DORA
HIPPA or CITS. So basically any
compliance requirements can be supported
with IP fabric. And the first thing they
want to see or get a report on is how is
your network infrastructure set up?
What’s the state? What is your inventory
and stuff like that? And if you bring
this data manually, this covers a lot of
risk by introducing the possibility of
human error into the process. So did you
collect the right information from the
right devices? If not, you have to
repeat that process again. And it’s very
time consuming to prepare such audits
which usually also hinders the network
team to focus on the ongoing projects.
So they really need to shift their focus
to provide the data to support the
audit. IP fabric gathers network
infrastructure device data automatically
on a daily basis as often as you like.
basically running at least once a day a
full audit of your network
infrastructure, providing you with a
full inventory of all your devices, but
not just the devices themselves, but
really going into the weeds. also
showing you which modules exist in which
device they are and also showing are
there any issues in regards to um end of
life information and IP fabric provides
this information out of the box. So
really supporting you to have a proper
inventory of all your assets
and also understanding
are there any devices which would
definitely
cause a penalty because you can’t secure
a device which is end of life at least
not in a conventional way. So you have
to prove then how did you mitigate the
risks of having a device which is end of
life and again IP fabric can support you
on that one also matters a lot is policy
enforcement. So how can you make sure
that uh the requirements of the policy
are met? An IP fabric offers with its
intent checks abilities to validate the
current state of your network, your
configurations
against the policy uh requirements and
shows you where are deviations. This is
now an overview of our out ofthe-box
intent checks which can be modified or
you can even create new ones. But the
real power of IP fabric when it comes to
compliance is
you can create your own dashboards. You
can really enter all the intent checks
you need to meet the requirements. So
you have one dashboard. You can see in a
single glance um where am I not
compliant and you can then quite quickly
and easily also drill down which devices
are affected where do we have some weak
authentication methods or none at all
which is even worse. Um so giving you
really a very quick and easy way to
understand where are misconfigurations,
which devices are affected and pro uh
offering you therefore also the
capability to mitigate these risks. As
we are a snapshot based solution, you
will always have historical data at your
disposure. So you can quickly and easily
uh switch a snapshot and then see what
has changed, did I improve over time,
where did I improve, where do I still
have gaps and all of these informations
which are crucial for you to prove I am
compliant and not just today or for this
audit, but really I approved my my
compliance posture. my requirements are
u met every day a bit better um and you
have all the data at hand and can create
quickly and easily reports uh out of
data going back to the dashboard this
tackles also various fields so it’s not
just oh do I have some some nice
security features but you can also
enabled or disabled but you can also
then validate
Do I have maybe some issues in my
network segmentation which should so are
there communications allowed or working
which should not be working or yeah am I
fine uh on that page and as we are
gathering that data constantly you have
a continuous monitoring of your posture
uh when it comes to compliance and can
quickly and easily prove proof that
you’re really uh um on the right track
and also um as you see with after a
snapshot after the calculations of our
intent checks are done where are
deviations. So did I maybe instead of
improve in a specific field did I maybe
well not perform as well as I should and
created new issues when it comes to
compliance requirements.
So at the end of the day, having an
automated way of gathering all the
information from your network
infrastructure devices,
matching them against the intended state
of the results, having the capability of
creating an alerting using our web hooks
and also feeding that data into other
solutions like your CMDB or your seam by
leveraging our
APIs. And as our approach is API first,
all the data I’ve shown you is available
and can be fed into thirdparty
solution.
So at the end of the day and to
conclude, IP fabric is not a nice to
have solution but it is a must-h have
solution when it comes to compliance and
in case you hear oh we already have some
compliance checks or tools which support
us on that one. IP fabric will augment
these solutions as the data collection
of ours is 100% accurate and the data is
not shown just as raw data but put into
context so even non-technical users can
use it to provide information to the
audit.
Thank you for your attention.

Hello everyone. My name is Zach Brown
and I’m a solutions architect here at IP
Fabric and I’m here to talk to you today
about IP Fabric’s digital twin
capabilities.
In today’s hybrid multi- vendor network
environments, even the smallest change
can trigger massive outages, compliance
violations, or worse, downtime.
That’s why leading enterprises trust IP
fabric, the automated network assurance
platform
to build a digital twin of their entire
network, providing deep visibility, safe
planning, continuous validation, all at
scale.
In this video, we’ll show you how our
digital twin simulation capabilities
solve five critical challenges faced by
modern enterprises and operations teams
and how you can move from a reactive to
a proactive approach with confidence.
So, first we’re going to talk about our
first area which is multi- vendor
integration. So here IP fabric IP fabric
discovers and builds topologies for
heterogeneous network environments all
map to our interface making switching
between tools and different uh user
interfaces unnecessary
and it all starts with IP fabric’s
discovery process. So here on the screen
I have pulled up a snippet of our
discovery process and here is a quick
glimpse of that discovery process. So we
have a list of devices that IP fabric
discovered and if you take a peek here
all different kinds Juniper, Arista,
AWS, Cisco. So very diverse
heterogeneous environments. Also, we
have the device count as well as how
long IP fabric took to discover in my
case these 93 devices.
So, very robust snapshotting and
discovery process. Now, one of the
residuals of this discovery process is
IP Fabric’s full device inventory.
So with IP Fabric’s digital twin
capabilities, IP Fabric automatically
discovers and normalizes inventory data
so that it’s easily digestible in our
tables. So you can simulate your entire
network regardless of vendor and have
the intelligence of exactly what is in
your infrastructure.
So as I scroll over here, you can see I
have my full device inventory as well as
which platform operating systems and
versions I’m using. So very robust and
IP fabric is once again meant to
integrate into multi- vendor
environments.
Next we’re going to talk about network
state modeling, network migration
planning, and change impact analysis.
So, IP Fabric takes snapshots of your
live network, allowing you to model,
visualize, and analyze the state of your
infrastructure at any point in time.
Need to validate your routing behavior
from last month or simulate a new
routing protocol? Done. This is your
live network frozen in time available on
demand. So once that discovery snapshot
has has completed which we talked about
earlier, we have the network devices
discovered and full device inventory
compiled. IP fabric then visualizes this
with our dynamic diagrams. With these
diagrams you can run end toend path
simulation to get a device by device
analysis of the packet logic and exactly
how it’s moving from source to
destination. So here as I’m pulling up
my path simulation feature, you may
notice I have a host in one of my sites
and I am simulating the traffic flow to
remote site here in Prague. So as I
click through my platform and I click my
first device, I have my full packet of
logic as well as my decision making
table showing how I’m moving from source
to destination. Now, if you take a look
at this path, I have my first layers
three switch here. And now you can see
IP fabric is now taking a look at the
routing and ARP tables since we’re
moving on up that network stack. Also,
as I click on my firewall, you notice
it’s illuminated in red, showing me that
something is blocking my traffic. So I
have my access control policy here and
if I click I can see the exact access
control entry that’s blocking that
traffic as well as further down the path
I have a firewall here in green. If I
right click and click explore I’m able
to see that that access control policy
is allowing my traffic. Also to further
analyze our network model, IP fabric
allows you to compare changes in the
network, spotting when anything changes
instantly. So as I go and switch to my
next snapshot here, I’m able to see
exactly how my infrastructure has
changed between two snapshots. So what’s
red is what was previously in the
infrastructure and green is how my
infrastructure has changed over time. So
IP fabric really helps you visualizes
those changes really cutting down on
that meantime to remediation if you have
any problems with your network. So with
IP fabric engineers can compare those
snapshots before and after events or
changes to the network to be able to
spot changes instantly.
So, planning a migration, moving to
SDWAN or the cloud? IP Fabric’s digital
twin simulation simulates those traffic
paths, validate segments, and ensures
nothing breaks before ever touching one
single cable. So, you’re able to test
your migration logic safely, accurately,
and have a consistent approach to
managing your network. With IP fabric,
you can do comprehensive dependency
analysis to accelerate that migration
process and reduce project timeline and
risk even in hybrid networks.
So in our path simulation feature, we
even have the opportunity to get more
granular with what we test, even
controlling what ports as well as what
IP addresses we can test. really giving
us the peace of mind that when we make
changes to a access control list that
nothing breaks when we go to production.
A healthc care provider that IP fabrics
work with firewalls team needed to
expand the subnet and open ports for a
new application. using IP fabric. They
simulated the change and were and
discovered that it exposed internal
services to the internet which would
have been a huge hippo violation and
opened them up to additional fines.
Now as I move into our next point uh
configuration compliance and validation
here is our overview dashboard with a
mix of IP fabric custom wizage and
outofbox intent checks built for
inventory security posture compliance as
well as configuration management. So at
IP Fabric, a telecommunications provider
used IP Fabric to enforce PCI DSS
compliance across hundreds of routers
within minutes. With IP Fabric, they
were able to discover 30 plus devices
with TNET and legacy SNMP and were able
to close the gap all before their eyes.
Here with IP Fabric’s intent checks, we
have the ability to see, do I in my
environment have any devices with TA
enabled? So, we’re able to close those
gaps and further fortify our network
with IP Fabric’s digital twin
capabilities. So IP fabric doesn’t just
simulate behavior. It also continually
audits every device config against best
practices, regulatory compliance
policies, and your own intent.
You’ll know when compliance is broken
automatically with IP Fabric. Also from
the IP Fabric interface at your
fingertips, you have all your network
devices running configurations. So you
can compare these over time. As soon as
changes happen, outages occur or traffic
is flowing from a different path, you
can see what changed from a
configuration standpoint in addition to
those architectural changes as we
discussed earlier. So as a demonstration
of that, I am just clicking two host
names in my environment and comparing
the configurations from two different
points in times. So in green you can see
what has changed. In red you can see
what’s removed between those two
configurations. So easily you’re able to
validate your configurations and get
ahead of any potential configuration
drift.
So with IP Fabric’s digital twin
simulation, your team can stop
firefighting and start proactively
managing network health risk and
performance. Whether you’re planning
migrations, validating changes, or
ensuring compliance, you’ll always know
before it breaks. And for enterprise
leaders, it means faster project
delivery, fewer hour, fewer outages,
stronger compliance, and complete
network transparently without the
guesswork.
You’re ready to see it in your
environment? Book a demo or start a free
trial at ipfabric.io.
Thank you for your time.