NetBrain drives no-code network automation with release of NetBrain Next-Gen

Burlington, Massachusetts – NetBrain Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of no-code network automation and visibility solutions for hybrid multi-cloud connected networks, today announced NetBrain Next-Gen, version v11 of its flagship product. NetBrain Next-Gen extends NetBrain’s no-code network automation capabilities to every hybrid multi-cloud environment and further simplifies the ability to capture and scale intent-based network management. It also adds a revolutionary new dashboard and reporting subsystem that continuously provides real-time KPI detail of the infrastructure’s service delivery status, optimisation usage and overall resource savings, and a new Automation Bot that enables anyone to quickly diagnose network issues and share with others without any help, NetBrain know-how, or even a license.

NetBrain Next-Gen enables enterprises to change the way they operate their digital infrastructures. Rather than focusing on the health of network devices as they have done for decades, NetBrain Next-Gen enables them to describe and manage their digital infrastructures as a compilation of intended behaviors as defined by their operational teams, security teams, and any other team that bases its service delivery function on the digital infrastructure itself. With NetBrain Next-Gen, a typical enterprise network may be represented by tens of thousands of network intents. This closely aligns the specific needs of the business and all its applications with the network operational plans in place.

“We have the luxury of having thousands of customers worldwide who operate some of the world’s largest infrastructures, so we listen very carefully to their operational needs at scale,” said Lingping Gao, Founder and CEO at NetBrain. “NetBrain Next-Gen introduces our new Automation Data Table technology, which enables anyone to capture, replicate and enforce desired network behaviors, and then share these intents in our global automation catalog. This dramatically reduces remediation times, the need for additional headcount, the risk of human error, and escalations since the entire organization now has access to the collective wisdom of their peers. NetBrain Next-Gen makes our no-code network automation accessible to everyone that wants it.”

The increasing complexity of modern networks has made network outages more common and costly. According to the Uptime Institute’s Global Data Center Survey 2022, more than two-thirds of all network disruptions cost over $100,000, and a quarter of respondents said their most recent outage cost over $1 million. At the same time, the IT skills gap has grown; research from CIO found that approximately 85% of organizations reported significant challenges recruiting and retaining IT/tech talent, particularly those with expertise in on-premises technology and digital transformation projects. A survey of 1,000 US and UK IT managers found that difficulties hiring and retaining IT talent was also causing institutional knowledge to vanish. All together, these factors show a strong business need to craft a more intelligent, repeatable and scalable operational approach, tightly aligned with the needs of the business. NetBrain Next Gen’s no-code network automation addresses these issues by improving service availability while reducing business risk, operational cost, outages and escalations significantly.

NetBrain Next-Gen makes no-code automation easier to use, more scalable, and empowers more NetOps personnel to maximize productivity. Specific updates include:

• Democratization of automation powered by a new global intent database called Automation Data Tables (ADT): Now anyone can intuitively create, replicate, customize and utilize intent-based automation by leveraging this powerful global automation catalogue.
• Scale out automation more efficiently with programmable intent replication: Push NetOps to the next level with recursive, template-powered auto-replication on demand during troubleshooting across multi-vendor networks. Many diagnoses can be combined into a single intent for more powerful, accurate automation.
• Event-driven on-demand dynamic maps and diagnostic automation: Create diagnostic catalogues to dynamically map problem areas, troubleshoot network problems, accelerate key operational workflows, avoid unintended network changes, and proactively prevent problems. Next-Gen simplifies follow-up automation to downstream or related devices when errors, service disruptions, non-compliance or configuration drift are detected.
• Enhanced automation workflows: Uses trouble ticket data, self-service or monitoring probes to auto-trigger diagnostic automation. Pre-program notifications via email or API to ITSM systems like ServiceNow, to auto-create and close tickets and to send data to third-party observability systems like Splunk.
• Demystify cloud and SDN: Extends diagnostic intent-based automation to API-based SDN and public cloud networks while integrating data from third-party external observability systems for a unified hybrid view. Monitor and troubleshoot routing configuration and status, VPN tunnel and private cloud connectivity, data metrics, resource compliance and security configurations and events. Setup preventive automation, and correlate data with external monitoring systems.
• Enhanced reporting dashboard: Customizable reports provide crucial automation and diagnostic summaries. Drill down for detail on network health across hybrid-cloud and power compliance checks, capacity planning and performance trend analysis. See results for a specific problem or a network change to analyze user activity, tasks and incident status.
• Chatbot for conversation-driven, self-service NetOps: Allows anyone to execute multi-step intent-based automations to solve real-world challenges fast without escalations using a simple web-based chat conversation. Pull and share hybrid-cloud maps, prompt users and share findings with others to speed troubleshooting, compliance tasks and change management.

NetBrain Next-Gen is available immediately and available to all active customers as part of their subscriptions and maintenance service agreements.