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Why You Should Consider Visibility and Performance Monitoring for Edge Computing

Keith Bromley

Edge computing usage is starting to increase. See my previous posting from September 2019 that illustrates what is driving this network change. The obvious follow-up question is, "So, what can I do with edge computing?" I'm glad you asked. There are lots of things you can do.

In fact, here are six fundamental use cases that you allow you to:

1. Improve network visibility

2. Improve network performance monitoring

3. Reduce the cost of MPLS circuits for transport

4. Improve troubleshooting capabilities

5. Enhance endpoint security

6. Upgrade compliance support

Improving network visibility is the first use case. Use of IP enables NOC engineers to see all the way out to the edge of the network. They can use application intelligence to look at application performance and NetFlow information to these locations. Currently, many (maybe most) enterprises lose visibility for the "last mile" of their network. This is especially true when using Telco circuits.

So why is this important? Are there potential problems (outages) getting ready to happen? Without visibility — who knows. It's easy to know once it happens but this puts IT into a reactive position that consumes more time, more money, and creates unnecessary problems for customers and senior management. It would be better if you could start to "see" the problem before everything goes bad.

Taking this one step further, a network packet broker (NPB) equipped with proactive performance monitoring features integrated into the architecture provides the NOC with an easy way to check latent network performance and also the ability to actively test performance at will all the way to the edge using synthetic traffic.

Network and IT teams need remote access to server and network traffic activity for performance monitoring and troubleshooting. Active monitoring (also known as "synthetic monitoring") is used to actively monitor latency/performance of WAN/SD-WAN links. This type of tool simulates traffic by sending synthetic packet data to various endpoints across the network to measure performance metrics.

Enterprises also want to reduce, if not eliminate, MPLS circuit costs and move to IP links. Remote sites typically have low speed internet access (100 MB). IP gives them more flexibility, less headaches (as they don't have to strip off MPLS headers), and lower cost to get IP links from ISPs and CLECs.

Troubleshooting can also be improved with edge computing. The shift to IP links allows the NOC to use IP-based tools and application intelligence to troubleshoot problems as fast as possible, all the way to the edge of the network.

Network security can be improved by placing next generation firewalls (NGFW) right up to the edge. A NPB is very useful here to integrate the security device along with other edge devices and capabilities into the network.

With regard to regulatory compliance, several organizations (including utilities) require that all control traffic to remotely manageable systems to be monitored, logged and analyzed. Data needs to be replicated and sent to different locations. A small NPB and taps can be placed at the last routing hop, or even the last switch and the controller.

Join the "shift" and live on the edge!

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Why You Should Consider Visibility and Performance Monitoring for Edge Computing

Keith Bromley

Edge computing usage is starting to increase. See my previous posting from September 2019 that illustrates what is driving this network change. The obvious follow-up question is, "So, what can I do with edge computing?" I'm glad you asked. There are lots of things you can do.

In fact, here are six fundamental use cases that you allow you to:

1. Improve network visibility

2. Improve network performance monitoring

3. Reduce the cost of MPLS circuits for transport

4. Improve troubleshooting capabilities

5. Enhance endpoint security

6. Upgrade compliance support

Improving network visibility is the first use case. Use of IP enables NOC engineers to see all the way out to the edge of the network. They can use application intelligence to look at application performance and NetFlow information to these locations. Currently, many (maybe most) enterprises lose visibility for the "last mile" of their network. This is especially true when using Telco circuits.

So why is this important? Are there potential problems (outages) getting ready to happen? Without visibility — who knows. It's easy to know once it happens but this puts IT into a reactive position that consumes more time, more money, and creates unnecessary problems for customers and senior management. It would be better if you could start to "see" the problem before everything goes bad.

Taking this one step further, a network packet broker (NPB) equipped with proactive performance monitoring features integrated into the architecture provides the NOC with an easy way to check latent network performance and also the ability to actively test performance at will all the way to the edge using synthetic traffic.

Network and IT teams need remote access to server and network traffic activity for performance monitoring and troubleshooting. Active monitoring (also known as "synthetic monitoring") is used to actively monitor latency/performance of WAN/SD-WAN links. This type of tool simulates traffic by sending synthetic packet data to various endpoints across the network to measure performance metrics.

Enterprises also want to reduce, if not eliminate, MPLS circuit costs and move to IP links. Remote sites typically have low speed internet access (100 MB). IP gives them more flexibility, less headaches (as they don't have to strip off MPLS headers), and lower cost to get IP links from ISPs and CLECs.

Troubleshooting can also be improved with edge computing. The shift to IP links allows the NOC to use IP-based tools and application intelligence to troubleshoot problems as fast as possible, all the way to the edge of the network.

Network security can be improved by placing next generation firewalls (NGFW) right up to the edge. A NPB is very useful here to integrate the security device along with other edge devices and capabilities into the network.

With regard to regulatory compliance, several organizations (including utilities) require that all control traffic to remotely manageable systems to be monitored, logged and analyzed. Data needs to be replicated and sent to different locations. A small NPB and taps can be placed at the last routing hop, or even the last switch and the controller.

Join the "shift" and live on the edge!

Hot Topics

The Latest

AI is becoming the operating system of the enterprise. It acts as an invisible coordination layer that understands intent, connects systems, and executes work across complex SaaS environments. Previously, employees had to click through multiple systems — CRM, ERP, support tools, collaboration platforms — to complete a single task. Now, instead of navigating each application manually, they can simply state what they need to accomplish ...

In 2026, the cost of downtime or an outage is no longer just a technical inconvenience; it's a $600 billion wake up call for global businesses. As our digital ecosystems become  more interconnected, each touchpoint introduces new risks and multiplies the consequences when things go wrong. And the data is clear: aggregate downtime costs  for Global 2,000 companies have surged 50% since 2024, reaching a staggering $600 billion ...

Deloitte found that 74% of enterprises expect to deploy agentic AI solutions in the next 24 months. However, the rush to deployment is outpacing foundational work, though. Only 21% of enterprises have fully formed agent governance models in place. The result? AI agents deployed without guidance or governance begin to function as fragmented islands of complexity ...

Cloud spending is no longer viewed as a passthrough IT expense, but as a strategic financial lever that directly impacts innovation capacity, profitability and enterprise resilience, according to the CFO Cloud Cost Optimization Report from Azul ...

As AI moves from generating responses to performing actions, the need for trust increases exponentially. And as organizations enlist AI agents for increasingly sophisticated business processes, trust is going to be the single most important theme for spurring adoption. What can organizations do to build trustworthy AI agents? ...

I've spent a lot of time in the channel, and one thing I keep coming back to is this: a partner program is only as good as what it looks like in the field. Many programs look great on paper, but when a partner is in front of a customer navigating a complex hybrid environment or trying to make the case for AI-powered observability, the gap between what a vendor promises and what it actually delivers becomes very clear, very fast ...

Enterprises today operate in a real-time environment where uninterrupted access to trusted data has become a baseline expectation for users, applications and automated systems. Traditional DataOps models, built on manual effort and human triage, cannot keep pace with this always active demand. AI agents are emerging as the operational backbone, ensuring consistent data availability, reinforcing trustworthiness and enabling a level of scale that manual processes cannot achieve ...

For decades, trust in the digital workplace rested on familiar signals. We trusted faces on video calls, voices on the phone, and emails that appeared to come from people we knew. These cues felt human and intuitive. They anchored how decisions were made, approvals were granted, and access was authorized. AI-powered deepfakes have quietly broken that model ...

Cloud migration was supposed to be a one-way door. For most enterprises, it turns out it isn't. Cloud data repatriation is a real and growing trend. A new survey ... finds that 89% of organizations plan to expand their on-premises infrastructure footprint over the next two years — and 75% have already moved at least some workloads back from public cloud in the past 24 months. The findings point to a broad rethinking of where data belongs ...

Over the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized the software industry. Given their ability to excel at multi-step reasoning, LLMs have helped enterprises streamline workflows and adapt to the unknown. However, employing such models comes with sky-high costs, latency issues, and limited flexibility. In the realm of IT operations, it is generally wiser to employ smaller, domain-specific models instead ...