Tech Partner

Closing the Loop: Combining Network Automation with Network Verification

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Network automation is a key component of closed-loop automation, but it is not complete without the proper safeguards provided by network verification. For organizations, combining network automation and orchestration with Itential and network verification and predictive capabilities with Forward Networks, provide immense benefits to automate complex, business-critical changes within hybrid, multi-cloud networks.

Verification + Automation Means NetOps Teams Can Deploy Changes at Scale without Unpredictable Side Effects

Automation is becoming the dominant strategy for supporting the increasing complexity in modern networks. As organizations progress on their automation journey, building confidence and trust in the network is paramount. Itential’s Automation Platform provides a low-code, drag-and-drop interface for rapid automation as well as pre-built use cases for the most common operations tasks and use cases. The Forward Networks platform enables network operations engineers to verify that the automated workflows are correct and compliant with intent policies. Integrations with change management systems such as ServiceNow and JIRA, ensure common operational knowledge as well as integrating with notification and source of truth systems to support distributed and cloud environments.

Network & Cloud Automation

Itential simplifies and accelerates the deployment and management of multi-domain network infrastructure. The Itential Automation Platform, Itential’s cloud-native, software-as-a-service offering, provides a low-code interface that seamlessly connects to any IT system, cloud, or network technology for end-to-end and closed-loop network automation and orchestration capabilities.

Digital Twin of Your Network

Forward Networks is revolutionizing the way large networks are managed. Forward’s advanced software delivers a “digital twin” of the network, enabling network operators to verify intent, predict network behavior, and simplify network management. The platform supports devices from all major networking vendors and AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

Large enterprise-grade networks depend on automation capabilities to maintain network health and provision new mission-critical services and Itential’s easy-to-use platform is the only network automation solution that supports the reality of multi-environment networks. Through the Forward Networks and Itential integration, we can enable large organizations to embrace the benefits of automation coupled with Forward Networks, network verification and ensure network correctness, reliability and provide the assurance that everything works as promised and that the network is compliant.

Chiara Regale, Vice President of Product, Forward Networks

Itential + Forward Networks:
Closing the Loop on Network Automation

Capitalizing on these capabilities, the integration of Itential and Forward Networks enables closed-loop network automation. Network changes initiated in Itential can be validated against Forward Networks mathematical model of the network, while anomalies identified by Forward Networks can be remediated via the Itential Automation Platform.

Technology Integration

By using Itential’s API integration with Forward Networks, Itential can verify routing, add intent checks, verify new service connectivity, check for side effects, and send notifications and verifications via Slack, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, and email. Itential’s out-of-the-box integrations with change management systems including ServiceNow and Jira, ensuring everyone is working from a single source of truth and expedites collaboration. In the event of an issue, the diff check functionality within the Forward Networks platform makes it easy to pinpoint which changes are causing any unplanned behavior.