Networking specialist Cato Networks Ltd. says it’s getting better at monitoring performance fluctuations and resolving issues such as brownouts and blackouts more effectively.

The company, which sells a software-defined wide-area network service, today introduced an intelligent “last mile management service” to its flagship Cato Cloud SD-WAN.

SD-WAN is a specific application of software-defined networking technology applied to WAN connections, which are used to connect enterprise networks – including branch offices and data centers – over large geographic distances. A WAN might be used, for example, to connect branch offices to a central corporate network, or to connect data centers separated by distance.

Traditional WAN connections often use technology that requires special proprietary hardware. The SD-WAN movement seeks to move more of the network control into the cloud, using a software approach. Cato’s SD-WAN, called Cato Cloud, can be thought of as a hosted traffic management platform that enables organizations to centrally control communications from their data centers to branch offices and cloud deployments. It also allows them to regulate access to applications and services for mobile workers.

One of Cato Cloud’s biggest advantages is its self-healing capability, which automatically repairs outages by converging networking and security infrastructure and ensuring these are always aligned. The fact that wide-area traffic goes through its platform instead of on-premises systems removes the need to implement individual security policies at every edge location where an appliance is deployed.

The new Cato Intelligent Last-Mile Management service builds on those self-healing capabilities. It works by monitoring the “reachability” of the network, both upstream and downstream, by first establishing the network’s normal behavior so it can quickly detect any deviations from this. That, in turn, allows for the immediate detection of brownouts or blackouts and also allows users to pinpoint which specific service or last-mile location is responsible.

“Network access is the lifeblood of today’s business but maintaining that access depends on much more than simple last-mile connectivity,” Shlomo Kramer, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cato Networks, said in a statement. “Cato ILMM’s proactive, around-the-clock monitoring helps resolve networking problems before they become business problems.”

Cato said its ILMM service is currently available in beta, ahead of general availability in the first quarter of next year.

Image: Cato Networks