How DX NetOps Reporting Improves Operational Efficiency

In my role in product management, I get the opportunity to meet with network operations professionals in a range of organizations. When I ask them about the challenges they’re facing, their responses can largely be summed up in one word: complexity.

For most network operations teams, the landscape is shifting at an accelerating pace. Teams are managing a mix of on-premises and cloud-based resources, migrating computing closer to the network edge, and contending with the rapid rise of SD-WAN adoption. While these trends are delivering undeniable benefits to the business—enabling faster delivery, greater scalability, and more robust services—they are simultaneously increasing the operational burden for network teams. Complexity is increasing rapidly, which is making network monitoring exceedingly difficult.

The growing need for unified visibility and intelligent prioritization

If they are to navigate this complexity while ensuring optimized service levels for the business, it is no longer enough for teams to simply focus on keeping the lights on and responding reactively to alarms as they arise. Network operations teams are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of demands, changes, and alarms coming at them in real time. They cannot handle all the demands effectively without a clear and unified view of their network.

What teams need today is unified visibility—with tools that empower them to shift from a reactive mode to a proactive one. Teams must be able to prioritize issues intelligently, based on real-time insights. Crucially, they must be able to make decisions grounded in facts and data, not guesswork.

Solution: DX NetOps delivers the visibility and insights needed

Enter DX NetOps—a comprehensive solution designed to address these challenges head-on. DX NetOps equips network operations teams with the visibility and advanced reporting capabilities necessary to make the right decisions in managing complex networks.

With DX NetOps, network operations teams can quickly and accurately answer some of the most critical questions they face, including:

• Where are the weaknesses in our network that could lead to potential issues?
• What issues should we prioritize to prevent disruptions?
• Did we deliver the service levels our business users require?

Advanced reporting with DX NetOps: New capabilities in release 24.3

The latest version of DX NetOps (release 24.3) enhances the solution’s value even further, offering advanced reporting capabilities that provide valuable insights for better decision-making and more efficient network operations. With these new capabilities, users gain even more flexibility in generating and modifying reports.

DX NetOps delivers capabilities that provide significant flexibility in reporting:

• Modification. With the new edit function, users can fine-tune reports, such as changing the timeframe to focus on specific periods.
• Distribution. Reports can be exported in formats like PDF or CSV and shared easily via email.
• Scheduling. Users can schedule reports to run automatically and be distributed on a one-time or recurring basis to specific individuals or teams, enabling timely and consistent communication.

Report categories and examples

With DX NetOps, network operations teams have access to a wide range of report types. Below are a few key categories and examples of reports that can help teams manage their networks more effectively.

1. Alarm reports

Alarms are often the first line of defense for network operations teams. They serve as early indicators, enabling teams to detect and mitigate problems before they escalate into major disruptions.

DX NetOps offers a variety of alarm-related reports to help teams analyze alarms, detect patterns, and spot recurring issues. Here are a few reports available:

• Alarm Log Report. This report provides a detailed list of all alarms generated by a specific device and model. Users can customize the report’s inputs, and once saved, the report will present a chronological list of alarm activities for the selected device.
• Top-N Devices and Models with Most Alarms. This report identifies the devices or models generating the most alarms, providing insights on potential problem areas.
• Top-N Most Common Alarms. This report highlights the most frequent alarms, displaying details such as alarm count, device model type, and the percentage of total alarms attributed to each.
• Alarm Activity by User. This report tracks alarm activities by user, helping to identify which team members are handling the most incidents.

2. Availability reports

Network availability is a critical metric, one that has a bearing on both user satisfaction and business continuity. DX NetOps features several availability reports that help network operations teams assess overall network health and minimize downtime.

For example, the solution provides a “Top-N Least Available Devices” report. This report lists devices with the lowest uptime during a specified period, allowing teams to identify and address devices that may be affecting service levels. In addition, the solution features a report that details availability information for each device and model within a specific global collection. The solution also offers a report that details outages of all managed devices across all global collection groups.

3. Asset reports

Effective network management begins with a clear understanding of the assets being managed. DX NetOps offers several different comprehensive reports on network assets, providing visibility into devices, ports, and more.

For example, the solution features a “Current Assets” report. This report provides a breakdown of all managed devices, including information such as model, IP address, firmware version, and more. Users can further filter and drill down into asset details, enabling deeper insights into the current state of their network. In addition, DX NetOps offers a “Current Ports Summary” report that details the ports associated with all the managed devices in the environment.

Conclusion

As network environments continue to grow in both scope and complexity, network operations teams need more than just basic monitoring and reactive measures. They need advanced reporting tools that offer unified visibility and actionable insights, so teams can prioritize intelligently and ensure the business always has a high-performing network to rely upon.

The latest version of DX NetOps, release 24.3, provides all these capabilities and more. With the ability to generate, modify, distribute, and schedule comprehensive reports, network teams can operate more efficiently and proactively. Even better, all of the solution’s new, advanced features come at no additional cost for customers using release 24.3 and above—no extra licenses or implementations required.

To learn more, see our Small Bytes webcast, How to Optimize NOC Efficiency with Operational Reports.