NetBrain Architect Edition shares most of the feature set of NetBrain Operator Edition with the exception of concurrent users and shared workspaces and the key features described below:  

Please refer to the NetBrain Operator Edition product section to review the common features.

Finding out how the network infrastructure is built and how devices are interconnected allows you to establish a known baseline to use when planning changes and build-outs. Using Architecture Edition’s optimized discovery you can detect the complete L2/L3 network infrastructure including; devices, full port-to-port connectivity, contiguous and non-contiguous subnets, VLANs, DMZ and routing architectures. Simply connect the laptop running Architect Edition to the network and immediately start a network discovery.

Architect Edition shares the same network discovery engine used in our service provider solutions.
Network Discovery provides the following capabilities:

• High-Speed

Up to 2000 network devices per hour

• Accurate

Nearly 99% with controlled multi-run discovery

• Broad Coverage

Detection of MPLS clouds, VPNs or DMZ isolated network segments

Please note: For very large networks with more than 10,000 routers, switches, firewalls and other infrastructure devices, it is recommended that NetBrain’s Discovery Appliance be deployed to due to the performance requirements that are required to collect the necessary network and device data.

Implementing changes or upgrades to an operational network is one of the most complex tasks that a network engineer or architect can undertake. If everything is not calculated properly, or the network design is flawed in even the most subtle way, the result will not be pretty and rolling back changes is not a fun thing to be doing at midnight or on a weekend.

With NetBrain Architect Edition, you can simulate and analyze the net effect of all your network design and configuration changes by overlaying them on the operational network as a baseline. Simulation will compute network behavior and will reveal any issues with the network changes before implementation without requiring a physical lab or computing all the possibilities in your head. Supported network technologies include:

• Common enterprise routing protocols including: RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, OSPFv3 and BGP4
• All configured security filtering policies
• MPLS cloud (routing behavior across CE routers)

Simulation parses all the collected network data, then models and calculates best path prediction of traffic directly from a set of configuration files, allowing you to define the optimum network design. Architect Edition is a powerful enabler for both network design and network assessment.

Please note: Running a network simulation may generate high memory and CPU utilization. To speed up computation, it is recommended that you segregate your network into smaller workspaces (less than 1000 routing nodes) using logical boundaries.

Network consultants and enterprise architects frequently have to work on multiple networks from time to time. Virtual workspace isolates one network from the other completely, so you can have security and flexibility. Virtual workspaces can be used for:

• Modeling a new network design without affecting an existing operational network workspace
• Segregating network designs and assessments for different customers
• Simplifying modeling and analysis by dividing a very large network into multiple logical workspaces based on logical boundaries

NetBrain’s Architect Edition is the ideal tool for conducting large-scale network assessments. Though all phases of the assessment process, from network discovery to generating a full network assessment documentation package, Architect Edition’s automation capabilities eliminate all of the manual tasks associated with traditional network assessment.

• Discovery and Topology Assessment
• Get an accurate inventory of devices including; vendor, model, serial number, OS version etc. More importantly a full set of up-to-date network diagrams are push-of-button away.
• Configuration Assessment
• Use Design Reader to decipher network design and find any network security vulnerabilities or misconfigured devices
• Utilization Assessment
• Employ HeatMap technology to pinpoint high-utilization on links or devices in real-time
• Application-specific Assessment
• Map and simulate traffic paths for applications, measuring any network delay, jitter or packet loss along the traffic path with IPSLA, understand the top talkers consuming bandwidth between source and destination across any link – an essential requirement for network readiness assessment
• Network Documentation
• Architect Edition’s automated network documentation closes the loop for network assessment automation. From a set of SmartMaps’, or assessment instances, to full assessment documentation in Word is now one-click away. The assessment documentation is template driven and can be configured to your needs.

Powerful and easy-to-use, Architect Edition makes network assessments faster and more accurate. When faced with limited or no access to a customer network, consultants can still accomplish the job, using either of the following mechanisms:

• 0-Touch to Live Network

With no access to a customer’s network, a consultant can carry out a full-scale network assessment from a set of network configuration files provided by the customer and provide:

• Full network inventory and mapping
• Configuration analysis
• Simulation-based application analysis
• 1-Touch to Live Network

In the case where a consultant is provided access to a customer network for a one-time discovery and benchmark, Architect Edition can be used to then generate a complete network assessment using the virtual workspace without further need to access the customer network.

As a consultant or enterprise architect, you are often faced with any number of tough questions;
Will new applications run smoothly on the network?

The new application could be the rollout of VoIP on the existing infrastructure or a bandwidth intensive multicasting application. Either way you need to understand how VoIP which is delay, jitter and loss-sensitive will perform on the network or how much the proposed multi-casting application will impact network performance.

• Define key application flows and use IPSLA to emulate real application traffic to measure key performance metrics including; delay, jitter and packet loss directly in a map
• Drill down in a network map to locate traffic contention or utilization on key links