In a recent interview, Ariana Lynn, Principal Analyst at The Fast Mode spoke to Pierre-Luc Charbonneau, VP of Sales and Marketing at Obkio on the impact of traffic visibility on modern IP networks. Pierre-Luc joins us in a series of discussions with leading networking, analytics and cybersecurity companies, assessing the need for traffic filtering technologies that can deliver real-time, granular application awareness. The series explores how advanced analytics power various network functions amidst the rapid growth in traffic and applications.
Ariana: How do your solutions and products fulfill the demands of today's networks?
Pierre-Luc: Obkio’s Network Performance Monitoring SaaS solution was born from a need within the industry to simplify network performance monitoring for modern, decentralized networks. Unlike traditional packet capture monitoring solutions, Obkio uses synthetic traffic to monitor network performance without the complexity and possible security concerns that come with packet capture, while being able to proactively identify network issues.
The increasing use of hosted services and SaaS applications brought major changes to the architecture of networks and data flows, which is why Obkio monitors all network types (SD-WAN, MPLS, Dual-WAN, Multihoming, Hybrid, LAN, WAN L@ et L3 VPN) from one end of the network to the other (from WAN to LAN). Obkio is designed for any industry and can scale with businesses of all sizes.
Ariana: How important is traffic visibility for your suite of solutions and products?
Pierre-Luc: Unlike many traditional network monitoring tools, Obkio’s Network Performance Monitoring solution does not rely on traffic visibility and packet capture but instead generates and monitors synthetic traffic.
Traffic visibility and deep packet inspection start with packet capture, which Obkio does not use. For reasons of security, and ease of use, Obkio’s NPM solution avoids packet capture but is still able to increase network visibility and monitor network performance even during periods without real traffic using synthetic monitoring.
Pierre-Luc Charbonneau has 20 years of experience in Computer Networks and worked as the director of presales engineering and special projects at Fibrenoire, where he designed state-of-the-art connectivity solutions for medium and large enterprises. Pierre-Luc has encountered many networks, for many clients, and works very closely with the client to translate their needs and network problems into solutions with technical teams. In 2018, he joined the former Obkio CEO to create Obkio and is the current VP of Sales and Marketing.
This interview is a part of The Fast Mode's Traffic Visibility segment, featuring leading networking, analytics and cybersecurity companies and their views on the importance of network intelligence and DPI for today's IP networks. A research report on this topic will be published in June 2024 - for more information, visit here.
