Closing the SD-WAN Visibility Gap with Riverbed NetProfiler

SD-WAN has revolutionized enterprise networking by making connectivity smarter, more dynamic, and cost-effective. By intelligently routing traffic across multiple transport links—like MPLS, broadband, and LTE—based on real-time conditions, SD-WAN ensures application performance while simplifying network management.

The hidden challenge in SD-WAN monitoring

But there’s a problem. SD-WAN solutions primarily focus on the overlay—the virtualized network running on top of your physical infrastructure. While they provide visibility into traffic flows, policy enforcement, and application performance, they leave a massive blind spot: the underlying transport network.

If a performance issue arises, how do you know if it’s due to SD-WAN policies, an ISP problem, or congestion on the physical network? The truth is, you don’t—unless you have the right tool to correlate both layers. That’s where Riverbed NetProfiler comes in.

Why partial visibility puts your business at risk

Imagine this: Your business relies on SD-WAN to ensure flawless connectivity across your global offices. One morning, users in your European branch report sluggish application performance. Your SD-WAN dashboard shows that traffic is being routed correctly, but the problem persists. What’s the cause?

• Is it congestion on an underlay ISP?
• Is packet loss occurring due to a misconfiguration in your SD-WAN?
• Is the issue happening in the data center or at a remote branch?

Without end-to-end network visibility, troubleshooting is a guessing game. This lack of insight can lead to hours of manual investigation, frustrated employees, and ultimately, business disruptions.

That’s why IT teams need a solution that looks beyond the SD-WAN overlay and into the underlying network infrastructure. Riverbed NetProfiler eliminates these blind spots, delivering the intelligence needed to troubleshoot problems instantly.

How Riverbed NetProfiler closes the SD-WAN visibility gap

Riverbed NetProfiler is built for enterprises that demand total observability across their entire network—both SD-WAN overlay and underlay. Unlike SD-WAN vendor tools that focus only on their own environment, NetProfiler provides a neutral, comprehensive view that ensures IT teams have real answers, not partial insights:

Correlates SD-WAN Overlay with Underlay Performance: SD-WAN vendors monitor traffic routing, tunnel performance, and application flows, but they can’t show you the health of the physical transport network. NetProfiler correlates SD-WAN overlay traffic with real network performance metrics, pinpointing the true source of issues. Whether it’s ISP congestion, packet loss, or SD-WAN misconfigurations, NetProfiler gives you an exact diagnosis.

Supports Multi-Vendor SD-WAN Environments: Many enterprises use multiple SD-WAN vendors—Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN  (formerly known as Viptela) at some sites, VMware VeloCloud at others, and Versa for cloud connectivity. Instead of juggling multiple monitoring tools, NetProfiler provides a single source of truth across all SD-WAN solutions.

Accelerates Troubleshooting with Root Cause Analysis: When a network issue arises, NetProfiler doesn’t just alert you, it tells you why. Advanced flow analytics and anomaly detection allow NetOps teams to rapidly pinpoint performance bottlenecks and resolve incidents faster. This reduces Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) and minimizes downtime.

Ensures Performance SLAs Are Met: Many SD-WAN deployments rely on external ISPs or cloud providers. But when an outage or performance degradation occurs, how do you hold vendors accountable? NetProfiler provides the data needed to validate SLAs, ensuring that service providers deliver on their promises.

Take control of your SD-WAN visibility

With SD-WAN adoption growing rapidly, enterprises can’t afford to rely on incomplete monitoring solutions that only tell half the story. Riverbed NetProfiler brings total observability to SD-WAN environments, helping IT teams with faster troubleshooting, optimized performance, and simplified IT operations.

Don’t let SD-WAN complexity slow you down. With Riverbed NetProfiler, you gain the real-time visibility and actionable insights you need to keep your network running at peak performance. Learn more and schedule a demo today.