The most popular way to use cloud computing in manufacturing typically involves a hybrid approach — using cloud and edge technologies to keep critical real-time data on premises while sending select data to the cloud for more detailed analyses. This hybrid approach places added requirements on manufacturing networks to effectively handle data as it moves from machine to machine, system to system and edge to cloud. (Read more about hybrid edge-cloud deployment in manufacturing in this Automation World article).
To help manage these kinds of industrial networks, NetBrain Technologies, a provider of no-code network automation and dynamic mapping systems for hybrid-cloud networks, has launched the Next-Gen Release 12 (R12) update to its platform. New capabilities include a genAI large language model (LLM) copilot to assess, orchestrate and summarize network automation results with natural language, and Golden Engineering Studio (GES), which can reverse engineer a network’s design rules and features.
According to NetBrain, R12’s new GES allows network and operations teams to analyze millions of lines of network configuration code to decode the live network’s configuration and state in minutes to discover “golden configurations” and remediate any deviations. GES can also be used to create no-code automation to proactively verify the live network at scale to prevent configuration drift, network outages and other security risks.
The new reverse engineering capability in GES is designed for long-running network environments that lack consistent documentation caused by leadership and structural changes. It allows current network engineers to understand the design rules previously put in place and helps them generate thousands of no-code automations for efficient, compliant network operations at scale.
“Organizations often struggle to understand the intentions of the network’s original architects, which limits their ability to diagnose and address problems or anticipate the consequences of network changes,” said Song Pang, senior vice president of engineering at NetBrain. “This helps them understand these intentions, detect problems and spot configuration drift before they cause outages.”
Another major feature of R12 is the new AI-powered copilot, which allows users to ask questions in natural language for problem resolution, improving troubleshooting, change management and observability workflows. The copilot can orchestrate NetBrain automations, use intent-based reasoning to chain different actions together and return the diagnosis results in natural language or summarize them into other formats such as a table, map or dashboard.
“Humans no longer have to figure out how to fix network problems alone. The fixes are already built into reverse-engineered golden configuration templates,” said Pang.
Other updates in R12 include:
- Triple Defense Change Management to prevent unintended consequences that negatively affect business-critical applications and services or introduce security vulnerabilities now and when making future changes. According to an Enterprise Management Associates’ analyst report, 45% of network outages have a root cause in configuration and change management errors.
- Hierarchical dashboard with geo location layers map-based device visibility onto summary network dashboards across organizational levels. Red/green indicators for network health and direct auto-remediation capabilities help streamline decision-making and enhance operational efficiency.
