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6.1 Operations Overview

Document Information

Field Value
Document Title Operations Overview
Version 1.0
Last Updated December 2025
Author Abhavtech
Classification Internal Use
Target Audience Network Operations, IT Management

Overview

This section establishes the operations framework for managing the Abhavtech SD-WAN infrastructure. It defines operational responsibilities, processes, and tools required for maintaining a production-grade SD-WAN deployment.

Operations Philosophy

ABHAVTECH SD-WAN OPERATIONS FRAMEWORK
=====================================

Vision: Proactive, automated network operations that ensure
        99.99% availability and optimal application performance

Principles:
├── Automation First
│   ├── Reduce manual intervention
│   ├── Consistent operations
│   └── Rapid response
├── Proactive Monitoring
│   ├── Predict failures before impact
│   ├── Trend analysis
│   └── Capacity planning
├── Continuous Improvement
│   ├── Learn from incidents
│   ├── Optimize processes
│   └── Measure outcomes
└── Security Integration
    ├── Zero-trust operations
    ├── Audit everything
    └── Least privilege access

Operations Model

Organizational Structure

NETWORK OPERATIONS ORGANIZATION
===============================

                    ┌─────────────────────┐
                    │    IT Director      │
                    │   (Governance)      │
                    └──────────┬──────────┘
                               │
              ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
              │                │                │
     ┌────────┴────────┐ ┌─────┴─────┐ ┌────────┴────────┐
     │ Network Manager │ │ Security  │ │  Application    │
     │  (Operations)   │ │  Manager  │ │    Manager      │
     └────────┬────────┘ └─────┬─────┘ └────────┬────────┘
              │                │                │
     ┌────────┴────────┐       │                │
     │                 │       │                │
┌────┴────┐ ┌─────────┴───────┴────────────────┘
│ NOC     │ │ Network Engineers (L2/L3)        │
│ (L1)    │ │                                  │
└─────────┘ └──────────────────────────────────┘

Team Responsibilities

Team Role Responsibilities
NOC (L1) First Response Monitor alerts, initial triage, escalation, documentation
Network Engineers (L2) Technical Support Troubleshooting, configuration changes, incident resolution
Senior Engineers (L3) Advanced Support Complex issues, architecture changes, Cisco TAC coordination
Network Manager Operations Lead SLA management, process improvement, vendor management
Security Manager Security Ops Security monitoring, incident response, compliance

Support Tiers

ESCALATION MATRIX
=================

Tier 1 - NOC (0-15 minutes)
├── Alert acknowledgment
├── Initial diagnostics
├── Known issue resolution
├── Escalation to L2
└── Customer communication

Tier 2 - Network Engineers (15-60 minutes)
├── Advanced troubleshooting
├── Configuration analysis
├── Performance optimization
├── Root cause analysis
└── Escalation to L3

Tier 3 - Senior Engineers (60+ minutes)
├── Complex issue resolution
├── Architecture decisions
├── Cisco TAC engagement
├── Change management
└── Post-incident review

Tier 4 - Cisco TAC (As needed)
├── Software defects
├── Hardware failures
├── Design validation
└── Critical escalations

Operations Scope

In-Scope Components

Category Components Operations Responsibility
Controllers vManage, vSmart, vBond Full operational ownership
WAN Edges All C8300/C8500 routers Full operational ownership
Transports MPLS, Internet, LTE circuits Monitoring, vendor coordination
SD-Access Integration Fabric handoff, BGP peering Shared with LAN team
Security Services ZBFW, UTD, TrustSec Shared with Security team

SD-WAN Infrastructure Map

ABHAVTECH SD-WAN OPERATIONS SCOPE
=================================

Controllers (Mumbai DC):
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ vManage Cluster (3 nodes)                           │
│ ├── MUM-VMANAGE-01 (192.168.10.10) - Primary        │
│ ├── MUM-VMANAGE-02 (192.168.10.11) - Secondary      │
│ └── MUM-VMANAGE-03 (192.168.10.12) - Tertiary       │
│                                                     │
│ vSmart Controllers (2 nodes)                        │
│ ├── MUM-VSMART-01 (192.168.10.20)                   │
│ └── MUM-VSMART-02 (192.168.10.21)                   │
│                                                     │
│ vBond Validators (2 nodes - Cloud)                  │
│ ├── CLOUD-VBOND-01 (AWS Mumbai)                     │
│ └── CLOUD-VBOND-02 (AWS Singapore)                  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

DR Controllers (Chennai DC):
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ vManage DR (Standby)                                │
│ └── CHE-VMANAGE-DR (192.168.20.10)                  │
│                                                     │
│ vSmart DR                                           │
│ ├── CHE-VSMART-01 (192.168.20.20)                   │
│ └── CHE-VSMART-02 (192.168.20.21)                   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

WAN Edge Devices (9 Sites):
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ India Region:                                       │
│ ├── Mumbai Hub (2x C8500-12X4QC)                    │
│ ├── Chennai Hub (2x C8500-12X4QC)                   │
│ ├── Bangalore Branch (1x C8300-1N1S-6T)             │
│ ├── Delhi Branch (1x C8300-1N1S-6T)                 │
│ └── Noida Branch (1x C8300-1N1S-6T)                 │
│                                                     │
│ EMEA Region:                                        │
│ ├── London Hub (2x C8300-2N2S-6T)                   │
│ └── Frankfurt Hub (2x C8300-2N2S-6T)                │
│                                                     │
│ Americas Region:                                    │
│ ├── New Jersey Hub (2x C8300-2N2S-6T)               │
│ └── Dallas Hub (2x C8300-2N2S-6T)                   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Total Managed Devices: 22 WAN Edges + 10 Controllers

Service Level Agreements

Availability SLAs

Service Target SLA Measurement Current
Controller Cluster 99.99% Monthly uptime ____%
WAN Edge Availability 99.95% Per-device monthly ____%
Hub-to-Hub Connectivity 99.99% Path availability ____%
Hub-to-Branch Connectivity 99.9% Path availability ____%
SD-Access Handoff 99.99% BGP session uptime ____%

Performance SLAs

Metric Hub-to-Hub Hub-to-Branch Target
Latency ≤ 50ms ≤ 100ms 95th percentile
Jitter ≤ 20ms ≤ 30ms Average
Packet Loss ≤ 0.01% ≤ 0.1% Monthly average
Throughput ≥ 1 Gbps ≥ 500 Mbps Guaranteed minimum

Response Time SLAs

Priority Description Response Time Resolution Time
P1 - Critical Complete service outage 15 minutes 4 hours
P2 - High Major degradation 30 minutes 8 hours
P3 - Medium Partial impact 2 hours 24 hours
P4 - Low Minimal impact 4 hours 72 hours

Priority Definitions

INCIDENT PRIORITY MATRIX
========================

P1 - Critical:
├── All hub sites unreachable
├── Controller cluster failure
├── Complete VPN segment outage
├── Security breach detected
└── >50% of tunnels down

P2 - High:
├── Single hub site down
├── Multiple branches affected
├── Single VPN segment impaired
├── Performance below SLA (>20%)
└── Security policy failure

P3 - Medium:
├── Single branch down
├── Backup transport only
├── Intermittent connectivity
├── Non-critical service impact
└── Certificate warning

P4 - Low:
├── Informational alerts
├── Cosmetic issues
├── Feature requests
├── Documentation updates
└── Scheduled maintenance

Key Performance Indicators

Operational KPIs

KPI Target Measurement Frequency
Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) < 5 min Alert to acknowledgment Per incident
Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) < 15 min Alert to first action Per incident
Mean Time to Resolve Per priority SLA Alert to resolution Per incident
First Call Resolution > 60% L1 resolved / Total Monthly
Change Success Rate > 99% Successful / Total Monthly
Incident Recurrence < 5% Repeat incidents Monthly

Infrastructure KPIs

KPI Target Current Trend
Tunnel Availability 99.9% ____% ↑↓→
BFD Session Stability 99.99% ____% ↑↓→
Controller CPU < 70% avg ____% ↑↓→
Controller Memory < 80% avg ____% ↑↓→
OMP Route Convergence < 5 sec ____ sec ↑↓→
Certificate Validity > 60 days ____ days ↑↓→

Business KPIs

KPI Target Current Impact
Application Availability 99.99% ____% Revenue
User Satisfaction > 4.5/5 ____/5 Productivity
Cost per Site < $XXXX/mo $____ Budget
WAN Cost Savings > 30% ____% ROI

Operational Processes

Daily Operations

Time Activity Responsibility Duration
08:00 Morning health check NOC 30 min
08:30 Review overnight alerts L2 Engineer 30 min
09:00 Standup meeting All 15 min
10:00 Performance review L2 Engineer 30 min
14:00 Afternoon health check NOC 15 min
16:00 Change review meeting Change Manager 30 min
17:00 End of day summary NOC 15 min

Weekly Operations

Day Activity Responsibility
Monday Weekly planning meeting Team
Tuesday Capacity review L3 Engineer
Wednesday Security posture review Security
Thursday Change implementation window L2/L3
Friday Weekly report generation NOC

Monthly Operations

Week Activity Responsibility
Week 1 SLA report generation Manager
Week 2 Capacity planning review L3 Engineer
Week 3 Security audit Security
Week 4 Process improvement review Team

Tools and Access

Operations Tools

Tool Purpose Access Level
vManage Primary management L1-L3
Catalyst Center SD-Access integration L2-L3
ISE Authentication/TrustSec Security
ServiceNow Ticketing All
Slack Communication All
PagerDuty Alerting On-call
Grafana Dashboards All
Splunk Log analysis L2-L3

Access Management

ROLE-BASED ACCESS CONTROL
=========================

NOC (L1):
├── vManage: Read-only Dashboard
├── Catalyst Center: Read-only
├── ServiceNow: Create/Update tickets
└── Grafana: View dashboards

Network Engineer (L2):
├── vManage: Operator (limited write)
├── Catalyst Center: Observer
├── ServiceNow: Full ticket access
├── Grafana: View + Create dashboards
└── Splunk: Read access

Senior Engineer (L3):
├── vManage: Network Admin
├── Catalyst Center: Network Admin
├── ServiceNow: Full access
├── All tools: Full access
└── SSH: Device access

Network Manager:
├── vManage: Admin
├── Catalyst Center: Admin
├── All tools: Admin access
└── Approval authority

Communication Framework

Escalation Contacts

Level Contact Phone Email
L1 NOC NOC Team +91-XXXX-XXXX noc@abhavtech.com
L2 On-Call On-Call Engineer +91-XXXX-XXXX oncall@abhavtech.com
L3 Escalation Sr. Network Engineer +91-XXXX-XXXX network-l3@abhavtech.com
Management Network Manager +91-XXXX-XXXX netmgr@abhavtech.com
Cisco TAC TAC Support 1-800-553-2447 -

Communication Channels

Channel Purpose Response Time
Slack #sdwan-ops Real-time operations Immediate
Slack #sdwan-alerts Automated alerts Acknowledge < 5 min
Email sdwan-team@ Non-urgent communication < 4 hours
PagerDuty Critical alerts < 5 min
Teams Bridge Incident calls As needed

Notification Matrix

Event P1 P2 P3 P4
NOC Team ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
L2 Engineer ✓ ✓ - -
L3 Engineer ✓ - - -
Manager ✓ ✓ - -
Director ✓ - - -
Business ✓ ✓ - -

Documentation Requirements

Operational Documentation

Document Owner Review Frequency
Operations Runbook NOC Manager Quarterly
Troubleshooting Guide L3 Engineer Bi-annually
Escalation Procedures Manager Annually
Change Procedures Change Manager Annually
DR Playbook L3 Engineer Bi-annually

Incident Documentation

INCIDENT RECORD REQUIREMENTS
============================

Required Fields:
├── Incident ID (auto-generated)
├── Timestamp (detection, response, resolution)
├── Priority (P1-P4)
├── Affected Components
├── Impact Description
├── Root Cause
├── Resolution Steps
├── Preventive Measures
└── Lessons Learned

Post-Incident Review (P1/P2):
├── Timeline reconstruction
├── Root cause analysis
├── Impact assessment
├── Communication review
├── Process improvements
└── Action items with owners

Continuous Improvement

Improvement Framework

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT CYCLE
============================

        ┌─────────────┐
        │   PLAN      │
        │  Identify   │
        │  Improvement│
        └──────┬──────┘
               │
    ┌──────────┼──────────┐
    │          │          │
    ▼          │          │
┌───────┐      │      ┌───────┐
│ ACT   │      │      │  DO   │
│Standar│◄─────┴─────►│Implemt│
│-dize  │             │       │
└───┬───┘             └───┬───┘
    │                     │
    │    ┌─────────┐      │
    └───►│  CHECK  │◄─────┘
         │ Measure │
         │ Results │
         └─────────┘

Improvement Metrics

Area Current Baseline Target Timeline
MTTR _____ min < 30 min (P1) Q1
Automation ___% > 80% Q2
False Positives ___% < 5% Q1
Change Success ___% > 99% Ongoing
Document Description Location
vManage Dashboards Dashboard guide Section 6.2
Monitoring Framework Monitoring design Section 6.3
Alerting Configuration Alert setup Section 6.4
Troubleshooting Guide Issue resolution Section 6.8
Operational Runbooks Day-2 procedures Section 6.13

Document Control

Version Date Author Changes
1.0 December 2025 Abhavtech Initial release

This document is part of the SD-WAN Operations & Monitoring documentation series for Abhavtech.com