Know it’s the ISP, not the overlay.
When a third of incidents get pinned on the SD-WAN overlay and no one can see the ISP underneath, the real fault goes unfixed. Here is how a $66B financial holding got 100% path visibility and stopped the false alarms.
overlay and underlay path visibility
ISP routing-change detection
false SD-WAN escalations
Story highlights
- Full path, finally visible. Overlay and underlay testing achieved 100% path visibility, including the ISP underlay that was dark before.
- False alarms cut. 75% of incidents wrongly blamed on the SD-WAN overlay stopped being misrouted.
- WAN made dependable. ISP routing changes were caught in 3-5 minutes, and WAN availability rose to 99.95%.
The situation
A $66B holding blind below the overlay.
The financial holding could not see its ISP underlay routing, so 30-40% of incidents were wrongly blamed on the SD-WAN overlay, and peak-hour packet loss ran high with no real-time path data. They set out to see both layers.
The problem
The overlay took the blame for the underlay.
With no view of the ISP layer, the wrong culprit got named again and again. Three things drove it.
ISP underlay was dark
Zero visibility into ISP underlay routing.
The overlay was mis-blamed
30-40% of incidents were wrongly pinned on the SD-WAN overlay.
No real-time path data
Peak-hour packet loss hit 180 to 220ms with nothing to trace it.
What OnStak did
See both layers, tell them apart.
OnStak tested overlay and underlay together and built dashboards that separated network from application.
Tested both layers
Overlay and underlay testing with enterprise and cloud agents.
Caught ISP changes live
Real-time ISP routing-change detection.
Separated network from app
Dashboards that distinguished network issues from application issues.
Ended the mis-routing
Incidents went to the right team the first time.
What changed
From mis-blaming the overlay to seeing the true fault.
The overlay took the blame.
- ISP underlay routing was invisible.
- 30-40% of incidents wrongly blamed on the overlay.
- No real-time path data during peak hours.
Now both layers are in view.
- 100% overlay and underlay path visibility.
- ISP routing changes caught in 3-5 minutes.
- False SD-WAN escalations down 75%.
The outcome
Anonymized financial holding · $66B in assetsBoth layers in view, the right team every time.
The idea that holds it together
Blame is cheap; visibility is the fix.
“When you can see both layers, the incident goes to the right team the first time.”
Awais Janjua / Chief Technology Officer, OnStak