Product Updates – Bigleaf Networks https://www.bigleaf.net Internet Connectivity Without Complexity Tue, 20 Aug 2024 20:21:21 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 https://www.bigleaf.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/favicon-70x70.png Product Updates – Bigleaf Networks https://www.bigleaf.net 32 32 Introducing the new Bigleaf Cloud Connect https://www.bigleaf.net/resources/introducing-the-new-bigleaf-cloud-connect/ Tue, 20 Aug 2024 19:36:54 +0000 https://www.bigleaf.net/?p=20986 Read More]]>

Watch this video to see how Bigleaf Cloud Connect enhances how you can achieve optimal cloud connectivity and network performance. This powerful new dashboard provides unparalleled visibility and control, simplifying network management across multiple locations.

With the new Bigleaf Cloud Connect, you can:

  • Easily manage multiple companies, sites, devices, and circuits from a single intuitive dashboard
  • Gain deeper insight into network health with comprehensive global and multi-site views
  • Access real-time metrics, performance data, and detailed site information for immediate, actionable insights
  • Leverage enhanced analytics to make informed long-term decisions and quickly troubleshoot issues

Streamlined user support, self-help resources, and improved performance make navigating the new Bigleaf Cloud Connect dashboard effortless.

This is just the beginning of a new era in cloud network management.

Welcome to Bigleaf Cloud Connect.

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Introducing Zero-Touch Setup https://www.bigleaf.net/resources/introducing-zero-touch-setup/ Wed, 03 Nov 2021 15:03:00 +0000 https://www.bigleaf.net/?p=14493 Read More]]>

In the many conversations we have with our MSP and service provider partners, we continue to learn about everything they do to provide the absolute best service to their clients. From troubleshooting and resolving issues to managing the day-to-day of their clients’ service accounts to strategically planning what can be done to help them meet their technology and business goals, MSPs and service providers have a lot on their plate.

Knowing about so much of what they do makes us even more excited to announce our new Zero-Touch Setup, available for our partners who self-provision Bigleaf equipment for their clients.

Designed to streamline Bigleaf setup and deployment

This new feature is designed to help MSPs respond to their client needs more quickly and provide them with greater flexibility when setting up and deploying Bigleaf routers. MSPs are no longer required to use the Bigleaf provisioning kit (switch and router) to set up, install patches, or update the software on Bigleaf equipment for their client sites. After November 3, 2021, setup and deployment of Bigleaf routers can happen from anywhere, and updates and patch deployments are automatically installed, simply by having the device online.

The Bigleaf provisioning kit is retired

The Bigleaf provisioning kit, including the Mikrotik switch and Bigleaf router, is no longer needed. All an MSP needs now to set up a Bigleaf router for a client is a reliable DHCP network drop and their login to the Bigleaf web dashboard.

This means that an MSP can literally take a Bigleaf router from one client site to another, connect it to an active DHCP connection, and set up the device for the new client or new location using the Bigleaf web dashboard. That’s it. They no longer have to take the device back to their office to configure it with the switch.

With Zero-Touch Setup, client setup and Bigleaf router inventory management is more convenient, flexible, and faster—supporting the great client service MSPs strive to deliver.

If you’re an MSP, we’d love to know what you think! Send any feedback or ideas for future improvements to product@bigleaf.net. If you have any questions or need support, please contact us.

I’m an MSP, do I need to do anything to make Zero Touch Setup work?

It depends. See if any of the following applies to you:

 

A Bigleaf router that is already provisioned and online at a customer site prior to November 3, 2021

NO ACTION NEEDED

The router has been automatically upgraded. 

 

Bigleaf routers that are already provisioned but haven’t been online since November 3, 2021

TURN ON THE ROUTER TO BRING IT ONLINE

In most cases, simply bringing the router online in November will automatically initiate an upgrade. If it does not upgrade, Bigleaf will be able to see that and will contact you to resolve the issue.

 

Bigleaf routers that are in your inventory or have not been provisioned before November 3, 2021

CONTACT OUR SUPPORT TEAM

Reach out to Bigleaf Support at support@bigleaf.net for assistance with upgrading. The upgrading process is simple and should only take about 10 minutes per device, and multiple devices can be upgraded at once.

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Introducing risk monitoring https://www.bigleaf.net/resources/introducing-risk-monitoring/ Thu, 08 Oct 2020 03:16:45 +0000 https://www.bigleaf.net/?p=7727

So many of us suffer with a deluge of information, much of it unusable information. More than half the respondents to a survey of IT professionals dealt with more than 10,000 alerts per day, and 27% of all respondents received over one million alerts per day. Not surprisingly, the majority of respondents admitted they struggled to get through all the notifications and to figure out which actually needed immediate attention. 

This is why I am pleased to announce the introduction of Bigleaf risk monitoring. This new feature makes use of artificial intelligence to filter alerts so only the important, actionable items will be prioritized. 

Focus on the issues that pose a risk to your business

Instead of reporting on normal, individual network events — like your latency spiking every few seconds — Bigleaf’s risk monitoring isolates critical events that pose a threat to your business continuity and your site’s uptime.  

Each risk alert is designed to give you a clear explanation and path to resolution so you can take immediate action. To support this feature, we’ve updated the Bigleaf dashboard to include a new overview, detailed risk view, and override rules for these risks. 

 

The dashboard has a new widget that provides the number of risks a site currently has triggered and highlights the top three risks for that site.

The risks we monitor range from site outages all the way to looking at the mix of traffic across your different circuits.  There are currently 12 risks we will calculate and report, including: 

     

      • Extended period of elevated alarm levels 

      • Circuit outage(s) that result in only a single circuit remaining 

      • Critical traffic volume exceeds the capacity of the backup circuits 

      • A site is down 

    Get fewer, more actionable alerts 

    With risk monitoring, you can expect to receive a lot fewer email alerts because you’re no longer being alerted for every single performance issue, however insignificant. Depending on your site, you could see as much as a 50% reduction in email alerts. 

    There’s no need to change alert settings to report only the most severe issues. While you can still adjust risk notification sensitivity, this decision is based on the level of business impact that concerns you most. You won’t miss any critical pieces of data, such as recurring, lower-level latency alarms, that could indicate a bigger problem. 

    Detailed performance information is a critical part of the troubleshooting path, but the context is also important. Bigleaf risk monitoring analyzes the context around patterns or potential impact, to answer the key question: “Do I need to worry?” 

    When the alerts and other information are presented without context, that forces us to try and build some interpretation model. Whether we use a tool or just figure it out in our heads, we need to filter out-of-context alerts and decide how urgent or important they might be, and whether they require immediate attention.  

    See what Bigleaf risk monitoring can do for you 

    To learn more about Bigleaf’s risk monitoring and actionable alerts, watch our  recorded webinar or request a demo.  

    If you’re already a Bigleaf customer and you’re ready to get started with these new risk-based alerts, you can either follow the wizard when you initially log in, or you can go to your Accounts page in your Bigleaf dashboard and add a new alert destination.

    And we’d love to hear what you think! You can share your feedback with me at product@bigleaf.net or opt in to early feature access for future releases. 

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    Tell us what you think https://www.bigleaf.net/resources/tell-us-what-you-think/ Thu, 06 Aug 2020 02:33:52 +0000 https://www.bigleaf.net/?p=7349 Read More]]> Have you ever wanted to tell us what you thought of our features? Have you ever thought, “I wish I could give Bigleaf my feedback so that feature could be perfected?” Well, I am happy to announce you now have a way to let us know with the new Early Feature Access checkbox on the User Account settings page.

    By enabling this on your account, you’re letting us know that you would like to provide feedback and be part of the feature development process at Bigleaf. Your feedback and input will help us decide how and what we design for our features.

    How you can participate

    There are a few stages when we may reach out or contact you:

    General product call – A product call gives you a chance to speak to a person on the Product team and walk them through the challenges you encounter daily, and discuss features or new ideas you would like to see us work on.

    Early feature design call – This may include us showing off a prototype design or mockup(s). Then you’ll have the floor to tell us what you think about what you’ve seen.

    Beta testing – During beta testing, you would be given access to use and test out new features that are in a more complete state.

    We look forward to interacting with you and getting your feedback and ideas!

    Getting Started with Bigleaf

    Bigleaf customers can get full documentation of our features by contacting Bigleaf support at  support@bigleaf.net or by reading the release notes. To get more details on these new bandwidth packages, please reach out to your channel sales manager, or contact us at 1-888-244-3133. If you’re not a Bigleaf customer yet and would like to learn more about how we can help ensure performant uptime across your organization, request a demo today.

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    Additional SD-WAN configuration option further simplifies deployment https://www.bigleaf.net/resources/additional-sd-wan-configuration-option-further-simplifies-multi-site-deployment/ Fri, 07 Feb 2020 17:32:53 +0000 https://www.bigleaf.net/?p=6649 Read More]]>

    Here at Bigleaf Networks, we have a history of providing new functionality that simplifies the deployment and administration of network equipment. Now we’re adding to that functionality for single-site and multi-site customers, with DHCP capability on the Bigleaf router LAN ports. 

    Our multi-site customers tell us that making changes to a firewall or other network device is not always a good plan. With the addition of DHCP support on the LAN ports, we remove the deployment steps of changing the WAN port settings and manually assigning IP addresses. 

    To get access to this feature, let us know whether DHCP is required on your provisioning documents. When we configure the router to use the DHCP setting, it will use the set of IPs that we have assigned to it. The router will then dynamically assign those IPs once the attached device(s) are connected on the LAN ports.

    Simply take the router and follow our installation steps, but without making any changes to your existing equipment. The Bigleaf services work the same way regardless of the static and DHCP LAN port settings, and services are fully operational after installation is complete.

    We are continually evaluating ways to provide value, and we hope this additional deployment option demonstrates our commitment.  

    Getting Started:

    Bigleaf customers can get full documentation of our features by emailing  support@bigleaf.net. If you’re not a Bigleaf customer yet and would like to learn more about how we can help ensure performant uptime across your organization, request a demo today.  

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    New! Self-provisioning for Bigleaf partners https://www.bigleaf.net/resources/new-self-provisioning-for-bigleaf-partners/ Thu, 12 Dec 2019 17:05:19 +0000 https://www.bigleaf.net/?p=6427 Read More]]> Many of our channel partners have asked for the ability to deploy and manage Bigleaf SD-WAN on-demand without our direct involvement. In response, we’ve launched a self-provisioning feature for channel partners who routinely stock and deploy network equipment and deliver Bigleaf to their customers on-demand.

    Starting today, Bigleaf channel partners can deploy and manage our service and equipment at any time. While our fulfillment process to-date has been very efficient, and many of our partners will keep using it, those partners who prefer to do their own provisioning can now install Bigleaf without the wait.

    We’ve upgraded our dashboard and permissions systems so reseller channel partners can add users and control the service at any time without contacting Bigleaf. We’ll also soon be announcing other uses of this new permissions system to give real-time control to all Bigleaf users.

    Partner provisioning is another step that demonstrates Bigleaf’s ongoing commitment to MSPs and our efforts to continue empowering the MSP channel.

    You can see how easy Bigleaf partner provisioning can be in the video below. To get details on how to sign up for Bigleaf partner provisioning, please reach out to your Channel Sales Manager, or call us at 1-888-244-3133.

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    Expanding SD-WAN Performance With our new San Jose Gateway Cluster https://www.bigleaf.net/resources/expanding-sd-wan-performance-with-our-new-san-jose-gateway-cluster/ Tue, 16 Jul 2019 15:29:56 +0000 https://www.bigleaf.net/?p=6043 Read More]]> We’re excited to announce that Bigleaf’s Cloud-first SD-WAN platform has grown once again with the addition of our newest Gateway Cluster in San Jose, CA. This new Gateway Cluster is our tenth deployment, expanding the Bigleaf Cloud Access Network to provide even better session quality and traffic control for VoIP calls, virtual desktop sessions, credit card payments and other Cloud-based applications. 

    This new Gateway Cluster will further optimize latency in the Northern California region. What’s more, this expansion adds to our list of directly peered networks, giving Bigleaf customers improved access to our cloud, content, and network peers.

    Over the past 12 months, we’ve expanded our presence across the US and in Europe.  In the coming months, we will be excited to make similar announcements in the APAC region. With our Cloud Access Network at the core of our offering, these expansions will continue to position Bigleaf as the leader in Cloud-first SD-WAN. 

    If you want to learn more about how we can give you worry-free Internet performance over broadband internet connections, contact us today. 

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    Bigleaf’s Cloud-first SD-WAN is now available in Europe https://www.bigleaf.net/resources/bigleafs-cloud-first-sd-wan-is-now-available-in-europe/ Wed, 10 Apr 2019 11:57:13 +0000 https://www.bigleaf.net/?p=5565 Read More]]> Today, we’re excited to announce that Bigleaf Networks has launched our first international network locations in Europe, making Bigleaf’s Cloud-first SD-WAN available to both European companies and distributed Enterprises with European locations. This expansion marks the beginning of Bigleaf’s global expansion. It’s a massive step in our growth as both an SD-WAN platform and as a company.  

    International expansion driven by Cloud adoption

    Our move overseas is driven by the same growing SD-WAN demand that we’ve seen in North America. MarketsandMarkets predicts the SD-WAN market will grow to $4.1 billion by 2023.  

    With European businesses embarking on cloud adoption driven by applications like VoIP and Office365, their need for SD-WAN solutions is expanding. To meet this demand, we launched in three major telecom hubs in Europe – London, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt – with plans to expand to other countries including France and Australia later this year. This will enable our partners to provide their global customers with a unified SD-WAN solution. 

    This is just the beginning

    Cloud technologies that initially found their foothold in the U.S. have been quickly gaining adoption in Europe and Asia as companies embark on the now familiar and necessary migration to the cloud. Mid-market European cloud adoption is at the same level as it was in the U.S. three years ago.   

    We see this adoption being driven by applications like UCaaS and Microsoft Office 365. In fact, Gartner predicts that global spending on cloud infrastructure and services will hit $214B in 2019, representing more than 50% of global enterprise software spending. Business who rely on those cloud services will need a way to ensure consistent and reliable internet performance anywhere in the world and SD-WAN will be a critical part of delivering that performance.  

    There’s no way around it, the world is moving to the cloud and companies need the right networking platform to make that move successful. Bigleaf has seen tremendous growth in the U.S. because we anticipated this shift and intentionally built our SD-WAN offering from the ground up for the cloud. The need for our Cloud-first SD-WAN is growing throughout Europe and Asia and these new POPs give us the global reach to bring Bigleaf to more customers through our channel partners.  

    We’re looking forward to working with our partners who have international customers that need a unified SD-WAN solution. For many of our partners, Bigleaf’s push into global markets will allow them to continue selling the solution they’ve come to depend on in North America.  

    If you’d like more information on our international launch, check out today’s press release. If you have any questions about Bigleaf’s unique Cloud-first SD-WAN, or if you’d like to expand Bigleaf into your own region, email us or send a note through our contact page

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    New! Dual LAN support on Bigleaf edge routers for easier network segmentation https://www.bigleaf.net/resources/new-dual-lan-support-on-bigleaf-edge-routers-for-easier-network-segmentation/ Thu, 07 Feb 2019 21:08:23 +0000 https://www.bigleaf.net/?p=4381 Read More]]> At Bigleaf, we’re always striving to make our Cloud-first SD-WAN even easier to integrate into every customer network. To that end, we’ve heard from partners and customers asking for the ability to configure a second LAN port on our edge routers. Until now, Bigleaf customers with multiple edge or WAN devices would have employed an additional switch to connect to the Bigleaf edge router. That’s why we’re excited to announce that Bigleaf customers can now configure the AUX port on the Bigleaf edge router as a second LAN port.

    This is a big deal for customers using a second edge router or firewall. For example, those using an IAD for SIP termination, or those who segment their corporate network with a separate firewall from their guest network. With the second LAN port, customers who need to connect two devices can benefit from Bigleaf’s improved internet and application performance without any additional equipment.

    Simplified internet and application performance across multiple edge devices

    This new feature enables users to configure the AUX port on our edge routers to be bridged together with the LAN port, giving them the ability to plug two network devices in that can both use our service at the same time. They can use one public IP address block across both ports (assuming they have more than one usable LAN network IP), or two separate IP address blocks.

    Once configured, this feature allows Bigleaf users to connect both a data firewall and a VoIP network termination device such as another firewall or router to our service without a switch in-between.

    Getting started with Bigleaf’s second LAN port

    Using the second LAN port can be done using your existing edge router. The second LAN port is enabled in your Bigleaf web dashboard by simply checking the “Enable as 2nd LAN Port” box on the config tab. When the feature is enabled, the web dashboard “overall” graph will be automatically updated to show the usage across both the LAN and AUX ports.

    If you have our High-Availability upgrade option, you already have the ability to use multiple LAN ports. Please refer to the setup guide included with the equipment, or contact our support team for help.

    For customers hoping to enable this feature, we currently limit the ability to edit config within the web dashboard to Bigleaf support teams only. This will be changing in the near future with an expanded role/permissions system, but for now, please contact support to have this enabled.

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    New Bigleaf Alert Options Make Network Management Even Easier https://www.bigleaf.net/resources/updates-to-bigleaf-alerts-give-you-even-more-control/ Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:47:13 +0000 https://www.bigleaf.net/?p=2730 Read More]]> As companies rely more and more on their Internet connection to do business, the quality of that connection has become a primary concern for IT leaders everywhere. That’s why Bigleaf’s SD-WAN is designed to instantly fix any Internet performance or outage issues before they impact the business. But for our users, it’s still important that they know when their internet connections have issues so they can be addressed, regardless of whether their company was impacted. Enter Bigleaf Alerts…

    Alerts help you stay in-the-know without having to get involved

    Bigleaf alerts let you know when there are issues with any of your company’s circuits. Our alerting categories let you know immediately whether you need to get involved.

    Site down alerts notify you when an entire location is without Internet. For Bigleaf users with backup Internet circuits, this usually means that the power is out at that location. For users with a single circuit, this could simply mean that the circuit is down. Either way, part of your business is dead in the water and action is needed.

    Circuit outage alerts let you know when an ISP circuit is down. For Bigleaf users with backup circuits, this usually won’t cause any issues for your users as traffic will be automatically routed over another connection. For users with a single circuit, this means that the site is offline and immediate action is needed. Either way, a call to the ISP is in order.

    Circuit performance alerts ping you when circuits experience performance issues like packet loss, latency or jitter. Bigleaf’s Dynamic QoS and Intelligent Load-balancing can usually compensate for these issues when multiple circuits are available. For higher-impact alerts, a quick outreach to the ISP might be in order to determine the cause of the issue. It could indicate that a second circuit would be helpful to prevent any impact down the road.

    No matter what the issue, you can always contact your Bigleaf Support team to help you resolve the issue.

    Now you can customize alerts to meet your needs

    Bigleaf Alerts just got even more powerful with a host of updates designed to give you control over how and when you get Bigleaf Alerts. Now you can…

    Choose which Alerts you get: So we gave our users the option to choose which alerts they want to get.

    Decide between Individual alerts or a Site Summary: Users who manage multiple sites may not want to get an alert for every issue across every site. Likewise, single-site customers often want to reduce noise in their inbox. So we’ve introduced a new “Site Summary” option that will send you a digest email for each site at an interval you choose.

    Set Alert severity thresholds: Some performance issues are bigger than others. Our users love Bigleaf because they don’t *have* to worry about Internet performance. That also means they don’t have to hear about every hiccup in Internet performance. Now you can set your Alert Volume from 0-7 to control how bad things need to get before we notify you. For example, a level-7 severity is a full outage, a level-2 issue is service-affecting, and level-0 means everything is healthy.

    Enable renotifications: If an issue persists for a while, you may need a reminder to check back in on it. Renotificaitons allow you to set an interval after which we’ll send another alert about the same issue.

    Alert delay: Performance issues can change up-and-down in severity, and many Bigleaf customers don’t want to hear about brief issues, only long on-going problems. Alert delays allow you to cut down on alert noise by changing how long a problem has to persist before you get an alert.

    Choose between HTML and plain text notifications: HTML emails include color coding for alerts that make them easier to read. Plain text emails are generally easier to parse through automated systems. We let you decide which you prefer.

    Get started today

    If you’re a Bigleaf customer, your existing alert settings will be the same as they were before the updates. You can log in and update your preferences on the Account Setting page. In particular, we’d recommend trying the Site Digest option and setting the Alert Volume to your preference.

    If you want to learn more about how we can give you worry-free Internet performance over broadband internet connections, contact us today.

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    Expanding SD-WAN Performance With our new Atlanta Gateway Cluster https://www.bigleaf.net/resources/new-atlanta-gateway-cluster/ Mon, 09 Apr 2018 23:30:04 +0000 http://www.bigleaf.net/?p=2151 Read More]]> New Atlanta Gateway Cluster brings improved regional performance to SD-WAN networkWe’re excited to announce that Bigleaf’s Cloud-first SD-WAN platform has grown once again with the addition of our newest Gateway Cluster in Atlanta, GA. This new Gateway Cluster is our sixth deployment, expanding the Bigleaf Cloud Access Network to provide even better session quality and traffic control for VoIP calls, virtual desktop sessions, credit card payments and other Cloud-based applications.

    Customers in the Southeast region will see even more significant improvement in their cloud and SaaS application performance. What’s more, this expansion adds to our list of directly peered networks, giving Bigleaf customers improved access to our cloud, content, and network peers.

    Investing in the future of SD-WAN for the US and beyond

    Over the past 12 months, we’ve expanded our presence across the US and specifically in the Southeast region. This expansion includes the addition of dedicated regional sales and channel personnel to the Southeast as well as several strategic partnerships. These efforts have driven significant growth in the region, making this expansion possible.

    While a significant portion of the post-Series A funding for Bigleaf going to expanding our team, it’s also important to note that we are investing in our network as well. With the completion of the Atlanta Gateway Cluster, the network team at Bigleaf can now look ahead to our next round of expansion, which for the first time will take the network beyond the United States.

    In the coming months, we will be excited to make similar announcements in the form of global expansion. With our Cloud Access Network at the core of our offering, these expansions will continue to position Bigleaf as the leader in Cloud-first SD-WAN.

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