Name: Enhancing Network Visibility with Merged Snapshots
Start: 2024-07-11T17:57:00Z
End: 2024-07-11T17:57:03.000Z
Location: BrightTALK

Forward Networks is a leader in network analytics and intent-based networking solutions. Our BrightTALK channel focuses on the technology, marketing and solutions in this rapidly evolving space.

Let’s face it: your network is a complex, hairy beast. It eats protocols for breakfast, consumes configs for lunch, and sometimes the state outputs from its packet dinner can be… unpleasant.

If your network beast includes hardware and software from dozens of vendors, spread across multiple data centers and clouds, and runs mission-critical applications with challenging security requirements… then join Brandon Heller, Forward Networks CTO and Co-founder, for this 30-min session/demo featuring real-life examples from large “beastly” enterprise networks that found a path to reliability, agility, and security.

Top 5 Network Issues That a Digital Twin Can Solve in Under a Week

If you've ever looked at your firewall rules and thought, "What is all this, and why is it still here?", you're not alone. Most of us are stuck managing decades of inherited rules across multiple vendors--half of which no one remembers adding, but everyone's too afraid to delete. Audits are a nightmare, compliance reviews take weeks, and just figuring out which rules are still relevant can feel like digital archaeology.
Join Forward Networks Technical Evangelist Mike Lossmann as he goes over our Firewall Rule Management feature.   Mike will demonstrate how Forward's mathematical model transforms firewall governance, delivering continuous network insight, proactive risk mitigation, and simplified collaboration across teams.
If you've ever wanted to clean up your firewalls without losing sleep (or breaking production), this session is for you. Tune in Thursday, November 20th to see how Forward Networks makes firewall governance finally… sane.

Taming the Firewall Beast: Firewall Management with a Network Digital Twin

Are you curious about what a digital twin can do for your network? Join us for this introductory session where Mike Lossmann will cover the important basics: how does it work? what problems does it solve? what does deployment look like? what results should you expect? what are the typical use cases? 
If you are responsible, even partially, for the reliability and security of an enterprise network, this webinar is for you.

Network Digital Twin 101: just the basics

Agentic AI offers exciting possibilities for enterprise IT, but realizing its potential in network and security operations requires more than just automation—it demands accurate data and enforceable trust.

In this session, Dr. Nikhil Handigol, co-founder of Forward Networks and a leading expert in agentic AI, will explore the technical requirements and real-world considerations for deploying AI agents in complex network environments. Drawing from live demonstrations and lessons learned in the field, Dr. Handigol will illustrate how digital twin technology enables reliable AI-driven decision-making through behavioral modeling, comprehensive network context, and verification safeguards.

Participants will gain insight into:
 • What makes agentic AI different from traditional automation
 • How to minimize risk by managing autonomy and controlling agent behavior
 • Why trustworthy, normalized network data is essential for AI success

The session will also cover strategies for integrating AI agents into existing workflows—such as IT ticketing and security audits—without compromising operational integrity. Whether you’re evaluating agent-based architectures or already experimenting with LLMs in IT operations, this session offers a grounded, technical perspective on what it takes to make agentic AI work in practice.

Beyond the Hype: What Agentic AI Can Do for Your Security and IT Operations

Misaligned configurations and inaccurate IPAM data are leading causes of failed change plans, outages, and audit risk—with the average network outage costing $300,000+ (According to Gartner). As an Infoblox Ecosystem Partner, Forward Networks now offers a certified integration that automatically syncs verified, real-time network data into Infoblox NIOS—no scripts, no manual updates to provide organizations a unified, accurate view of their network behavior and address space, increasing operational efficiency and governance across teams and maximizing network resiliency.

In this technical demonstration, you’ll learn how to:
Automatically populate Infoblox NIOS with verified structured IP and device data including subnets, VLANs, MAC addresses, and more to ensure configuration and intent alignment across environments and improve NCCM.

With No-Code Simplicity, create mapping profiles that suit your needs, with an intuitive user interface. Forget about manual scripting or command-line tasks, focus on what matters.

Seamlessly transition from NetMRI with an Infoblox-certified path forward for NetMRI users seeking more reliable, scalable, and secure operations.

Demo: Certified Infoblox NetMRI Replacement and Improve Change Control with verified IPAM data

Federal agencies face mounting technical debt that threatens both innovation and security. From aging infrastructure and vendor sprawl to unmanaged vulnerabilities, complexity is creating unacceptable levels of cyber risk. Join Forward Networks’ Director of Product, Security, Renata Budko, and CIA veteran Rodney Alto, Head of Federal Strategy and Security, Forward Networks for a practical discussion on how federal IT teams can quantify, prioritize, and eliminate technical debt—without disrupting mission-critical operations.

This session will explore how a network digital twin provides a single authoritative source of network truth to:

Identify and reduce end-of-life equipment risk

Prioritize CVEs based on real exposure paths

Continuously validate configuration compliance

Improve visibility across hybrid and multi-vendor environments

Attendees will learn how to modernize securely, reduce operational burden, and build defensible KPIs for risk and compliance reporting.

Who should attend: Federal IT engineers, cybersecurity professionals, and infrastructure managers responsible for network health, security posture, and modernization planning.

Save Your Agency Money, Get Ahead of Technical Debt Quickly

Agentic AI is reshaping the enterprise software landscape with autonomous, goal-driven systems that promise operational speed, scale, and intelligence. But while the opportunities are massive, the risks are equally significant—particularly when these agents act on inaccurate, incomplete, or siloed data.

In this 45-minute discussion, Dr. Nikhil Handigol, Co-founder of Forward Networks, and Howard Holton, CTO of GigaOm, explore the critical role that network digital twins play in de-risking agentic AI adoption. They share expert insight into what’s driving the surge in agentic AI, what’s holding it back, and how enterprises can use digital twins to build trust, enforce verification, and avoid unintended consequences.

What You’ll Learn:

-  Why accurate, context-rich data is essential for safe and effective agentic AI

-  How a network digital twin acts as both a trustworthy data layer and a verification engine

-  Key risks of autonomous agents in enterprise networks—and how to mitigate them

-  The difference between monitoring tools and behaviorally-accurate digital twins

-  Real-world use cases where digital twins prevent outages, accelerate response, and support AI-driven automation

-  How enterprises can prepare their infrastructure, data, and teams for agentic AI

Who Should Watch:

-  CIOs, CISOs, and technology executives evaluating AI adoption strategies

-  Network and security architects looking to modernize their data infrastructure

-  Enterprise AI/ML teams working on safe deployment of autonomous agents

-  IT leaders concerned with governance, verification, and operational risk in AI systems

Agentic AI Can Help—or Harm. How a Digital Twin Keeps It in Check

Security teams are under pressure to manage risk, validate Zero Trust policies, and respond to threats in increasingly complex hybrid networks. Traditional tools offer limited context—and that’s where a network digital twin changes the game.

In this session, Forward Networks Technical Evangelist Mike Lossmann will demonstrate how a mathematically-accurate digital replica of your network can deliver the visibility and context SecOps teams need to:

Prioritize vulnerabilities based on real exposure paths

Instantly visualize blast radius and attacker reachability

Continuously validate firewall, segmentation, and Zero Trust policies

Detect and investigate misconfigurations before they cause damage

Ensure cloud security matches on-prem standards

You'll see real examples of how network digital twin technology eliminates blind spots, accelerates incident response, and strengthens your security posture—without deploying agents or disrupting operations.

Ideal for: Security operations engineers, threat response analysts, and network security leads looking to modernize their workflows.

Supercharge SecOps with a Network Digital Twin

Preparing for a network audit is no small task. Whether you're aligning with HIPAA, PCI DSS, NIST, ISO 27001, GDPR, or internal standards, ensuring your network is secure, compliant, and performing as expected often requires a significant investment of time, resources, and coordination. And once the audit is over, the countdown begins again.

But what if audit readiness wasn’t a point-in-time effort?

In this webinar, Scot Wilson, Systems Engineer at Forward Networks, will demonstrate how continuous monitoring powered by a network digital twin can transform compliance from a stressful, manual process into an automated, always-on capability. Learn how enterprises can leverage mathematical modeling of their network to maintain up-to-date visibility, ensure adherence to policy, and pass audits with confidence—no scramble required.

This session is ideal for IT, compliance, and security professionals looking to streamline operations and reduce audit preparation time.

Pass Your Network Audit Through Continuous Monitoring

Join AI and Networking experts Howard Holton from GigaOm and Nikhil Handigol from Forward Networks for an insightful webinar exploring the symbiotic relationship between AI and digital twins. Gain essential insights to navigate the evolving technological landscape as we discuss how generative AI is set to revolutionize network management by enhancing the capabilities of network digital twins. Delve into the potential "dark side" of AI that IT leadership should be vigilant about. Don't miss out on this comprehensive discussion that will shape your understanding of AI-enabled digital twins and their impact on network management.

How AI-enabled digital twins will transform network management

GigaOm analyst, Howard Holton and Forward Networks VP of product and UX, Chiara Regale will discuss how enterprises can use digital twin technology. This discussion will uncover:
- How to reduce risk, improve operations and deliver meaningful ROI
- How a digital twin increases visibility and enhances security in multi-cloud environments
- Ways to prevent config drift or config misalignment using a digital twin
- How a digital twin can shorten change windows

How to Mitigate Risk and Improve Operations with a Network Digital Twin

Join Forward Networks Technical Evangelist Mike Lossmann as he unveils our powerful new Firewall Rule Management feature—designed to streamline security operations and deliver millions in annual savings compared to traditional manual methods. In this session, Mike will demonstrate how this groundbreaking capability transforms firewall governance, delivering real-time visibility, proactive risk mitigation, and simplified collaboration across teams.

Key capabilities include:

Device Inventory & EOL Tracking to flag outdated firewall OS versions.

Configuration Management to enforce hardening and compliance standards.

CVE Management to expose and remediate OS-level vulnerabilities.

Blast Radius Analysis to surface what’s truly at risk behind each firewall.

Intent Verification & Reachability to eliminate unnecessary open ports.

Security Zone Mapping to align rule sets with actual application needs.

Gain Control with a Digital Twin: Transform Firewall Ops and Ensure Policy Compliance

With cyber threats growing more complex, federal agencies need a smarter approach to prioritizing risk and strengthening their security posture. Not all threats pose the same level of risk—some are mitigated by existing controls, while others remain dangerously exposed. Understanding residual risk requires full visibility into your Cyber Space Terrain, something only achievable with an end-to-end network Digital Twin.


Join us for a live webinar on March 27 to learn how Forward Networks’ Digital Twin enables federal agencies to:

Prioritize vulnerabilities based on actual exposure and mitigating controls
Identify and address potential zero-day threats before they become critical
Gain full visibility across on-premises and multi-cloud environments
Optimize cybersecurity resources to protect mission-critical systems

Cyber Threat Prioritization

See how the Forward Enterprise firewall rule management feature streamlines change validation, detects unintended network impacts, and simplifies routing policy cleanup for NetOps and SecOps teams.

Firewall Rule Management

Policymakers, oversight bodies like DHS CISA, CIOs and CISOs, need accurate and timely data to drive decisions and actions in many different areas. These areas include where to invest in cybersecurity readiness, monitoring threats and risks, ensuring compliance and improving coordination among federal agencies. Often known as a Cyber Data Call, these place a heavy burden on cyber and IT organizations since data is spread across systems and siloed on network devices. Gathering the raw data, normalizing it across silos and answering Cyber Data Calls can take weeks or months.

Authoritative Data drives faster and more accurate responses to Cyber Data Calls. During this webinar, we will go over how to gather and use Authoritative Data on your network to rapidly answer a Cyber Data Call, improving response time to minutes or hours and coordination among federal agencies.

Using Authoritative Data to Handle Cyber Data Call

Managing a complex network demands precise and up-to-date information, yet achieving a single source of truth (SSOT) for your network is a significant challenge. Many enterprises rely on multiple sources of truth (SOTs), but conflicting SOTs introduce risk—how can engineers be certain which one is accurate? How can IT teams ensure there are no unidentified devices hidden in the network? Without accurate data, critical tasks like managing CVEs become nearly impossible—you can't secure or remediate devices you don’t even know exist.

By integrating and cross-populating SOTs, administrators gain unprecedented levels of detail about the network and its devices. This session will demonstrate how the Forward Networks Digital Twin collects, augments, and consolidates network information across multiple SOTs to create a comprehensive and accurate SSOT. Using tools like device decorators, Forward Networks ensures seamless troubleshooting, efficient remediation, and a more secure network environment.

Key highlights include:
Why a single source of truth matters: Gain insights into how an accurate SSOT improves troubleshooting, enhances compliance, and streamlines operations.
Challenges of tools like Netbox: Learn why manual updates and integration issues often lead to inaccuracies and inefficiencies in managing network inventory.

How a Network Digital Twin transforms your approach: See how Forward Networks automatically reconciles and updates your network data, eliminating the need for manual intervention and ensuring your inventory is always 100% accurate.

Join Technical Solutions Architect and cloud expert Craig Johnson, along with Technical Product Marketing Leader Mike Lossmann, for an interactive demonstration of how Forward Enterprise simplifies the creation and maintenance of a single source of truth (SSOT), empowering you to focus on achieving your objectives with confidence and ease.

Save Time and Reduce Risk: How a Digital Twin Makes Maintaining a Single Source of Truth Effortless

Explore the power of Forward Enterprise's network digital twin platform in this comprehensive session led by Mike Lossmann, our resident demo expert. This in-depth overview highlights 13 critical use cases that demonstrate how digital twin technology revolutionizes network operations and management.  

Key Use Cases Covered:
1. Change Control  
2. Network Compliance and Audits  
3. Inventory Management
4. Workflow Automation  
5. Incident Response  
6. Vulnerability Management  
7. Zero Trust Verification  
8. Continuous Cloud Security Audit  
9. Cloud Service Assurance
10. End-to-End Hybrid Multi-Cloud Visibility  
11. Path Verification Analysis  
12. Outage Prevention  
13. Troubleshooting  

Learn how Forward Enterprise enables organizations to optimize network performance, ensure security compliance, and achieve unmatched visibility across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Discover how a digital twin can drive proactive incident resolution, zero-trust strategies, and automated workflows to reduce risks and streamline operations.

Forward Enterprise Full Demo

Zero Trust .... But Verify
Zero trust security is a necessity in modern cybersecurity frameworks, endorsed by comprehensive directives from the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The DoD Zero Trust Strategy alongside the DoD Zero Trust Capability Execution Roadmap offers in-depth guidance designed to facilitate any organization's transition to a robust Zero Trust model. 

Join Federal Security Expert Scot Wilson and Federal Technology Solutions Architect Sean Deveci to learn how organizations are using Forward Enterprise to simplify their Zero Trust journey. They will demonstrate how leveraging a network digital twin can empower both government and private sector organizations to seamlessly implement and verify a Zero Trust architecture. 

During the session, Scot and Sean will demonstrate how Forward Enterprise supports several of the Zero Trust foundational pillars identified by the DoD: 

*Device: Rigorous device security and control mechanisms (CVE, STIGs, config hardening). 

*Application & Workload: Protection strategies for applications and their workloads. 

*Network & Environment: Segmentation and Security posture verification across diverse environments. 

*Automation & Orchestration: Enhancing response capabilities through automation. 

*Visibility & Analytics: Advanced analytics for proactive security management.

How to follow DoD Zero Trust Guidelines

In this 30-minute demo filmed at Cisco Live Las Vegas, Mike takes the audience through the top Forward Networks Use Cases.  If you aren't ready for a personalized demo, but you want to see what the product can do, this session is for you.  He'll cover how Forward Enterprise helps NetOps, SecOps and Cloud Ops teams be more effective and efficient using the. platform that generates an average of $14.2 million in annual benefits to its customers.  (Link to the IDC Business Value Spotlight that validates this is in the attachments)

Demo Tuesday Reflects on Cisco Live

Join Mike Lossmann, a digital twin expert with over 18 years of experience in managing complex networks, as he demonstrates AI Assist, a generative AI feature in Forward Enterprise. AI Assist allows engineers to interact with the network as if they were conversing with a colleague. This feature enables querying the network to understand its behavior, troubleshoot issues, and prove compliance using natural language. Attend this session to see AI Assist in action.

AI-Powered Digital Twins: Hands-On Session for Streamlined Network Management

Join Mike Lossmann, a digital twin expert with over 18 years of experience in managing complex networks, as he explains the concept and functionality of a network digital twin. Discover how it can streamline your toolset and simplify your network management tasks.

Reduce Network Tools and Ease Your Job with Digital Twins: Learn How

In today's Demo Tuesday, we will showcase how Forward Networks ensures your zero trust policies are effectively enforced and that traffic correctly passes through designated enforcement points, avoiding any circumvention of set policies. The demo will also highlight our continuously updated security posture.

Learn to Enforce Zero Trust Policies with Forward Networks: Demo Tuesday

Managing a DoD network often means dealing with the challenges of STIG (Security Technical Implementation Guide) compliance. These guides are essential for network security, but maintaining compliance is notoriously difficult due to the complexity and ever-evolving nature of large networks—a challenge familiar to enterprise engineers. In this demo, Mike Lossmann, Forward Networks TME and host of Demo Tuesday, teams up with Sean Deveci, Federal Technical Solutions Architect, to showcase how Forward Networks has integrated compliance checks that instantly inform network engineers about their STIG compliance status and pinpoint any issues. Say goodbye to compliance headaches!

Simplifying STIG Compliance for DoD Networks: A Practical Demonstration

Join Mike Lossmann, a network expert with over 18 years of experience, and Jack Chen, Principal Customer Solutions Engineer at Forward Networks, for an insightful webinar. They will demonstrate how a network digital twin can address common questions from SecOps and Cyber Security Engineers. In this hands-on demo, you'll see how the Forward Enterprise Platform easily identifies rogue devices in real time

Locating Rogue Devices in Minutes with a Digital Twin

Join Mike Lossmann, an expert with over 18 years of experience in handling complex networks, for a practical session on network security. Mike will demonstrate how to quickly prove network security for an audit using a digital twin, network snapshots, and a security posture assessment tool. This tool provides an instant and up-to-date view of microsegmentation across the network.

Demo: Respond to audits in minutes not weeks

Join us for an insightful webinar featuring Mike Lossmann, a seasoned professional with over 18 years of expertise in managing the world's most intricate and demanding networks. Discover how the implementation of a network digital twin can revolutionize the daily operations of NetOps engineers.

Mike will demonstrate how this innovative approach allows for swift diagnosis of issues such as connectivity problems, with solutions pinpointed within seconds. Through the platform, the NetOps team can proactively address potential configuration errors before they impact end-users, ensuring a seamless experience.

Furthermore, delve into how a digital twin simplifies the process of troubleshooting, making it akin to child's play (albeit with a peculiar child, but you get the gist). Mike will showcase its effectiveness in validating network integrity during significant events like AWS connectivity failures. With the platform offering intuitive insights into the AWS environment, understanding complex issues becomes accessible even to non-technical individuals. Bid farewell to the days of frantic conference calls and endless troubleshooting sessions—the solution is at your fingertips. Join us to explore the future of network management!

A Day in the Life of a Network Engineer - Made Easy

In this session, Mike shows how easy it is to determine the blast radius of a compromised host and isolate it even while on vacation. (Because that's what we all want to do on vacation right?)

Demo Tuesday - Isolating a Compromised Host in Seconds

Join technical product marketing manager Michael Lossman, for a hands-on demo of Forward Enterprise.  Learn how to 

Search your network like Google to reduce the time it takes to identify and resolve network issues.

View the complete journey of a path in a hybrid multi-cloud environment to speed up troubleshooting.

Streamline decommissioning efforts and prevent unintended consequences by providing actionable access to critical data.

Learn To Troubleshoot Complex Network Issues in Seconds With Forward Enterprise

In this demo Mike will show how Forward Networks' digital twi can:
- Help network teams to quickly verify conditions in the network and resolve issues, reducing the need for senior team members to be constantly involved.
- identify issues such as an open port that shouldn't be, and identify the likely cause of the issue.
- Forward's alert the team when the intent of the network changes, such as when a port that should not be open is detected.
- provide a history of collections, showing whether each one passed or failed, and why, aiding in troubleshooting.

Learn how digital twin technology can quickly resolve network issues.

In this Demo Tuesday session,  Mike will show you how the data delivered by Forward Enterprise helps Cloud Ops and SecOps teams protect their network and ensure it stays in compliance. In this session, Mike demonstrates how to:

1. Provide a cloud security posture breakdown.
2. Identify config-based vulnerabilities in devices.
3. Determine the potential impact of a security breach on a specific host.
4. Integrate with vulnerability scanners like Rapid 7 and Tenable.
5. Offer asset inventory features and network query language (NQE) for deeper network insights.

A Digital Twin makes ensuring multi-cloud hybrid network compliance child's play

Demonstrations of Forward Enterprise Digital Twin Technology

In this video, Mike demonstrates how to merge segments for an integrated view in highly segmented networks.

Agency IT departments are charged with maintaining mission-ready 
networks to support services, remote work, and support warfighter 
operations. These networks are highly segmented to tightly control 
access and contain risk in the event of a security incident.  
Within agency networks, various segments often fall under 
distinct administrative controls, making it nearly impossible to 
visualize connectivity, ensure security zone segmentation, or 
perform a complete path search. While necessary for security, this 
segmentation can hinder troubleshooting and optimization efforts, 
especially when network issues span multiple domains. Forward 
Enterprise addresses this challenge with its innovative “merged 
snapshots” feature.

Enhancing Network Visibility  with Merged Snapshots

Network Architecture

network observability

Digital Twin

Network Security

SecOps

Federal Government

Network Visibility

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Enhancing Network Visibility with Merged Snapshots

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Forward Networks