Multi-Domain Automation, Leveraging SDN & Combating Config Changes
Week of February 23rd, 2020
Packet Pushers: Achieve Multi-Domain Network Automation With Itential
As organizations engage with network automation, they want to be able to leverage their existing automation tools (scripts, Ansible playbooks, orchestrators, etc.) rather than an automation vendor’s specific tool set. In this edition of Packet Pushers’ Heavy Networking Podcast, the group discusses Itential’s approach to network automation.
Leveraging SDN Technology To Optimize Digital Transformation Trends
A variety of digital transformation trends have played into the central idea of SDN. These include intent-based networking, hybrid cloud solutions, distributing computing power to remote sites, moving data centre functions to the edge, adopting cloud computing and supporting Internet of things (IOT) environments. Each of these efforts can be made easier and more cost efficient via a properly configured SDN environment, according to Duxbury Networking CTO Andre Kannemeyer.
How to Combat Network Configuration Management Challenges
Managing network configuration and network change deployments has historically been wrought with time consuming and error-prone activities. As networks become more complex and span multiple domains (NFV, Cloud, SD-WAN, 5G, and more), NetOps teams are progressively finding that executing these changes via CLI or scripting and constantly swivel chairing between systems is simply unable to keep pace with business demands. That’s why the ability to centrally define and manage configurations and policies without requiring manual configuration at each device is an aspiration many organizations are striving to achieve.
Cisco Systems Goes Big On 5G
Despite the cancellation of Mobile World Congress Barcelona, Cisco Systems launched a number of initiatives this week that appear to be follow ups to its “Internet for the Future” announcement from last mid-December. The prior announcement was punctuated with portfolio updates spanning optics, silicon and software. This announcement is focused specifically on the service provider side of Cisco’s business, which includes carriers, mobile operators that lease network bandwidth and pure-play service providers. I would like to summarize the highlights and provide insight into what I believe is the most compelling opportunity for these stakeholders.
A SASE Strategy For Security, SD-WAN
Existing network approaches don’t provide the levels of security and access control many digital enterprises require. Enterprises today also demand immediate access for their users, no matter where they are located or which device they are on, in a way that meets all their security requirements. For too long, network routing and security have been separate entities. However, merging them creates synergies beyond stacking the two together with network function virtualization.
Don’t Do Agile And DevOps By The Book
In software development, we talk a lot about the importance of Agile and DevOps. Agile aims for rapid releases, positively encourages involvement from customers and other stakeholders and splits work into smaller iterations, releasing as soon as possible. DevOps extends it by introducing cross-functional team collaboration and automation, enabling teams to always have a stable build ready to deploy. That’s the short version and there’s a huge range of books and frameworks out there to read so that anyone, anywhere–apparently–can just start doing it. The danger is that if you follow them too closely, processes can actually become too rigid, so you end up losing the agility you’re striving for.
Reduce Cloud Security Complexity With Zero Touch Automation
Technology has advanced at a rapid pace over the past 20 years, and companies have had to digitally innovate to keep up with competitors. As organizations increase their digital assets, they are also increasingly moving to public and hybrid cloud environments for storage and infrastructure needs. Interestingly, after embarking further into these cloud transformations, organizations also started wanting to add instant service availability and infrastructure-as-code into their own data centers. As a result, public cloud vendors are now offering private data center solutions such as AWS Outpost, Google Anthos and Azure Stack.
5G And The Future Of Pervasive IoMT
In order for hospitals and health systems to prepare for 5G, they need to intelligently re-architect their current network infrastructure now to support the applications and uses cases that will leverage 5G in the future.
Automation And Integration Thwarts Misconfiguration, Staff Burnout
Keeping pace with the rapid growth of the hybrid cloud growth is difficult for security professionals when everything’s done manually. FireMon’s State of Hybrid Cloud Security Survey found most respondents still don’t have the benefits of automation that can help security policy keep up with cloud-first strategies. Nearly two-thirds (65.4 percent) said they use manual processes in their hybrid environment. Of those, 35.4 percent don’t have any automation. Overall, 63.2 percent don’t have any level of automation at all, while 36.8 percent have some automation but still use manual processes.
IT Leaders Security Concerns Restrict Adoption Of Public Cloud
By 2025, more than three quarters of all IT infrastructure will reside in the public cloud, a report from networking company Barracuda finds. As of early 2020, a mere 45 percent of IT infrastructure is public cloud-based, which means the next five years are going to be huge for cloud migrations from on-site servers–and potentially the private cloud as well.
SCF Publishes ‘Roadmap’ For 5G Small-Cell Network Automation
The Small Cell Forum (SCF) has published a whitepaper on the commercialization of end-to-end small cell automation for 5G. SCF notes that such automation will be required to ensure effective network operation as small cells are deployed at scale for 5G.
How To Secure DevOps Environments: Exploring Best Practices
Hard to believe, but it’s been more than a decade since the concept of DevOps was introduced. By eliminating the silos separating software development and operations teams, and fostering a more agile, collaborative environment, DevOps promised to help organizations deliver better software faster. By using automation to manage many of the tasks of building, testing, and deploying software, it now promises to improve consistency and reduce human error. As DevOps becomes more ingrained, the security issues associated with it have become more critical. Much of this is due to the natural friction between DevOps and InfoSec.