Itential believes the only way to truly adopt modern, programmable networks is through automation. Our Guiding Principles serve as a blueprint for how organizations should approach network automation and how to lay the proper foundation for success now and into the future.
The Blueprint for Evolving Network Automation for Next-Gen Programmable Networks
As the network evolves into a more dynamic environment due to the introduction of new concepts such as virtualization and software-defined everything, it is becoming imperative that operators must automate as much as possible. Whether it be software-defined WAN, data center, cloud, or networking in general, it is clear that the age of network programmability is upon us. So, what does this mean for network automation? How does it evolve to support new technologies while still addressing integration into existing legacy ecosystems? How does it scale to support physical, virtual, and cloud networks?
Itential is committed to accelerating the move toward software-driven networks and next-generation, agile network operations to address these challenges. These eight Guiding Principles are the backbone to a successful network automation strategy. Below we break down the drivers behind each Guiding Principle as well as how network automation plays a role for each and the critical functions that the solutions should embrace.
Networks are Critical for Digital Transformation
The simple days of the network being a commodity and managed as “just the pipes” is over. Today’s modern network must be as agile to deploy and change as the other technologies it supports. Since digital transformation cannot occur without a strong network to support it, today’s businesses require a network that can quickly adjust to evolving requirements that enable new services, processes, and models.
The network is the core to digital transformation.
From Bottleneck to Strategic Partner
Network teams have to keep up with the speed of business to help drive new and differentiated services by adopting vendor agnostic automation in order to utilize all technologies both old and new.
CURRENT STATE
Bottleneck to Transformation
The network is seen as the bottleneck to innovation instead of a strategic partner within IT. Most network teams are viewed as slow to change and reactive as opposed to a strategic enabler.
FUTURE STATE
Strategic Partner
The network will be a strategic partner for innovation and digital transformation, keeping up with the speed of business. Network teams will be capable of driving new and differentiated services for the business with operational readiness to support digital transformation efforts.
How Network Automation Gets You There
By adopting network automation, organizations can re-think the way they traditionally manage their networks in order to optimize network and infrastructure operations, lower costs, and simplify and/or increase agility in an effort to support new levels of innovation and company growth.
Network Automation Solutions Should Embrace
API-First Approach
As network infrastructure continues to evolve to become more programmable and treated as software, it is critical that organizations evolve their existing CLI-based automations with APIs.
Automation Analytics
Organizations need the ability to make informed decisions about which network automation use cases will drive the most value to their digital transformation initiatives.
Self-Service Capabilities
The core of digital transformation is enabling internal teams and customers with the ability for on-demand self-service and network automation provides the platform to easily do so.
Modern Networks Span Multiple Domains & Are More Complex
Today’s networks are becoming more complex and distributed, spanning physical, virtual, and cloud. Today’s enterprise IT systems and applications live on multiple and differing infrastructures, with each configured and managed by different systems that offer no common network model.
With unprecedented increases in network complexity and scale, automation is imperative to help IT teams deliver consistent network and service levels.
From Siloed to Connected Management
In order to address the span of all domains and increasing complexity, networks must be managed in a way that speaks the same language and can handle any existing or new technologies by moving from siloed point solutions to a connected, holistic view.
CURRENT STATE
Siloed Management
The network is managed in silos with fragmented teams and data. Network teams utilize point solutions and siloed skills and teams across multiple domains and departments.
FUTURE STATE
Connected Management
Network teams will manage their network with multiple network controllers, orchestrators, and systems with a rich set of API capabilities. They will adopt an automation solution that can handle the complexity and create automations that can work across any existing and future systems through an API-first approach.
How Network Automation Gets You There
By adopting network automation, organizations can leverage a unified solution that brings all of their existing infrastructure and tools together into a connected and automated environment in order to deliver reliable and consistent network and service levels.
Network Automation Solutions Should Embrace
Multi-Domain & Multi-Vendor Support
Organizations require a horizontal and vendor agnostic solution that connects all your systems and technologies for full end-to-end automation and orchestration to remove the siloes they’re currently stuck in.
Rapid Integration
A fundamental need of connected management is the ability to easily and quickly integrate with anything in your ecosystem to provide a single, aggregated network API.
Configuration Management
Network infrastructure is now distributed which means network teams must have a cohesive way to manage configuration, compliance, and remediation of all of their network devices, regardless of whether they are physical, virtual, or cloud-native.
How We Manage the Network is as Critical as Speeds & Feeds
There has been a lack of investment in network management plane solutions, which puts more pressure on the network to perform. As the management plane is primarily made up of teams within siloed organizations, they are plagued with fragmented management domains and tool choices that make standardization nearly impossible.
Not to mention, the fear of failure holds them back from moving faster as manual errors can cause major network outages.
From Reactive to Proactive
As modern networks are generating massive amounts of work that exceeds the ability of human operations to manage or even understand in a timely manner, automation is becoming increasingly necessary to rethink traditional network management.