Enterprise Network Automation: Emerging from the Dark Ages and Reaching Toward NetDevOps

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Enterprise Network Automation:
Emerging From the Dark
Ages and Reaching
Toward NetDevOps
Shamus McGillicuddy
Vice President of Research
Network Infrastructure and Operations
Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)
smcgillicuddy@enterprisemanagement.com
Sponsored by

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© 2023 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.

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Featured Speaker
Shamus is a Vice President of Research at EMA,
where he leads the network infrastructure and
operations practice. He has nearly two decades of
experience in the IT industry. His research focuses on
all aspects of managing enterprise networks,
including network automation, AIOps-driven network
operations, multi-cloud networking, and WAN
transformation.
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. 3
Shamus McGillicuddy
Vice President of Research
Network Infrastructure and Operations
Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)

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Sponsors

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Agenda
Research
Goals and
Methodology
Climbing the
Mountain:
Challenges
and Benefits
Network
Source of
Truth
Validating
Change
Final Thoughts
and Q&A
1 2 3 4 5

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Research Goals and
Methodology

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Network automation startups are constantly launching to attack old
and new problems
New open source projects continue to emerge to fill gaps in the market
New industry conferences have launched to explore why network
automation hasn’t been solved
Most IT organizations continue to have DIY projects
Explore the Ongoing Problem of Network Automation
Research goals: Why is this happening? What needs to change? What are potential paths
to success?

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Sample Size = 354
Job Titles
22% Network
administrator/engineer/architect
5% Network automation
engineer/NetDevOps engineer
7% Project manager
49% IT middle management
18% IT executives
IT Groups
17% Network engineering
17% Network operations/NOC
16% CIO suite/executive management
14% IT architecture
11% Cloud engineering/operations
10% Information security/cybersecurity
7% DevOps
7% IT tool engineering/development
Top Industries
20% Finance/Insurance/Banking
20% Manufacturing
13% Retail/Wholesales/Distribution
9% Health care
6% Business services – not related to IT
4% Education/research
4% Consumer services
4% Oil/Gas/Mining
Region
63% United States/Canada
37% France/Germany/UK
Revenue
19% $100 million to less than $500 million
25% $500 million to less than $1 billion
39% $1 billion to less than $5 billion
15% $5 billion or more
3% Unknown/Not applicable
Company Size (by Employee)
49% 1,000 to 4,999
38% 5,000 to 19,999
13% 20,000 or more
EMA Surveyed 354 IT Professionals Involved with Network Automation and
Interviewed 10 Enterprise Network Automation Experts

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Climbing the
Mountain:
Challenges and
Benefits

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Only 18% Rate Their Network Automation Strategies a Complete Success
Business Challenges
31% IT leadership issues
27% Staffing issues
25% Budget issues
25% Conflicts & collaboration gaps between groups
25% Security policy constraints
Technical Problems
25% Integrations issues
25% Lack of standards/
network complexity
24% Legacy infrastructure issues
22% Too complex/difficult to use

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Change Management is Not the Issue
WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING NETWORK AUTOMATION FEATURES ARE MOST IMPORTANT TO YOUR ORGANIZATION?

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Peer perspectives
“[Network vendor] API documentation is
poor, and it often has bad information.
Open source APIs don’t have this problem
because they’re not trying to hide
commercial secrets. Network vendors have
this mindset that they shouldn’t share too
much information.”
“It’s easy to find people who can automate
and to find people who are network
engineers, but it’s hard to find people who
understand both of these worlds very well.
It’s hard to convince a developer to work
with networking because they don’t
understand it or want to work with it.”
“One thing that needs to improve is
collaboration. Departments work in silos.
Sometimes you might have a challenging
use case that you are trying to figure out,
but you might not realize that someone else
is already doing it.”
“When the network is not standardized and
the data is not standardized, you don’t
have a standard way of generating
inventories and a source of truth. You can’t
automate at scale because you’re forced
to automate one device at a time.”
Network automation engineer,
medical school and hospital network
Network engineer
midmarket business services company
IT tools architect
Fortune 500 media company
Network tools engineer
Fortune 500 retailer

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When You Get Automation Right
WHAT ARE THE MOST VALUABLE BENEFITS THAT YOUR ORGANIZATION HAS EXPERIENCED FROM ITS INVESTMENTS IN NETWORK AUTOMATION?

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Build Versus Buy

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Most IT Teams Build AND Buy
Most lean one way or the
other
69% Vendor-based solutions
more prevalent
10% DIY tools more prevalent
21% A balance of DIY and
commercial
100% have vendor-based
automation
59% Open source tools
supported by a vendor
58% Proprietary software from a
network vendor
43% Proprietary software from a
tool vendor
94% have DIY network
automation
57% Open source tools (with
no vendor support)
64% Internally developed tools
(possibly with open source
components)

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Drivers of DIY Automation
36% Aligning functionality to
specific network
36% Security/Compliance
requirements
31% Cost savings
26% Closing gaps in commercial
tools
23% Roadmap control
“I request budget for
network automation
software and I don’t
get it. So, I use a lot of
open source.”
Network engineer,
midmarket business
services company
”I’m pro build-your-
own because you get
more flexibility. You
also get a lot of savings
and you build up your
skills by building your
own product.”
Network automation
engineer, $3 billion
SaaS provider
“We try to stay away
from software vendors
because we don’t want
to get locked in. Also, I
don’t think a software
vendor can come up
with one orchestration
tool that can fit
everyone's needs.”
Network automation
engineer, large university

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Drivers of Commercial Automation
36% Security/Compliance
requirements
31% Platform requirements
26% Depth/Breadth of
functionality
24% Faster time to value
24% Better cross-team visibility
into data
“There are some things you
can’t really build on your own,
especially if it touches multiple
groups and systems.”
$3 billion SaaS provider
“[Commercial support] is the biggest thing.
The members of my team aren’t
developers and don’t want to be
developers. When something goes wrong,
they want someone they can turn to.”
Fortune 500 food and agriculture company
Successful teams cited:
Breadth/depth of functionality Cultural preferences

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Network Source of
Truth

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What is a Source of Truth?
Network source of truth (noun):
An authoritative record of network
intent and network state that
enables automation and network
operations in general
NSoT or not, where do they collect, store, and maintain
such info?
22% one central platform
62% multiple integrated systems of record
15% multiple siloed systems of record
2% incomplete – much of this info is unavailable
80% of network automation pros say they have an NSoT

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Only 20% Believe Their NSoT is Completely Effective
Effective NSoT leads to:
• Higher percentage of automated tasks
• Easier understanding of intent/state
differences
• More consistent validation of
automated changes
Ineffective NSoT leads to:
• Slow/nonexistent automation ROI
“There is no perfect tool for a source of truth. There
is always something we’d like added to it. I’d like
easier reporting from it. It’s not a click-and-run tool.”
Network automation engineer
medical school and hospital network
“I’m not 100% satisfied. It was a quick and dirty
solution to get something out the door. It takes too
long to pull data from it, especially in our larger sites.”
$3 billion SaaS provider

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Most Important Source of Truth Features
WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURES TO HAVE IN A NETWORK SOURCE OF TRUTH?

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Validating Change

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Network Change Validation
Also known as:
Network assurance
Network verification
Network compliance
Digital twin
Network validation confirms that:
A proposed change is good BEFORE committing it
A committed change was successful AFTER it is implemented
98% of network automation strategies have tools and processes for
pre-change validation
99% have tools and processes for post-change validation
© 2024 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.

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Pre-Change Validation Strategies
58% Network modeling software or digital
twin simulation (more success)
52% Text analysis/manual processes
42% Emulation in labs, virtual test beds
More frequent pre-change validation
correlates with automation success
“We have some validation, but not enough. I
would love to know if this change will make my
traffic move in a different direction. Also, when
I upgrade this device, what will happen? No
one can solve that in a container lab.”
Network engineer, private gaming company
“We have some containers we run in a lab
environment to check changes and also some
custom scripts. It’s not a full topology of our
network, just a reference model.”
Network tools engineer, Fortune 500 retailer

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Post-Change Validation
48% Network modeling software or digital twin pulls state
data from network (more success)
45% Manual config checks
44% Proactive traffic monitoring/analysis
44% Reporting/alerts from source of truth
35% Reactive alerts/trouble tickets
“Validation is very tricky. It gets
cumbersome to say without any
doubt that the change had the
effect I intended.”
Network automation engineer
Fortunate 500 manufacturer
More frequent pre-change validation correlates with automation success

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Network automation remains
an unsolved problem
Both DIY and commercial solutions have merit;
most companies have both
A source of truth is essential, but there are many paths to take
Network validation ensures success, but many organizations are
still finding their way
Change management is not the problem that must be solved. Network teams want:
• Security policy lifecycle management
• Config compliance management
• Network validation/assurance
Final Thoughts

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The Enterprise Network Automation report is now available!
Learn more and download:
https://bit.ly/48VkHDI

Enterprise Network Automation: Emerging from the Dark Ages and Reaching Toward NetDevOps

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Enterprise Network Automation: Emerging from the Dark Ages and Reaching Toward NetDevOps