Network Automation Roadmap

Chapter 1. What Is Network Automation?

Drivers and Trends in Network Automation

Today’s computers, from modern mainframes and hyperconverged infrastructure to smartphones and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, would be almost useless without networks to connect them. Many network components—from routers, switches, and access points to the software that implements virtual private networks (VPNs) and software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) topologies—are complex mechanisms that, at least from the user’s perspective, should “just work” all the time, no matter how loads and user needs change. Theoretically, the best possible performance of a network may be obtained with a manually optimized configuration of all of the network’s elements that takes into full account all the components, users, and application usage, along with changes in use of each of these. While this would lead to a perfectly optimized network, working in this way would consume too much time, require so much expertise, and likely still produce enough errors to cause network downtime—after all, there is still room for human error.

Relying on manual network optimization becomes unsustainable in the long run for every organization counting more than a few users or devices under management. In all but the simplest and most stable networks, almost every low-level, manual configuration or maintenance of your network devices represents time and money that could, and really should, be spent somewhere else.

The obvious ...