Network Automation Roadmap

Chapter 2. Laying the Groundwork for Network Automation

Stakeholders in Network Automation

Any large or medium-sized organization is composed of many, usually very different parts—manufacturing, software development, IT support, network support, finance, logistics, training, sales, customer service, and so on—and each includes individual contributors all the way up to senior management. Whatever the mission of the organization is, the administrators of its network devote all their energies to making things “just work,” in the safest and most effective way possible, for each one of these groups and each individual stakeholder. While the customers for a network admin are those end users, to the end users the network must be invisible while ensuring adequate access to every service they may need, at all times. This includes reliable and consistent video conferencing, safe and secure sharing of data with coworkers or clients, and uninterrupted access to the business applications they need to perform their jobs. All of these services are expected to “just work.” For managers, the technology that enables their team, including the network, is just one of many components that must support evolution and growth of the business by enabling all their teams to cooperate in the most efficient and cost-effective way.

In the context of this report, there is one thing that all the components of this picture have in common, no matter how diverse they are: they all take for granted that an invisible ...