As enterprises increase, so do the complexities of their networks. Supervising all devices, users, and applications across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments requires agility and rapid responsiveness – something manual processes cannot afford. This precisely explains why network automation is a high priority for large organizations’ CIOs, CTOs, and IT leaders.
However, it does not mean a large enterprise can army a switch and instantly start their network automation adoption. A well-planned roadmap to balance technical needs, with cultural changes, governance and integration is mandatory. Below are some key steps that large enterprises can follow to successfully adopt network automation software as per Slurp’it.
Why Network Automation Software Matters for Large Enterprises?
Before a roadmap can be prepared, it is paramount to acknowledge why automation is considered mission-critical to a large organization. Automation provides the following:
- Scalability: An enterprise has to deal with thousands configurations and endpoints. With an automated process, it can achieve uniformity across deep and large infrastructures.
- Reduced downtime: Automated checks and rollbacks alleviate human discovery.
- Compliance and security: The automation process ensures regulated policies are enforced uniformly.
- Agility: With automation, enterprise can ultimately provision and configure instantly, adapting their business needs.
According to a 2023 EMA report for example, enterprises adopting network automation, reduced configuration errors up to 70 percent and improved their service delivery timelines up to 35 percent.
Step 1: Review Existing Network and Business Needs
This journey starts with a clear assessment of your existing infrastructure. To begin, what factors an enterprise should consider let’s see here at Slurp’it:
- Conduct a full inventory of the network to account for all devices, configurations, and dependencies
- Define business objectives, e.g. lower downtime, increase compliance, speed up new application rollout
- Review existing bottlenecks and processes, providing the most room for error if handled manually
- All should lead to understanding and agreement on how network automation roadmap will be designed to meet the organization’s priorities.
Step 2: Define Strategy and Objectives
Lacking defined goals, organizations risk sending efforts for access to automation. If automation can be implied, needs to be established:
- Scope of deployment: Threshold for anymore provisioning, configuration management, monitoring, compliance and enforcement
- KPIs and success measures within the preparedness data track for measuring decreased incidents, shorter mean time to resolution, improved compliance levels etc.
- Deployment timeline and achievable phased-approach.
Step 3: Adopting the Right Network Automation Software
Choosing the appropriate software is essential to ensure you succeed in the long-run. When searching for a tool, please consider important items:
- Compatibility: Ensure the network automation software is designed to support multi-vendor environments that an organization of the size typical to larger organizations must accommodate.
- Integration: Look for APIs and support for ITSM (Information Technology Service Management), CI/CD pipelines, and on-going monitoring and instrumentation platforms for measuring operations.
- Scalability: The software should support thousands of devices and should be able to accommodate growth in your infrastructure.
- Security and compliance features: Built-in support mechanisms for policy enforcement and auditing need to be a part of your solution.
Step 4: Start with a Pilot Project
Instead of automating an entire network at the same time, large enterprises should begin with a specific pilot. Examples include:
- Automating the provisioning of VLANs
- Standardizing the update of firewall rules
- Automating the deployment of patches on critical systems
A successful pilot will build confidence, confirm ROI, and provide lessons for automating at scale across the broader environment in network automation software as per Slurp’it.
Step 5: Create Cross Departmental Teams
Network automation touches both NetOps and DevOps. Organizations will want to create cross-functional teams that consist of:
- Network Engineers
- Security Teams
- Application Developers
- Compliance Officers
Team members can ensure automation will align with the needs of the business, security policies, and operational objectives.
Step 6: Create Governance and Compliance Frameworks
- While employees may feel removed from the automation, it’s very critical employees are not removed from governance and oversight of policy.
- Business should define workflows for approval of automating/change/updates, ensure the automation is following appropriate regulations (GDPR, HIPAA, ISO 27001, etc), and establish audit-logging for anything that is automated by employees or otherwise in network automation software.
Step 7: Scale Automation Gradually
After the pilot and feedback, it’s time to establish a plan of scale automation across more automation processes, as simple as device onboarding, end-to-end service provisioning, Configuration drift detection and remediation, Automated incident response. Scaling slowly will serve the organization well in EMA, while determining risk and maximizing benefits for more productivity in network automation software as per Slurp’it.
Step 8: Investment in Training and Culture Change
One of the most challenging components to enterprise automation will be resistance from all staff. IT may be worried about job loss and staff will, especially, lack confidence even in the automated workflows. Therefore training to up-skill existing staff on automation as a reduction of repetitive tasks, focusing on increasing value for engineer, and ultimately training with inner-agency collaboration with DevOps and NetOps.
Step 9: Measure, Optimize, and Evolve as Team
Automation isn’t just a “one off” project. Automation is a journey, and should always be measured. Continuous, constant monitoring of KPIs, optimizing workflows, and revisiting automation as business processes evolve. At no time does the automated process change, and incorporating feedback loops from IT staff, to include business, the value and experience of exceeding their organization’s strategy and business plan to reduce risk, improve security and/or create quicker outcomes in network automation software.
Let’s see real world example of an large enterprise success story
A Fortune 500 financial services company had adopted network automation to reduce compliance risks and deliver rapid agility to meet compliance-driven tasks. They began with automating just firewall policy updates, and rapidly moved to automating provisioning and patching. Within 1 year of implementing automation, the organization saw:
- 60% Reduction in Manual Errors
- 40% Faster Deployment of New Services
- Faster Time-to-Audit with Automated Compliance Reporting.
For CIOs, CTOs, and Leaders in IT, the roadmap to network automation is clear – Assess, strategize, conduct pilot, scale, optimize. Ultimately, it is possible for enterprises to capture the power of automation to an extent of creating networks that are a strategic enabler for growth, not just operational. For more information about network automation software, contact us at Slurp’it!