By: Arun Gandhi, Senior Supervisor of Product Advertising at Juniper Networks
If you’re attempting to persuade corporations to modernize, it might seem to be you’re shouting into the void. Certain, they perceive that what you’re advocating is vital, however understanding it’s best to do one thing and really doing it are two various things.
This has been the story round knowledge middle community automation for the final a number of years.
Everyone knows that knowledge facilities have develop into extra complicated and significant to most companies. So, discovering a technique to allow extra agile and environment friendly operations ought to be on each firm’s to-do checklist. But, even with organizations that might profit most from automation — communication service suppliers (CSPs) and enterprises managing giant, distributed knowledge facilities — precise implementation has been gradual. Happily, we appear to be turning a nook.
Earlier this 12 months, Enterprise Administration Associates (EMA) surveyed a whole bunch of IT leaders throughout the USA and Europe, representing corporations of various sizes and industries. Almost all agreed that knowledge middle community automation can enhance operational effectivity, scale back safety danger, enhance compliance, and improve digital agility. Almost 9 out of 10 organizations plan to spice up their funding in automation instruments over the following two years. But, the outcomes weren’t all constructive. In the case of the automation methods they’re pursuing, almost 77% of expertise professionals see actual room for enchancment.
What do IT organizations hope to realize from knowledge middle community automation, and what boundaries stand in the way in which? Right here’s what the parents within the trenches are saying.
Recognizing the necessity to automate
EMA surveyed 359 expertise professionals engaged in knowledge middle community automation methods, starting from front-line community engineers to C-level executives. One overarching message was clear: IT leaders could not have purchased into the advantages of information middle community automation previously, however they’ve large expectations for it now.
Greater than 40% of these surveyed imagine automation will enhance operational effectivity and scale back reliance on handbook duties of their knowledge middle operations. Multiple third count on automation to scale back safety and compliance dangers, and almost as many count on it to extend agility, improve resiliency, and speed up their group’s response to community points.
Juniper NetworksKey Advantages Anticipated from Information Heart Community Automation
Simply as encouraging, most organizations aren’t simply speaking about automation, they’re really doing it. Almost 9 out of 10 professionals surveyed say their group will improve funds for knowledge middle community automation over the following two years, and 35% count on that improve to be important. They’re additionally assured these investments will ship outcomes. Greater than half count on automation to pay for itself inside two years and 37.5% count on to see a return on funding (ROI) inside three years.
Lingering boundaries
Primarily based on these outcomes, we should always assume we’re on the cusp of agile, automated knowledge middle networks turning into the norm for nearly each enterprise, proper? Nicely, not so quick. Regardless of actual motion on this house, automation distributors nonetheless have work to do. Topping the checklist: lowering confusion across the sheer variety of instruments available on the market.
Greater than 98% of IT leaders stated they’re utilizing automation instruments from a vendor, not simply particular person scripts. That’s a giant deal, as scripting has lengthy been the default for accelerating fundamental community administration duties — and has confirmed not scalable for contemporary distributed knowledge facilities. However, on the subject of which instruments they need to select, survey respondents usually had extra questions than solutions.
EMA famous a standard situation for distributors on this house: A vendor will introduce a software that automates one sort of activity, equivalent to configuration modifications however doesn’t deal with different components of the lifecycle, like community design and assurance. Later, that vendor will develop into these areas and rebrand. IT leaders find yourself with extra automation choices than ever earlier than but in addition elevated confusion about which software does what.
Almost half of these surveyed stated they use two totally different community automation instruments and greater than a 3rd use three or extra. That’s on prime of the homegrown automation software program utilized by 93% of organizations. This fragmentation can improve operational complexity, at the same time as organizations try to scale back it. One survey respondent with a $25 billion international enterprise stated, “We had 5 totally different automation instruments that we must replace. So, it used to take me 5 or 6 hours to get somefactor executed with automation.”
Moreover, “automation” isn’t at all times totally automated. Almost half of respondents stated that, even when utilizing automation, they nonetheless want to assemble knowledge manually (by consulting spreadsheets or logging into units) earlier than making a change. Additional, 51% stated that handbook data-gathering has a damaging affect on automation. Respondents additionally complained that, in lots of instances, vendor instruments aren’t versatile sufficient to help their group’s distinctive knowledge middle structure or safety and compliance wants.
Assembly companies the place they’re
At Juniper Networks, we’ve been speaking about knowledge middle community automation for years, so we’re inspired to see so many organizations making actual investments on this house. We additionally perceive how difficult automation can get — and the way shortly organizations can discover themselves drowning in disparate vendor instruments. That’s why we’ve designed Juniper Apstra to supply a very common resolution for knowledge middle community automation.
Not like some instruments, Apstra is:
- Multivendor by design: Apstra is designed from the bottom as much as automate heterogeneous knowledge facilities and get rid of the necessity to use totally different instruments for various components of the community.
- Intent-driven: Apstra abstracts away the complexity of large-scale knowledge middle networks. Customers can specific what they need at a excessive stage (equivalent to provisioning sources or performing configuration modifications) and Apstra routinely executes it. There isn’t a want for the person to be tied to the Command Line Interface (CLI) and vendor certifications.
- Dependable: The inspiration of reliability is consistency and repeatability. Customers can automate community deployment and operations via validated and repeatable designs, predictive evaluation, and proactive alerts of deviations. Apstra addresses your entire community lifecycle, from design and implementation to accelerating on a regular basis operations with a single supply of fact, highly effective intent-based analytics and root-cause identification that empowers the person to pinpoint and resolve points shortly.
- Safe: With Apstra, a person can monitor the origin of community modifications and guarantee granular enforcement the place wanted. Moreover, they will use intent-based coverage assurance, connectivity restrictions for multitenant environments and enhanced role-based entry management (RBAC) to create blueprint-specific roles.
In response to Tony Lott, Head of Capital Tasks at Bloomberg, “Juniper’s Apstra resolution offers us a single view into your entire community — no matter our units, switches, working programs, or distributors. It has enabled us to realize the Day-2 operations effectivity wanted to handle and maintain the complicated community infrastructure in our cutting-edge facility.”
With these and different capabilities, Apstra may help simplify and speed up knowledge middle operations with out including new layers of complexity.
Discover Out Extra
That is only a small pattern of what IT professionals are saying about automation. Obtain the EMA report to search out:
- Suggestions from CIOs and CTOs on main automation initiatives
- Finest practices from organizations succeeding with automation
- And way more
For extra particulars on how Juniper may help you speed up your individual automation journey, go to the Juniper Apstra webpage.
Copyright © 2022 IDG Communications, Inc.
