Enterprises Are Ready to Leverage Network as a Service (NaaS)

Shamus McGillicuddy

Cloud computing transformed the IT industry by delivering software and infrastructure as a service, allowing customers to offload capital expenditures and operational overhead around software, software development platforms, security, compute, and storage. The cloudification of networking was slower in coming, but the concept of network as a service (NaaS) — which until now was a loosely defined term to describe a variety of networking solutions delivered via a cloud-like service model — earned more prominence in recent years.

Numerous vendors and service providers have recently embraced the NaaS concept, yet there is still no industry consensus on its definition or the types of networks it involves. Furthermore, providers have varied in how they define the NaaS service delivery model. I conducted research for a new report, Network as a Service: Understanding the Cloud Consumption Model in Networking, to refine the concept of NaaS and reduce buyer confusion over what it is and how it can offer value.

For this research survey, I defined NaaS for survey participants as the following: A network infrastructure solution that offers a cloud consumption model (pay as you go) in which the NaaS provider can manage all aspects of network engineering and operations, from design and build to monitoring and troubleshooting.

Some of the key findings from this report include:

■ Most respondents associated NaaS with cloud and WAN interconnectivity, SD-WAN and SASE, and WAN connectivity; only 28% associated NaaS with campus networking.

■ IT organizations believe a NaaS offering should include integrated managed security services, cloud-like consumption of services, comprehensive observability, and APIs and integrations with other IT systems.

■ 64% prefer a hybrid operating model for NaaS solutions, in which the provider and the internal network team share responsibility for day monitoring troubleshooting, and ongoing management.

This research found that most companies are interested in consuming NaaS solutions in all aspects of their network, from the campus to the cloud. But decision-makers do have concerns about NaaS.

First, they believe the shift from CapEx to OpEx could lead to higher total cost of ownership over time, much like the public cloud.

Second, they worry that they'll lose visibility into service quality.

Finally, as with any disruptive technology, many stakeholders worry about the security risk of consuming networks in this way.

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Enterprises Are Ready to Leverage Network as a Service (NaaS)

Shamus McGillicuddy

Cloud computing transformed the IT industry by delivering software and infrastructure as a service, allowing customers to offload capital expenditures and operational overhead around software, software development platforms, security, compute, and storage. The cloudification of networking was slower in coming, but the concept of network as a service (NaaS) — which until now was a loosely defined term to describe a variety of networking solutions delivered via a cloud-like service model — earned more prominence in recent years.

Numerous vendors and service providers have recently embraced the NaaS concept, yet there is still no industry consensus on its definition or the types of networks it involves. Furthermore, providers have varied in how they define the NaaS service delivery model. I conducted research for a new report, Network as a Service: Understanding the Cloud Consumption Model in Networking, to refine the concept of NaaS and reduce buyer confusion over what it is and how it can offer value.

For this research survey, I defined NaaS for survey participants as the following: A network infrastructure solution that offers a cloud consumption model (pay as you go) in which the NaaS provider can manage all aspects of network engineering and operations, from design and build to monitoring and troubleshooting.

Some of the key findings from this report include:

■ Most respondents associated NaaS with cloud and WAN interconnectivity, SD-WAN and SASE, and WAN connectivity; only 28% associated NaaS with campus networking.

■ IT organizations believe a NaaS offering should include integrated managed security services, cloud-like consumption of services, comprehensive observability, and APIs and integrations with other IT systems.

■ 64% prefer a hybrid operating model for NaaS solutions, in which the provider and the internal network team share responsibility for day monitoring troubleshooting, and ongoing management.

This research found that most companies are interested in consuming NaaS solutions in all aspects of their network, from the campus to the cloud. But decision-makers do have concerns about NaaS.

First, they believe the shift from CapEx to OpEx could lead to higher total cost of ownership over time, much like the public cloud.

Second, they worry that they'll lose visibility into service quality.

Finally, as with any disruptive technology, many stakeholders worry about the security risk of consuming networks in this way.

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Cold Data, Hot Problem: Why AI Is Rewriting Enterprise Storage Strategy

Nearly every conversation about AI eventually circles back to compute. GPUs dominate the headlines while cloud platforms compete for workloads and model benchmarks drive investment decisions. But underneath that noise, a quieter infrastructure challenge is taking shape. The real bottleneck in enterprise AI is not processing power, it is the ability to store, manage and retrieve the relentless volumes of data that AI systems generate, consume and multiply ...

Observability at a Crossroads: AI, Economics, Complexity and the Enduring Power of Open Source

The 2026 Observability Survey from Grafana Labs paints a vivid picture of an industry maturing fast, where AI is welcomed with careful conditions, SaaS economics are reshaping spending decisions, complexity remains a defining challenge, and open standards continue to underpin it all ...

Explainability Is the New Battleground in AI-Powered Observability

The observability industry has an evolving relationship with AI. We're not skeptics, but it's clear that trust in AI must be earned ... In Grafana Labs' annual Observability Survey, 92% said they see real value in AI surfacing anomalies before they cause downtime. Another 91% endorsed AI for forecasting and root cause analysis. So while the demand is there, customers need it to be trustworthy, as the survey also found that the practitioners most enthusiastic about AI are also the most insistent on explainability ...

Empowering the Human Side of the Autonomous IT Age

In the modern enterprise, the conversation around AI has moved past skepticism toward a stage of active adoption. According to our 2026 State of IT Trends Report: The Human Side of Autonomous AI, nearly 90% of IT professionals view AI as a net positive, and this optimism is well-founded. We are seeing agentic AI move beyond simple automation to actively streamlining complex data insights and eliminating the manual toil that has long hindered innovation. However, as we integrate these autonomous agents into our ecosystems, the fundamental DNA of the IT role is evolving ...

AI Scale Is Outpacing Infrastructure - and IT Leaders Are Running Out of Time

AI workloads require an enormous amount of computing power ... What's also becoming abundantly clear is just how quickly AI's computing needs are leading to enterprise systems failure. According to Cockroach Labs' State of AI Infrastructure 2026 report, enterprise systems are much closer to failure than their organizations realize. The report ... suggests AI scale could cause widespread failures in as little as one year — making it a clear risk for business performance and reliability.

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The quietest week your engineering team has ever had might also be its best. No alarms going off. No escalations. No frantic Teams or Slack threads at 2 a.m. Everything humming along exactly as it should. And somewhere in a leadership meeting, someone looks at the metrics dashboard, sees a flat line of incidents and says: "Seems like things are pretty calm over there. Do we really need all those people?" ... I've spent many years in engineering, and this pattern keeps repeating ...

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