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NetOps: A Key Element for Every Enterprise

Clayton Dukes

You've heard of DevOps and SecOps, but NetOps?

NetOps is a natural progression of legacy Network Operations to foster more efficient and resilient infrastructures through automation and intelligence. NetOps provides enhanced operational awareness and a dramatic reduction in Mean Time To Restore (MTTR) during outages.

When the network is down or degraded, that's when the stress begins for Network Operations teams. NetOps provides the means to detect and remediate network issues as they happen, in real time.

The efficacy of NetOps personnel is reliant upon understanding five key elements of a NetOps Platform and how to best utilize and implement each:

1. Service Assurance

Until recently, it was not possible to keep up with the massive amount of data generated from so many disparate sources of information. This led to Network Management Architectures which contained multiple silos of information making it almost impossible to correlate and enrich data because teams could only see part of the picture and sometimes had no visibility at all into service affecting issues. Bringing your entire infrastructure's telemetry under management in one place provides the ability to quickly identify actionable events.

2. Service Automation

Many of today's network teams are still manually remediating issues because they either 1) don't have the mechanisms to automate it, or 2) they don't realize that it can be automated.

When given the ability to have real-time remediation, the scenarios can be potentially endless, therefore, any problem that can workflow a solution should be automated. This automation allows NetOps to construct a trigger that can automatically execute and resolve problems in real-time before anyone knows there was an issue and removes the need for repetitive tasks which eliminates human error.

3. Event Enrichment

When making informed decisions about what to do during the automation process, event enrichment is used to add a layer of intelligence to information about affected devices. When an event comes into a NetOps system, having the ability to modify the payload, add tags, go to other sources of information and look up details such as device location, SLAs, Change Control policies, contact information or anything else that can be used to further group and identify the affected entity greatly reduces the time needed to investigate and correlate service impacting events.

4. Extensibility and Scale

Being able to scale the platform provides the ability to deal with bursts of event streams when anomalistic behavior occurs. Extensibility allows for extraction and tracking of arbitrary data from incoming events (device types, users, locations, failed login names, IP sources/destination ports, GeoIP tracking, etc.) and provides greater visibility for operational awareness.

5. Agnostic Functions

NetOps are capable of ingesting data from any vendor hardware or software messaging platform which can be used to reap the benefits of automatically identifying actionable events, real-time automatic remediation, and assured availability. Agnostic functionality allows for different areas of the organization to utilize a platform without concern for operational effectiveness. Being able to provide operations insight, coupled with automatic remediation and event enrichment frees up engineering staff to do their job instead of repairing known, repeatable, processes.

If you can link automation of the network to all the interdependent steps of application and service delivery, you have the potential for radical change regarding how IT and networks operate and how users will experience services.

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NetOps: A Key Element for Every Enterprise

Clayton Dukes

You've heard of DevOps and SecOps, but NetOps?

NetOps is a natural progression of legacy Network Operations to foster more efficient and resilient infrastructures through automation and intelligence. NetOps provides enhanced operational awareness and a dramatic reduction in Mean Time To Restore (MTTR) during outages.

When the network is down or degraded, that's when the stress begins for Network Operations teams. NetOps provides the means to detect and remediate network issues as they happen, in real time.

The efficacy of NetOps personnel is reliant upon understanding five key elements of a NetOps Platform and how to best utilize and implement each:

1. Service Assurance

Until recently, it was not possible to keep up with the massive amount of data generated from so many disparate sources of information. This led to Network Management Architectures which contained multiple silos of information making it almost impossible to correlate and enrich data because teams could only see part of the picture and sometimes had no visibility at all into service affecting issues. Bringing your entire infrastructure's telemetry under management in one place provides the ability to quickly identify actionable events.

2. Service Automation

Many of today's network teams are still manually remediating issues because they either 1) don't have the mechanisms to automate it, or 2) they don't realize that it can be automated.

When given the ability to have real-time remediation, the scenarios can be potentially endless, therefore, any problem that can workflow a solution should be automated. This automation allows NetOps to construct a trigger that can automatically execute and resolve problems in real-time before anyone knows there was an issue and removes the need for repetitive tasks which eliminates human error.

3. Event Enrichment

When making informed decisions about what to do during the automation process, event enrichment is used to add a layer of intelligence to information about affected devices. When an event comes into a NetOps system, having the ability to modify the payload, add tags, go to other sources of information and look up details such as device location, SLAs, Change Control policies, contact information or anything else that can be used to further group and identify the affected entity greatly reduces the time needed to investigate and correlate service impacting events.

4. Extensibility and Scale

Being able to scale the platform provides the ability to deal with bursts of event streams when anomalistic behavior occurs. Extensibility allows for extraction and tracking of arbitrary data from incoming events (device types, users, locations, failed login names, IP sources/destination ports, GeoIP tracking, etc.) and provides greater visibility for operational awareness.

5. Agnostic Functions

NetOps are capable of ingesting data from any vendor hardware or software messaging platform which can be used to reap the benefits of automatically identifying actionable events, real-time automatic remediation, and assured availability. Agnostic functionality allows for different areas of the organization to utilize a platform without concern for operational effectiveness. Being able to provide operations insight, coupled with automatic remediation and event enrichment frees up engineering staff to do their job instead of repairing known, repeatable, processes.

If you can link automation of the network to all the interdependent steps of application and service delivery, you have the potential for radical change regarding how IT and networks operate and how users will experience services.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...