Network automation remains a top challenge for enterprise IT departments. Despite years of effort from vendors and IT professionals to develop tools to reduce manual network management, results have been mixed. A recent report by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) reveals that nearly 95% of organizations use a combination of do-it-yourself (DIY) and vendor solutions for network automation, yet only 28% believe they have successfully implemented their automation strategy.
Why is this mixed approach so popular if many engineers feel that their overall program is not successful?
The short answer is that each type of automation has different advantages and weaknesses. DIY automation, which involves engineers writing their own scripts for specific tasks or using open-source tools like Ansible, offers customization and cost-effectiveness but is hard to manage and scale, and relies almost completely on individual engineer's skillsets. On the other hand, commercial network automation products are often expensive, but provide stability and scalability and are easier to use.
So, where's the disconnect?
Why are NetOps teams struggling to deliver on their network automation strategy?
Should teams go all in on either a DIY or vendor solution?
Let's take a closer look.
First, a quick note — a successful network automation strategy depends on many factors, for the sake of time today we will focus on DIY vs. vendor solutions and related issues.
Benefits of DIY:
■ Capabilities align with the organization's specific network. With homegrown solutions, tools are tailor-made to fit the unique needs of a network environment. Vendor solutions can't ever be that customized. For organizations with unusual network architectures, this can be important.
■ Security and compliance requirements. DIY solutions can be designed to follow the particular security and compliance requirements for the business, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS.
■ Cost savings. With DIY tools, you get exactly what you need for little to no cost (other than your engineer's time). When this works well, it means better operational efficiency, and complex processes are more streamlined.
Benefits of Using Vendor Solutions:
■ Scale. Vendor solutions are built to cover an entire network, handle large data loads, and integrate with other tools and data sources.
■ Security and compliance requirements. Hey wait a second, wasn't this one of the key drivers for using DIY? Yes, but it's a benefit here as well. Vendor products often come already compliant with certain security standards where making a DIY tool compliant would take too much work. Network teams often manage complex environments using commercial tools for particular needs and DIY tools for other tasks.
■ Platform requirements. Commercial solutions are more scalable and stable than DIY tools. While a homegrown automation solution might handle a few dozen changes really well, it will likely struggle to scale to thousands of changes.
■ Breadth of functionality. Vendor tools generally provide a broader range of features than DIY solutions, often addressing multiple issues from the get-go.
Despite all the benefits, each solution has its drawbacks. DIY solutions often struggle to scale up larger than the initial scenario they were written for, and it will take much more time and work to do this manually. They can also be slower than commercial tools and will lack multi-vendor support (unless the creator builds it). You also need network engineers who know enough scripting to write and manage these tools. If you don't have anyone with that skillset (or they leave the company), you're out of luck.
Drawbacks for vendor solutions include high upfront costs, lack of customization, and the training expenses associated with learning a new system. Cost and budget matters; the EMA report found a strong correlation between network automation success and significant budget investments. 80% of entirely successful organizations had well-funded projects, compared to only 57% of partially successful and 29% of partially failed organizations.
Many organizations are ultimately using each type of automation where it's needed. Rather than picking one, they're using both. Commercial network automation products have room for improvement, particularly in their customizability. The more they can adapt to fit each unique customer network, the more useful they will be. But the products aren't the real problem. The more important roadblocks I see (that are keeping the percentage of successful automation programs so low) are IT leadership problems. This includes difficulties gaining buy-in, establishing direction and ensuring commitment, as well as skill gaps, staff turnover and budget constraints.
Looking ahead, the future of automation involves an ecosystem of tools and products that must integrate seamlessly to create an effective solution for each unique environment. Organizations must maintain a repository of network intent and network state data to ensure adherence to design standards and security policies.
