The advent of a pandemic combined with 5G created the perfect storm in 2021. As most of the world learned to adjust to lockdowns and work from home, operators raced to meet new requirements for capacity and responsiveness. Digitalization projects went from idea to actuality at lightning speed just to keep pace. At the same time, the deployment of 5G accelerated. The result is that communication service provider (CSP) IP networks are far more complex, and operations teams are struggling to manage the exponential growth in tasks. This points to five important trends we will see in 2022.
#1: Automation will begin to go mainstream
Heading into 2022, it is unavoidable that automation will increase. Hyperscalers lead the way with the level of automation in their data center infrastructures. However, the adoption rate for the rest of the market for automation activities within IP networks - both internally and customer-facing - is going to increase as well. Predictions will range anywhere from 10 to 30 percent this year.
Organizations are struggling to deal with the volume of activity. With mass digitization, everything is more consumable and that means a huge ramp-up in terms of the speed at which things happen. Additionally, our society has grown accustomed to instant gratification, and it falls on the CSP to provide a higher level of responsiveness. Just think about the uproar when Facebook and Instagram crashed for six hours in October.
The pandemic played a role in this change. COVID-19 forced many of us to work remotely and collaborate online, prompting operators to meet sky-high demand for capacity and responsiveness. As a result, operators have been trying to improve the speed and agility at which they can enable their services and apply network changes rapidly to meet business needs. They see automation as a solution.
This makes good business sense - several studies have indicated there are strong business benefits to adopting automation within the wide area network (WAN) and in data center networks. A study by Analysys Mason based on real operator data shows that operators experienced up to 65% cost avoidance after implementing automation across all operations categories in the WAN. A Nokia Bell Labs Consulting Business Case Analysis for data center fabrics shows that operations teams can expect up to 40% cumulative efforts savings for all operations tasks in the operations life cycle.
#2: 5G and Industry 4.0 will continue to drive for automation
All service providers will deploy 5G one way or another, leading to the need for digitalization to fully realize the promise of next-gen services. This in turn forces automation using cloud principles to maximize the benefits and meet the high expectations for responsiveness. But it is Industry 4.0 – 5G in the enterprise – that offers the sweet spot for new revenues with the promise of a wide spectrum of ultra-reliable, low-latency service capabilities. To monetize it, automation is critical.
#3: The broader market is adopting hyperscaler approaches to consumability
Even as Industry 4.0 catches on, enterprises have grown to expect that their service offerings will be as easily consumed as what is available from today’s hyperscalers: you get what you want when you want it. Consider AWS, Azure or Google Console - it’s a simple point and click for services. This easy consumability is the type of experience that enterprises - in fact, all end users - are now expecting.
Automation is a key enabler for providing flexible and on-demand consumability. A key focus of automation today is to apply it to internal network operations. This results in superior end user experiences.
I think of this as Network as a Service (NaaS): enterprises consuming applications today in the same way they access their applications from cloud providers. The network is available on demand for services and is consumable. Automation for internal operations may be applied to network design, deployment and day-to-day operations tasks.
Automation is a journey and, depending on the organization, different service providers are at various stages in that journey. Yet, as a whole, there is a general agreement that automation will have a key role to play in network operations.
When it comes to delivering these consumable services, the CSPs have an advantage: the access tails to the customers. Particularly when it comes to the promise of 5G and NaaS, it is the combination of the automated platform and access that matters. This is a market to watch in 2022.
#4: Adoption will increase as operations teams start to see automation as a “product”
With these opportunities, what is stopping automation? It is most often the people and processes behind the scenes. Organizations that approach automation in a manual, human-based, and more risk-averse manner have failed so far. Automation is a product, and as such, organizations must trust it. The networking world is comprised of operations staff who configure devices based on Command Line Interface (CLI) commands and we have to shift from manual work to automation. We must trust the process and the machines. The more trust we hold, the more adoption we are going to see.
At the end of the day, network operations teams are building and operating a product. Hence operations has a life cycle to it. Things evolve, which requires maintenance. You can either do it yourself, or you can rely on a vendor. If you look at the characteristics of such a product or platform, infrastructure-as-code will provide the ability to do this using the same philosophy as today’s continuous integration/continuous design (CI/CD) development processes work.
Using an infrastructure-as-code type platform allows teams to describe in a declarative way their demands within the network, such as setting up an EVPN or making a connection from A to B. A digital twin can provide the sandbox to test topology, configuration, and the general state of the network without impacting production.
Another important aspect is the openness of the platform. The network is broken into multiple domains, each with its own specific requirements and constraints. Operators will need tools that are programmable so that they can more easily adapt to those varying domains. Additionally, they should look for vendors to build their platforms or products in a way that operators can use according to their needs and their requirements.
#5: Network automation will facilitate synergies between network and IT tools
The automation journey is one where the network and IT merge. The tools used in the network and IT are completely different and each side has its domain expertise. However, this changes with today’s trends: from the move to 5G and digitalization to the transition to offering a more NaaS type of capability, and even in the data center fabric which has typically been owned by an IT environment rather than the networking department. Network and IT tools and teams must come together to deliver the experience. And CSPs should look for vendors that have adopted this consolidated approach.
Automation in 2022
Automation is still a journey, and depends on the maturity of each organization, but what I do see is an increase in the number of discussions we are having in this space, and the huge benefits of automation when done right with the appropriate technology. Service providers are improving their maturity levels in terms of that journey towards a fully automated life cycle. And I see the uptake growing more and more this year.
