NetOps Explained in Five Minutes or Less


My friend, if you‘ve ever felt frustrated by slow network performance or frequent outages disrupting your work, you‘re not alone. We live in a highly connected world where even minor network issues can hamper productivity and business operations.

The solution lies in a modern approach called NetOps. If you aren‘t familiar, NetOps is short for Network Operations – and it has transformed how organizations manage their complex network infrastructures.

In this guide, I‘ll explain what NetOps is, why it‘s so important, the key technologies involved, challenges companies face, and some best practices to implement NetOps effectively. I‘ve also included data, expert opinions, and real-world examples so you can truly grasp the critical role of NetOps. Let‘s get started!

What is NetOps and Why Does it Matter?

NetOps refers to the tasks, practices and tools involved in operating and managing modern computer networks. It covers a range of critical activities:

• Network monitoring – Collecting performance metrics and log data to gain visibility into network health.
• Troubleshooting – Detecting and quickly resolving network issues and outages.
• Configuration management – Maintaining desired configurations across network devices.
• Change management – Planning, testing and rolling out network changes safely.
• Optimization – Proactively improving network efficiency, speed and reliability.
• Security – Implementing controls and measures to protect network infrastructure.
• Collaboration – Aligning network operations closely with business objectives.

The core goals of NetOps include maximizing network uptime, improving agility to deploy new services faster, reducing IT costs, and bolstering security. Dedicated NetOps teams or network administrators are responsible for executing these activities.

But why does NetOps matter so much? Well, our reliance on networks has grown exponentially over the past decade. Consider these statistics:

• Global IP traffic is expected to reach 4.2 zettabytes per year by 2022, up from 1.5 zettabytes in 2017. (Source: Cisco)

• The number of globally connected IoT devices is predicted to increase to 75 billion by 2025, from about 30 billion in 2020. (Source: Statista)

• By 2023, more than 60% of enterprises will have implemented network automation, up from just 10% in 2018. (Source: Gartner)

As you can see, network traffic volumes are exploding rapidly. And companies are relying on networks to deliver business-critical applications and services. Network outages or performance issues can cripple productivity and revenue.

This is why NetOps is so vital – it provides the visibility, automation and control needed to manage enormous network complexity smoothly and securely.

"NetOps aligns network management capabilities not just with operational objectives but strategic business objectives as well. This pays huge dividends in agility, cost reduction and improved customer experiences." – Mike Fratto, Principal Analyst at Current Analysis.

Now let‘s explore some of the key technologies and concepts behind NetOps…

Foundational NetOps Technologies Explained

NetOps leverages various technologies and methodologies to enable intelligent, software-defined network management:

Network Automation

This involves using tools like Ansible, Puppet or Chef to automate manual, repetitive tasks like device configuration, cabling, OS updates etc. Instead of relying on humans, tasks are coded into scripts and playbooks.

Benefits include improved efficiency, reduced errors from manual work, and quicker rollout of network changes.

According to a survey by EMA, 95% of network professionals say automation has made their organizations more agile.

Orchestration

Orchestration refers to coordinating and integrating different automated tasks to achieve desired outcomes. For instance, provisioning multi-tier application infrastructure across networks, servers and storage by invoking various automation scripts.

This provides a holistic approach to automation beyond siloed tasks. Leading examples of orchestration engines include Cisco ACI, Juniper Contrail and Arista CloudVision.

Monitoring and Analytics

Continuous surveillance using tools like Nagios, Splunk and Kentik provide complete visibility into network performance, traffic patterns, logs, device metrics etc.

Advanced analytics help derive meaningful insights from the data. This enables identifying issues proactively and making data-driven optimization decisions.

"With the advent of AI-driven analytics, NetOps teams can now predict network issues before they occur based on historical trends and patterns." – Sanjay Mishra, Networking CTO at Verizon.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

This practice involves managing network configurations, policies and architecture through code. Network infrastructure is defined via code files rather than manual configs.

It enables version control, review processes and automated deployment of networking changes through CI/CD pipelines. IaC is a core DevOps methodology.

SDN and Cloud Integration

SDN solutions like Cisco ACI and VMware NSX separate the network control plane from the data plane. This allows centralized control, programmability and automation.

Integrating NetOps with public cloud platforms like Azure and AWS provides unified visibility and governance across on-premise and cloud networks.

These technologies collectively enable intelligent, nimble, software-defined network management that aligns with strategic business needs. Let‘s now look at some key challenges faced by organizations…

Key Challenges in NetOps Adoption

Transitioning to NetOps certainly provides enormous benefits. But it also poses some tangible hurdles that need to be addressed:

Integrating NetOps into Legacy Environments

Most established enterprises have legacy network environments comprising proprietary hardware and protocols like MPLS. Integrating new NetOps platforms into such complex environments can be tricky.

It requires thorough assessment of the existing tools, people and processes before charting out a transition roadmap.

Overcoming Cultural Resistance

Any organizational change faces cultural and political barriers. NetOps involves new technologies, processes and skill sets. This can be daunting for network admins used to old-school CLI based management.

Managers must invest time in training people and building consensus for the shift to NetOps.

Justifying ROI

While NetOps improves agility and reduces costs in the long run, demonstrating definitive ROI upfront can be difficult. If the costs are not accurately accounted, it can hamper funding for NetOps initiatives.

Experts recommend starting small via pilot projects focused on pain points to prove ROI before company-wide implementation.

Skill Gap Within Network Teams

Network engineers skilled with legacy systems like MPLS often lack experience in areas like automation, programming and cloud platforms.

Reskilling or recruiting new talent for NetOps could be time-consuming and expensive for some organizations.

Integrating Diverse Multi-Vendor Environments

Mid-sized and large companies often have a mishmash of solutions from Cisco, HPE, Juniper, Arista etc. Getting these diverse devices and platforms to interoperate for NetOps can be challenging.

It requires extensive integration testing and staging before deployment.

While these challenges seem daunting initially, taking a strategic approach helps successfully adopt NetOps.

Best Practices for Implementing NetOps

Migrating to NetOps requires meticulous planning and execution:

Define clear objectives – Outline specific pain points to address or capabilities to build via NetOps. This drives better decisions.

Gradual phase-in – Start small with contained pilot projects. Learn, adjust and build positive momentum before company-wide systems overhaul.

Assess skill gaps – Gauge the difference between current team skills and desired NetOps state. Fund reskilling programs accordingly.

Allocate sufficient budget – Cost out the new tools, platforms, training and talent required for NetOps transformation.

Devise integration strategy – Carefully plan how new NetOps solutions will interface with existing network gear based on vendor support.

Leverage managed services – Consider partnering with managed service providers to augment internal team with NetOps expertise.

Institute security controls – Implement adequate access controls, testing and fail-safe methods for NetOps automation.

Gather continuous feedback – Collect user feedback on NetOps systems to identify issues and areas for improvement via surveys, interviews etc.

Foster culture change – Encourage team members to embrace NetOps through training, incentives and leading by example.

Track progress periodically – Measure NetOps KPIs like network uptime, incident response time, automation coverage etc. to guide strategy.

With careful adoption, NetOps can significantly enhance network manageability, performance and security. Now let‘s look at where NetOps is heading in the future…

The Road Ahead – Future of NetOps

NetOps capabilities will continue advancing in tune with emerging technologies:

• Adoption of AI and ML – Machine learning algorithms will enable smart automation of network management based on data insights.

• Everything as a Service – Organizations will shift to consuming network management as a cloud-hosted service rather than owning tools.

• Intent based Networking – Network admins will define business intent and outcomes, and AI will automatically translate it into configurations.

• Advanced Network Analytics – Big data analytics will derive deeper insights from network data to forecast issues and optimize performance.

• Improved Hybrid Cloud Management – Seamless network visibility and governance will extend across on-premise, public cloud and edge environments.

• Stronger Business Alignment – NetOps platforms will dynamically adapt network capabilities based on changing business needs in real-time.

• Increased Automation – CI/CD pipelines and DevOps culture will pervade network operations for rapid agile changes.

As networks become more mission-critical and complex, NetOps will continue evolving to help businesses stay ahead of the curve.

The Bottom Line

NetOps has clearly become indispensable for managing modern digital environments. It provides the necessary visibility, automation and control to handle exponentially growing network complexity and dynamics.

Businesses must embrace NetOps not just for operational gains like reduced outages and costs, but also to align network capabilities with strategic business objectives in an agile manner.

Approaching NetOps transformation strategically, and investing in the right skills and tools, is key to long term success. While the road may seem difficult initially, the long term dividends make NetOps adoption truly worthwhile.

I hope this guide gave you a helpful overview of NetOps fundamentals and why it matters so much in our highly connected world. Let me know if you have any other questions! I‘m always happy to chat more about this field.