Why You Need a Network Modernization Strategy for Digital Transformation

Network modernization (aka transformation or NX – tech loves acronymic brevity) goes above and beyond the limitations of legacy networks where the capacity (hardware) and software (OS, protocols, standards) enhancements combine to counter operational inefficiency, lack of interoperability, inconsistent security and scalability hazards of the latter. The last couple of decades have seen major IT networking vendors competing for market share with a time-and-speed to market strategy that focused on performance, capacity, port speed and feeds – areas of major overlap with little or no differentiation for the customer.

The capacity side has been an input-output model with inter-industry linkages with switch-makers and silicon merchants putting elements of the switching hardware together by pairing operating systems and ASICs; a collaboration that has faded recently due to acquisitions and homegrown ASICs by major vendors in a bid to offer more variation and flexibility in hardware. Major differentiation, however, lies in software: its stickiness, convergence, flexibility and maturity. Where multiple domains, platforms, vendors, hyperscalers and cloud providers intersect, you need a solution that is collaborative to the core with a consistent framework.

There are number of ways to achieve core competency in this area. First, enable a software defined network (SDN) that decouples hardware from software and keeps control, data and management planes separate while leveraging the protocol and feature-based enhancements of a modern overlay network. Second, promote platform unification, domain integration, edge-to-cloud extension and where possible, effectively introduce day-0, day-1 and day-2 coherence for operations with built-in flexibility to be hosted on-prem or in the cloud. There is a further bolt-on possible through platform openness that creates additional value by ingesting non-proprietary platforms to make management and provisioning decisions easy through programmability and automation.

If your solution has coverage on as many aspects above as possible, it will allow you to measure design choices through a range of vectors that seem fundamental to the transformational premise, such as availability, reliability, usability, relevance and contextual completeness, particularly through AIOps and NetOps (CDW’s solution methodology is based on these pillars).

Each of our partners (including Cisco, Juniper and Aruba) owns a distinct flavour of SDN solution, by domain, addressing some or all of the differentiators above in order to respond quickly to changing business requirements via a centralized control console. The central theme is similar in that network intelligence and intent is logically centralized in an SDN controller software that maintains a global view of the network.

Network policy is directly programmable because the control functions are decoupled from forwarding functions, which enables the network to be programmatically configured. The need for dedicated hardware is minimized per security zone by leveraging multitenancy, enhanced security and virtualization, which offers reduced CAPEX.

Moreover, the ability to automate provisioning and orchestration optimizes service availability and reliability by reducing overall management time and the chance for human error. You benefit from greater agility and flexibility by rapidly deploying new applications, services and infrastructure to quickly meet changing business goals and objectives. If you look further, SDN enables innovation as organizations get to create new types of applications, services and business models that can offer new revenue streams and more value from the network.

Within the data centre, Cisco offers a network-centric solution (or network segmentation) with Nexus OS based switching layered with the Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator, and an app-centric solution (or micro-segmentation) with ACI controlled by APIC for a consistent policy driven (hybrid) data centre network.

Juniper leads with Contrail as its cloud-native software defined capability that provides dynamic end-to-end networking policy for any deployment from a central console. Juniper Apstra is a value-add software automation interface that validates the design, deployment and operations of the data centre network in multivendor environments, providing a single source of truth for root-cause identification.

Aruba’s Fabric Composer is an intelligent, API-driven, software-defined orchestration to provision a leaf-spine network fabric coupled with AOS-CX’s network-wide analytics and full programmability to enable complete network assurance.

The branch (or edge) is where WAN diversity (or SD-WAN), user-centricity (role-based, dynamic access control) and edge security (SASE or SSE) are fused together to simplify and triangulate the design-deploy-manage phases through core SDN principles.

Our partners at Cisco (SDA, SD-WAN, Umbrella, Meraki), Juniper (Mist) and Aruba (EdgeConnect) compete at the edge with unique offerings. Contrary to the modern data centre, the branch appears to be commoditized to a certain degree with price point and lead time being key decision factors for many organizations. That said, there is huge potential for differentiation with AIOps to enable a self-driving network that foretells a ticket and pre-empts a network blip in an autonomous fashion.

To sum it up, network modernization is an SDN driven change that is built on a cloud-native microservices architecture to deliver a fantastic user experience and application continuity with operational simplicity, end-to-end visibility, consistent policy and self-learning capability that continuously monitors blind spots for real (or near) real-time correction. The network is no longer a roadblock to autonomous digital experience.

Commentary by Fasih Khan, customer driven architect helping clients with design and strategy for network modernization. Fasih is a Sr. Solution Architect for hybrid cloud, data centre and enterprise networking at CDW.