FountainBlue’s July 19 When She Speaks event, on the topic of Intent-Based Networking. We were fortunate to have such a technical and articulate panel of leaders to speak on the Intent-Based Networking topic.
Our panelists represented a range of industries, experiences and roles, but were each educated as technologists and each displayed in-depth technical expertise and experience. They made it clear that IBN is inevitably in our future and provided clear examples of how it is impacting us today.
They have each seen the evolution of manual configurations around the network, and witnessed the progression to scripts and programs to manage networks, and then the development of software-defined networks (SDNs), which to this day still help automate the management of networks.
To them, IBN is a progression of this pattern. Software is progressively more leveraged to manage networks, and networking leaders are progressing toward solutions which better focus on the intentions of the customers.
For example, instead of having protocols for every scenario, an IBN approach might focus on the problem a customer would like solved.
Many things need to fall into place before we can smoothly transition to a deeper adoption of IBN.
- The hardware and software infrastructure must be reliably, pervasively and securely available to all relevant stakeholders.
- There must be a level of trust and communication between customers and vendors and partners in order to best understand the customer intent. Plus ongoing clear and transparent communication is needed to ensure smooth development, monitoring, and execution to deliver that custom program.
- Sufficient data must be available in order to manage create programs which address the needs of the customer.
- There must be clarity on which party plays which role in the IBN development and management process – the visionary, the creator, the enforcer, the manager.
It’s not clear how and whether some industries and some companies will adopt IBN. But it is clear that there are advantages for leading companies to do so.
- The amount of available data is mind-bogglingly huge, and will only get larger. IBN will help companies proactively deal with problems as anticipated by customers, rather than reactively respond to a problem, as defined by large (and growing) sets of protocols and rules.
- Leveraging AI and ML to deliver solutions based on customer needs will likely lead to deeper relationships, more partnerships, and a better understanding of current and even future needs of the customer.
- Better understanding patterns and edge cases will help better serve a wider range of customers and their needs.
- Making predictions based on data patterns will in turn help better deliver results for customers.
- Each of the points above will increase customer retention and customer acquisition, while also potentially leading to a wider set of offerings for each customer.
The road to adoption will take more leadership, more innovation, more collaboration. The open sharing of solutions, combined with a customer-centric mind-set will help hard-working, smart companies and leaders make progress in embracing the adoption of IBN.
Please join me in thanking our gracious hosts at Cisco and our panelists for FountainBlue’s July 19 When She Speaks event, on the topic of Intent-Based Networking.
- Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue
- Panelist Serpil Bayraktar, Principal Engineer, Chief Architect’s Office – Development, Cisco
- Panelist Liliane Peters, Director Configuration & Release Management, Ericsson
- Panelist Ranjeeta Singh, VP, GM, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Teradata
- Panelist Su Tsai, Director of Data Center Networking Services, Cisco IT
See bios and invitation at https://www.tikkl.com/fountainblue/c/intent.
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