Network automation is becoming a necessity rather than a nice-to-have. Today, there is an exponential rise in the number and type of devices, users and things getting connected to the network. And to fulfill that increasing demand, networks are getting more complex & deployments getting massive. Network Automation plays a very crucial part in not only simplifying the Day-0 deployment process, but also simplifying day-to-day operations and maintenance.

Network automation is the process of automating the configuring, managing, testing, deploying, and operating of physical and virtual devices within a network. With everyday network tasks and functions automated and repetitive processes controlled and managed automatically, network service availability improves.

Networking automation capabilities transform previously manual onboarding, configuration, provisioning, and software management processes to simplify and scale network operations and greatly minimize configuration errors.

Enterprises across the globe are looking to embrace advanced network architectures to ensure their networks serve the needs of their modern digital businesses. Legacy systems for manually onboarding clients and devices onto the network simply do not scale when employees, customers, and partners are each bringing multiple devices on to the network and expecting frictionless mobility throughout the enterprise. The cost of inefficient network management has never been higher, businesses rely on the network for mission-critical tasks. For many organizations across the globe, if the network is down, the business is down. Yet often, organizations are relying on manual, ad hoc processes for managing the enterprise network. There are myriad reasons this is not the ideal state of networking:

• Inconsistent policies across networks, specifically wired and wireless networks, result in complexity in managing separate networks and inconsistent enforcement of policies across the network.
• Inefficient or imprecise onboarding, segmenting, and implementation of access and usage policies for all users and devices on the network creates security holes and produces inconsistent performance.
• Lack of visibility, both at a high level and granular detail, means network operators do not have the ability to see what’s happening on the network in real time, including which users and devices are on the network and which applications they’re accessing.
• Slow identification of problems, inability to determine the root cause of the problem quickly, and inefficient processes for remediating problems or security incidents within the network cause business to lose opportunities and users to become frustrated and inefficient.

Although every industry and organization is different, everyone needs a reliable wireless network. Freedom to access the network from anywhere within the signal range and move devices around without losing the connection, connect any mobile device, laptop, etc. with no extra work required these are the main advantages of wireless networks.

An enterprise-grade wireless network is more than just a collection of WiFi Access Points. At the minimum, it’s characterized by superior security and performance; centralized configuration and management; and a much higher capacity for user density.

Previously it was thought that wired networks were faster and more secure than wireless networks. But continual enhancements to wireless network technology such as the Wi-Fi 6/6E networking standard have eroded speed and security differences between wired and wireless networks.

The shift from on premise to cloud-based applications and from MPLS to Internet based connectivity requires IT to rethink their approach to enterprise networking. Features related to scalability, security and performance become even more important in a world where cost optimisation is a constant priority.

Traditional enterprise networks rely on MPLS circuits from telecom service providers to connect their sites to main data centres, where corporate applications are hosted and Internet gateways located. For companies with various sites distributed geographically, this leads to an increased network spend, as additional MPLS capacity will become a problem, as the network becomes a bottleneck for accessing corporate and cloud based applications. In most cases capacity is required to accommodate all the traffic, and performance issues, whenever there is congestion on the links.

Software Defined Networking applied to the WAN is a software solution that provides a mechanism for improving traffic management across MPLS and Internet links. From a technology perspective, SD-WAN abstracts the underlying transport solution to provide seamless hybrid WAN connectivity. The solution provides a number of features that enable companies to take the most out of their WAN. On the security level, end-to-end traffic encryption is available, alongside security policies that are centrally defined and implemented across the entire network in an automated way. Moreover, the centralized management platform enables visibility over the entire network, while allowing for real-time scaling of network resources. SD-WAN also acts as an enabler to improve network performance, through features such as dynamic routing path selection, which optimises the utilization of the available connections for both on premise and cloud traffic, and automation with zero-touch provisioning capabilities.