Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Tools
The other day I came across an article, “Industry execs: Network admins an endangered species,” and I have to say, the headline did its job. I had to read more.
Executives from HP and Juniper, in particular, contend that network virtualization, and specifically Software-Defined Networking (SDN), will bring new levels of automation to networks, which in turn will lower operational costs because network administrators will no longer be needed. Specifically, their argument is that administrative or “people” expense is much higher than equipment costs, so automating will eliminate significant expense.
That’s one way to look at it I suppose. However, I would suggest that automation presents new opportunities for the networking team.
It is true that achieving significant OPEX savings is a key part of our discussion with customers when we talk about Embrane’s network services automation solutions that are being implemented today in enterprise data centers. However, we don’t talk about it in the context of, “how many heads can I cut?” Instead, our conversations center around how our customers can best use the people they have, and what tools are needed to enable the right level of talent to perform the right tasks.
The reason we’re having Continue reading
