Author: Gary Hilson
Understanding how automation impacts network management can help uncover much-needed insight into your enterprise network and help you gain control over it. Optimizing network management automation can accelerate your digital transformation and help you improve the user experience.
The current shift toward virtualized network services and managed software-defined wide-area networks (SD WAN) can enable robust network management automation, including low-touch provisioning, orchestration and fault finding. And it can mean you have visibility and control over your internet and wired communications services, virtually anywhere.
How automation impacts network management
Automating your network management functions can free up time and resources, which can be rededicated to accelerating your organization's digital transformation journey.
Outsourcing network management to a trusted partner who offers automated tools and processes can relieve your teams of the burden of overseeing the network without compromising control or visibility. An experienced partner can help with network reliability, speed and transformation. A partner can also provide proactive troubleshooting and expertise when something is not functioning as it should.
The right services partner understands the benefits of network management automation can include simplified day-to-day activities such as:
- Monitoring and managing services
- Opening repair tickets and initiating fault isolation and repair
- Accessing reporting services
- Downloading invoices
- Submitting and processing change requests
- Upgrading and downgrading network access speeds
These can be done through a customer portal that leverages robust application programming interfaces and by interfacing directly with the end users service management platforms.
As needs arise, you can quickly provision and deploy various services, including product-specific capabilities such as dynamic bandwidth and quality-of-service adjustments to provide additional reliability, flexibility and scalability. You can also capitalize on the benefits of SD WAN and programmable application aware routing so your data travels the right path to its destination. Less critical data travels over public networks, reducing bandwidth costs and enhancing the user experience. Users and customers can reduce bottlenecks that might slow productivity or prevent business.
Network management automation: finding the right partner
The right partner can help you automate your network management over SD WAN and relieve pressure on your IT team so it can focus on core projects and digital transformation efforts.
Your managed network services partner must have deep expertise in SD WAN technology and strong quality assurance processes so the software aspects of its network management solution meet your demands.
SD WAN can be complex to deploy, so do not rush into everything at once. A good partner can write a flexible roadmap to migrate you at a pace that makes sense for your business and minimizes any downtime, including a transition plan that incorporates and accounts for the replacement of legacy technology and devices. That flexibility should include adaptive network control, which lets you scale capacity as you need it and manage the virtual connections to your various cloud providers.
Your network management solution should also boost your security. A trusted partner can enhance end-to-end encryption, unified threat management, distributed denial-of-service prevention and intrusion detection and prevention. It can also automate those processes for a proactive defense.
Today's enterprise networks are the engine that helps applications and data drive user and customer experiences. You must understand how network management automation helps you implement a modern, flexible infrastructure that is responsive to your business needs and optimizes your IT resources.
Engaging with a partner that can manage virtualized network services—including SD WAN—helps you enjoy the benefits of network management automation and can help you exceed the expectations of your own users and customers.
Learn how Verizon's network management solutions can keep your network safe and agile.