In many cases this works, but over time it becomes difficult to stay in control.

What has changed is not just the technology, but also expectations. Users expect a seamless experience wherever they are, applications move between data centre, cloud and edge, and requirements for both security and availability are constantly becoming stricter.

In practice, this means the network has to handle far more complexity than before, without necessarily being given more time or more resources to operate it.

When complexity becomes the challenge itself

Many organisations do not find that the network itself is the bottleneck, but rather that it is demanding to keep it stable and predictable over time, especially when environments have grown step by step over several years.

New needs have emerged, technology has been layered on top of the existing structure, and changes have to be made with care so as not to affect what already works.

What we often see in practice is that operations gradually become more reactive than desired, because a larger share of the time is spent dealing with incidents rather than improving and optimising.

It is against this backdrop that the concept of a self-driving network starts to make sense.

From operations to governance

A self-driving network is not about removing people from operations, but about shifting the focus from handling individual incidents to governing how the network behaves over time.

When the network continuously analyses its own state and usage, it becomes possible to catch anomalies earlier, often before they develop into actual incidents that need to be handled manually.

Solutions within HPE Networking are built on this principle: they do not just collect data, they also put it into context so that you actually understand what is happening, and what should be done.

When things start to work better in practice

This is rarely experienced as one big change, but rather as a gradual improvement in how everyday operations work.

With many of the customers we work with, we see the number of cases that need to be escalated go down, the time spent on troubleshooting fall, and operations become more predictable.

Each of these is a small improvement on its own, but it is the sum of them that makes a real difference.

nLogic’s role

At nLogic, we meet many people who feel the need to modernise their network, but who also want to do so in a controlled way without major upheaval.

Most want a better overview, less noise and fewer surprises in their day to day work, and our role is to make this concrete and achievable.

We work together with customers to understand what will have an impact first, what should wait, and how to take steps in the right direction without introducing new complexity.

Through our partnership with HPE Networking, we can combine advisory services with technology that genuinely supports this development, without it becoming an all or nothing choice.

This is not a project you finish, but a development that happens over time.

In the next article, we take a closer look at how this is actually built in practice.