Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024. Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Enterprise Network and Related Technologies in 2024
By Suresh
Katukam is the Chief Product Officer and co-founder of Nile
As we approach the new year, I usually like to
make a few predictions about where I feel the enterprise network is headed and
how the myriad technologies it employs will be used in new and interesting
ways. Now that the subscription model has firmly established itself as the
dominant approach for IT consuming software and other technologies, the time
has come to focus on how this model will expand beyond the traditional "cloud"
and impact innovation overall.
To say that 2023 has been tumultuous would be
a gross understatement. The sheer volume of change churning the global
technology market is truly significant but well beyond the purview of my corner
of the world, so I'll stick to discussing the issues that I believe will impact
the enterprise network and related technologies in 2024.
IT
operations teams begin to crack under the strain of too many demands and too
few resources
A
direct result of IT's diverse role, combined with the accelerated move to the
cloud and the increasing adoption of digital infrastructure, maintaining and
securing the IT infrastructure will become increasingly overwhelming for the
vast majority of IT departments. The reality is that most IT organizations are
trying to tackle the resource and skill gap to maintain the technology needed
to deliver the pervasive and secure digital experiences we've now all come to
expect. As a result, outside of the world's largest companies, IT departments
will continue to struggle with their existing digitization projects as they
craft a realistic roadmap for adopting their initiatives, including advanced
technologies such as generative AI.
The definition
of Campus NaaS will crystalize for the industry, and incumbent vendors won't
like it
Few market segments are as confusing as the
Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) market. Is it a managed service? A business model?
A technology? All of the above? The true definition will be clarified in 2024
as customer requirements come into focus. We predict that NaaS will be defined
not as a business model but as an architectural approach based on a
fundamentally new paradigm for the enterprise network. This new paradigm is
inherently cloud native/software-centric and delivers five key attributes:
- Based on a standardized hardware
and software stack
- Provides guaranteed high
performance in availability, coverage, and capacity
- Extends zero trust security to the
campus and the branch
- Simplifies and automates all
lifecycle management services
- Consumed as a pure subscription on
a per-usage basis
These attributes will highlight the clear
winners in delivering a true as-a-Service model to end customers, managed
service providers, and others that hide behind simple leasing agreements. In
particular, we predict that innovations under the AI Networking umbrella and
relevant IT outcomes will be the next phase of evolution on top of NaaS
innovation.
This provides the perfect segué for our next
prediction ...
AI
Networking will go beyond simple network insights to deliver real outcomes
If 2023 was the year AI came into its own,
2024 will see its application spread to all aspects of IT infrastructure. This
includes wired and wireless LAN and network operations overall. While AIOps is
often touted as a means of providing insights into network traffic, it does
little to assist IT in actually solving those issues.
In contrast, AI Networking will give IT the
ability to fully automate the majority, if not all, of enterprise network
operations. AI Networking will encompass Machine Learning, real-time streaming
analytics, soft bots, and automation. It will include all Day -1, Day 0, Day 1, Day 2 and Day N operations. This
includes everything from placing wireless access points to orchestrating
software upgrades to identifying cabling issues using voltage sensors. In fact,
by employing cloud native principles, IT will be able to effectively do away
with the traditional need for a massive investment in a Network Operations
Center (NOC) altogether, thus freeing its team to focus on higher-level
priorities. As a result, the term NoOps, so often applied to cloud infrastructure,
will start being relevant to the enterprise network for the first time in 2024.
2024
will see many common networking technologies replaced with new solutions based
on cloud native principles
Despite the longevity of enterprise
networking, certain technologies become obsolete when they outlive their
intended purpose or fail to meet evolving needs. In 2024, we will see many of
these once-critical networking technologies begin to lose prominence or, in
some cases, move into the cloud (e.g., DHCP and RADIUS).
Virtual LANs (VLAN), for instance, were
designed to segment different groups of connected devices within an enterprise
network and are no longer as relevant in today's networks. Similarly, Network
Access Control (NAC) solutions, designed to be deployed as an overlay to define
and enforce user/device level policies, have lost their prominence.
Additionally, AIOps solutions that only
provide summarized reporting and alerting may soon fade into obsolescence due
to their limited benefits in driving actual results with infrastructure
automation. Interestingly, we believe that SD-WAN, initially designed as a
transitional technology from MPLS-based networks to IP, may soon become less
relevant in the wake of SASE, as the transition is largely complete.
Taken together, these trends should result in much
more powerful and productive IT teams capable of focusing their efforts on
business-critical applications. Of course, 12 months is an eternity in the
technology world, so I expect the unexpected at this point in my career. Only
time will tell if I'm accurate, but one of my New Year's resolutions is to
start tracking my prognostications for accuracy. But no matter how they turn
out, I look forward to the enterprise network market's continued evolution. In
the meantime, I look forward to engaging with many of you as we all work to
build more positive outcomes for 2024. Happy New Year everyone!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Suresh Katukam is the Chief Product Officer and
co-founder of Nile. Internally, Suresh is endearingly referred to as the "Chief
Disrupter" due to his unending drive to tackle seemingly unsolvable problems.
Suresh has infused this attitude into Nile's culture, creating a company-wide
obsession to both reimagine and redefine the decades-old field of networking.
Suresh has over 20 years of leadership experience
across engineering, product management, business development, and M&A from
notable technology leaders including Cisco, Aruba Networks, and AWS. At AWS,
Suresh led Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, and Internet of
Things technology partnerships.
Suresh's innovative mindset is evident in his work.
He has co-authored technology standards, published AI research papers, and has
40 patents in networking and security. Suresh has an M.B.A. from the Anderson
School of Management, UCLA, an M.S. in C.S. from Arizona State University, and
a B.S. in Computer Science from BITS, Pilani, India.