Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024. Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
NOC Shifts and Converges with SOC and AI Network Assurance
By Michael Melillo, Senior Director of Network Management Software, Broadcom
The network is always changing. In the recent past we’ve seen the rise of cloud and SD-WAN and the movement of networks that network operations teams are responsible for out of the datacenter. In 2024, with AI workloads increasing and the security threat landscaping evolving, what we refer to as ‘the network’ continues to evolve. Based on our conversations with a wide variety of customers, service providers, hyper scalers and others, here are three predictions for 2024.
NOC Shifts from the Health of the Physical Infrastructure to the Health of the Connected Experience
As adoption of SD-WAN/SASE as well as hybrid and multi-cloud continue to accelerate, many organizations will choose to work with a service provider for these needs. Enterprises will replace a portion of their connectivity services with cloud provider connectivity services. There is an inflection point for organizations: the move to connectivity as a service. Hyper scalers are quickly rising to provide these services alongside traditional network service providers. No matter how an enterprise acquires their network services, they are still held responsible for the connected experience across the network from the user to the cloud. Network operations teams will still need their own view into the end-to-end network and can’t just hand it over and run blind. Active monitoring solutions that span the complete network path will become critical to understanding and safeguarding the connected experiences for users.
AI Workloads Drive Increasing Need for Network Observability
An explosion of AI workloads will drive an upgrade cycle of network capacity and new services across the digital chain. Organizations have datasets that they want to create value from using AI. Your network architecture must support the requirements of these new AI workloads. The network needs to do its part and you need the observability across the network to ensure these AI workloads are not being impacted by poor network performance.
NOC/SOC Convergence Will Become the Norm
A key part of adopting new network technologies is operationalizing them. Network operations teams need to be able to monitor network technologies in a consistent way regardless of the network technology vendor or architecture. As SD-WAN moves to SASE, the intersection of security and operations needs to be addressed and operationalized. The pervasiveness of SASE will drive a convergence of NOC/SOC into single operating models. Fast evolving threat landscape, ZTA and SASE will further speed up the drive for convergence of the NOC and SOC for many organizations. As always, having the right level of observability and work flows to optimize operational aspects will be critical to successful convergence.
Looking Forward
2024 will continue the advancement of networking. Key to successful adoption of these advancements will be the ability to operationalize these networks and successfully manage them.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Melillo leads Broadcom’s Network Management suite of software solutions.
