Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2022. Read them in this 14th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Data center designs change
By Mike Bushong, VP, Cloud-ready Data Center, Juniper Networks
Data center innovation has stagnated for the past few years, as providers offered a very similar set of boxes. That is beginning to change, as different operators identify different solutions for different objectives. As innovation shifts from in the box to above the box, we are entering what will be an era of divergence. It’s not that companies are building their own versions of the better mousetrap. As operations take center stage, there are divergent views of what problems are even worth solving. And as the “whys” diverge, the resulting “whats” and the “hows” will be wildly different.
As the industry struggles with staffing and supply chain challenges, many operators will focus on the basics: how can we make sure we stay online. This will come to life in 2022 in a few different ways.
Reliability will replace agility as the objective for network operators.
For years, companies have sought out more agile operations. Insightful operators have realized that speed is not the goal, it’s merely a symptom of a broader target: reliability. The reason most companies don’t move faster is that networks are fragile, and change represents risk. Going fast isn’t a function of merely speeding up keystrokes, it’s more a product of knowing that those keystrokes will work the same way, every time, without fail. Expect the conversation to shift more and more towards reliability as 2022 moves forward.
Day 2 will become all the rage.
So much of IT energy has historically been spent on making things work. What is the design? How is it deployed? As the initial process becomes more and more streamlined, the focus will shift to optimizing Day 2 operations in 2022. Provisioning will yield to root cause identification and automated remediation. Basic workflow composers will fade to the background as multi-domain observability takes the stage. Understanding what is going on and, more importantly, what to do about it will move from keynote hype to in-product reality. The impact of long-anticipated technologies like AI and automation will be more visible than ever for large enterprises.
Out: nerd knobs. In: standard deployments.
One of the common misconceptions about cloud is that cloud is just “someone else’s servers.” It’s not the servers that make cloud offerings important; it’s the operations. To make operations really fly, architects have realized that they need to simplify and standardize. Bespoke infrastructure can’t exist for companies who truly want to optimize their operating environments. As this line of thinking becomes more prevalent on the enterprise side, the first thing to go will be all the nerd knobs that make enterprise IT so complex.
Supply chain diversification will become a priority.
It’s hard to go anywhere without running into supply chain constraints. Christmas gifts, cars, and yes, network equipment. As companies stare down the supply chain, expect 2022 to launch an architectural renaissance focused on how to reduce the risks that come with a concentrated set of suppliers. Whether it’s multi-vendor networking to allow for diverse vendor choice, or the introduction of new components to create more supply optionality, the networking landscape will begin to evolve. And importantly, that evolution will necessarily start with the architectures that enable network choices.
What do all the above trends have in common? A greater focus on operations. If organizations are still thinking about data centers in the language of connectivity in 2022, they are missing the larger story. The experience delivered is much more a function of the way the environment is operated than any piece of technology connected to it. Operations, and everything that goes into it, can’t be just one more bullet on a data sheet. Operations must be the core criterion guiding every design decision the business makes.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Bushong, VP of Data Center Product Management
Mike is VP of Data Center Product Management at Juniper Networks. Mike spent 12 years at Juniper in a previous tour of duty, running product management, strategy, and marketing for Junos Software. In that role, he was responsible for driving Juniper’s automation ambitions and incubating efforts across emerging technology spaces (notably SDN, NFV, virtualization, portable network OS, and DevOps). After the first Juniper stint, Mike joined datacenter switching startup Plexxi as the head of marketing. In that role, he was named a top social media personality for SDN. Most recently, Mike was responsible for Brocade’s datacenter business as VP of Datacenter Routing and Switching, and then Brocade’s software business as VP of Product Management, Software Networking.
