History Lesson

Ok, so the last entry talked about what Network Agility is, and what it’s supposed to achieve.

Here, we talk a little about the where Network Agility fits in terms of the technologies it leverages, and those it replaces.

Network Agility is quite a different discipline from the Network Management days of the mid-90’s and the current embryonic world of Software-as-a-Service and Utility Computing.

Without doubt, Network Agility makes great use of the on-line Software Service models, and provides dynamic network ‘load-balancing’ and metering promised by the hardware Utility Computing behemoths. The core motivation of Network Agility is how it solves IT business problems, and, moreover, creates dynamic solutions using existing hardware and software in an automated way that can change and adapt over time as requirements dictate.

In the old days of the last century, large static network management infrastructures were the favourite (only) technique to manage large, and even not-so-large networks and devices. These infrastructures created very large positive cash-flows for the vendors that put them together. So much so, in fact, that there has been little incentive to change them – hence they are still being sold today by a plethora of legacy vendors (albeit at ever-declining rates).

But beware, the landscape is changing, and this change is gathering pace and significant momentum. As the network landscape changes, with the availability of highly nimble, automated, and agile technologies and methodologies, the legacy vendors, alas, have no answer – their infrastructures were simply not built for dynamic change, lightweight operation, adaptable configuration – it was never in their remit.

Most legacy vendors haven’t worried about it too much of late, as the current ‘new wave’ of on-line management services is hardly a threat to their precious cash-cows. I’m talking about on-line Software-as-a-Service vendors who have ‘jumped on the – SaaS bandwagon’ to offer IT network management services using a similar (well, identical) model to other SaaS application vendors – e.g. SalesForce.com’s CRM, Taleo’s ERP, and on-line web conferencing/collaboration subscription services etc.

The trouble is, managing a business’s internal network assets is a very different kettle of fish from on-line billing/invoicing, collaboration applications and HR subscription services.

So, yes, of course, Network Agility comes to the rescue, and also isn’t too concerned about SaaS management subscription providers either, since it really is only relevant to public domain data – e.g. schools and libraries, and not suitable for internal business data.

Introduction to Network Agility

So what is 'Network Agility' anyway?

Network Agility is a new term that refers to an innovative discipline in software architecture:

The ability of network software to automatically control and configure itself and other software assets across any number of devices on a network.

You might see ‘network agility’ used sometimes when referring to hardware configuration of routers etc. – but this web-log is all about software agility across a network to serve a configured set of Business Process goals.

If your eyes are rolling to the back of your head, and you find yourself thinking ‘how will this help me reach Level 12 in GroundScape 3?’, sorry, you’re at the wrong site – internet media games and such like live in a different cyber-county altogether.

If, however, like me, you think ‘hey, this could be some useful slick stuff, then you’ve definitely hit the right link.

Network Agility, as a software discipline, borrows from many fields, both technical and commercial.

On the tecchie side, Network Agility solutions leverage techniques from areas such as:

• Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
• Object-oriented Design
• Architectural patterns
• Loosely-coupled data streaming (read: Web Services 2)
• Iterative Methodologies
• Artificial Intelligence
• Inductive Scheduling
• On-Demand Computing
• Utility Computing

Commercially, Network Agility is about solving real-world business problems using existing technology – i.e. it forms a three-way bridge between Business Processes, hardware resources, and software assets.

The Network Agility bridge takes, as input: 1) the Business Processes – i.e. what the network must achieve in real business terms; 2) the hardware that resides within the network; and 3) the set of software assets that run on this hardware.

Much of this input can be obtained through automatic discovery – finding the hardware, its types and locations, software, licenses etc. The Business Processes can be inferred to a certain degree, but it is the BPs that business managers need to be able to control and organize.

Of course the hardware that lives on the network at any given time is what it is, but the software can take a variety of forms - some assets may be licensed software products and some as blocks of software service code that can be accessed via some service portal - like (but not necessarily) Web Services. These services may reside in-house, or they may be 'on-demand' via an on-line subscription service. Indeed, the primary motivation of Network Agility is to make the most efficient use of the resources available, wherever they may reside, and to identify areas where Business Process goals are not being satisfied to some benchmark level (and ideally to offer possible solutions).

Network Agility tools are then in a position to optimize the existing hardware to run software assets as needed to achieve the Business Process goals. Typically, the hardware/software mix requirements will change dynamically over various time segments (weekly, quarterly, annually etc.), and step changes will be required from time to time when Business Process goals change/evolve/are updated (e.g. during/after a company re-organization).

The benefits to business of the Network Agility approach are obvious - huge cost savings in software licensing and significantly higher efficiency of hardware assets - leading to an elevation of overall productivity from the network and the staff that use it.

This first blog on Network Agility gives a 'tip-of-the-gigabit' view of what Network Agility is about and the problems it solves.

In the next blog, I’ll talk about how Network Agility forms a quantum leap from traditional network management solutions, and how today’s on-line software services fit in to the Network Agility arena.