IT teams need to pivot from being consumed with maintaining the status quo to becoming an enabler of new business innovation, according to a survey conducted by Cisco of over 2000 IT leaders and network strategists.
"IT teams today are running complex mission critical networks that are increasingly capable of providing rich data. But using that data to improve the operations, security, or business impact of the network requires new tools. That's why IT teams are embracing intent-based networking, AI and machine learning — because the business demands it," said Scott Harrell, SVP and GM, Cisco Enterprise Networking.
Some highlights from Cisco's Global Networking Trends Report and Survey:
IT leaders expect new wireless technologies, IoT and AI-enabled operations, threat detection and remediation to have the biggest impact on their network strategy and design over the next five years.
The top priority for global IT leaders and network strategists is to maximize the business value of IT and more closely align to business needs.
- Almost 40 percent of IT leaders named maximizing IT’s business value as their number one priority, higher than simplifying operations, optimizing employee productivity and minimizing security events.
- In order to achieve this, leaders and strategists believe investing in AI technologies is crucial. Almost 50 percent of network strategists believe increasing the use of analytics and AI will help enable the ideal network.
Intent-based networking is coming, allowing organizations to build on their software-defined networking foundations.
- 41 percent of those surveyed claim to have at least one instance of SDN in at least one of their network domains.
- Only 4 percent of respondents believe their networks have moved beyond software-defined and are intent-based today. However, 35 percent believe their networks will be fully intent-based in two years’ time.
- When asked to indicate where on Cisco’s Digital Network Readiness Model their networks currently operate, only 28 percent indicated they’ve reached a service-driven or intent-based network. However, when asked where their networks will be in two years, 78 respondents believed they would move beyond software-defined towards service-driven and intent-based networks.
