What are 2 benefits of network automation?

Answered by Randy McIntyre

Two benefits of network automation are increased business agility and improved operations speed.

1. Increased Business Agility:
– Network automation allows organizations to quickly adapt and respond to changing business needs. By automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, network teams can focus on more strategic initiatives that drive business growth.
– Automation enables faster deployment of new services and applications. Provisioning and configuring network resources can be automated, reducing the time it takes to bring new services online. This agility allows businesses to be more responsive to customer demands and market opportunities.
– With automation, organizations can achieve greater consistency and reliability in their network operations. Automated processes follow predefined rules and best practices, minimizing human errors and reducing the risk of network downtime. This reliability enhances business continuity and customer satisfaction.

2. Improved Operations Speed:
– Network automation eliminates manual intervention in routine tasks, leading to faster operations. Time-consuming activities such as device configuration, software updates, and network troubleshooting can be automated, reducing the time required to complete these tasks.
– Automated network monitoring and alerting systems can proactively identify and address issues before they impact business operations. This proactive approach reduces troubleshooting time and minimizes network downtime, leading to faster problem resolution.
– Automation enables faster network changes and updates. With traditional manual processes, making changes across multiple devices can be time-consuming and error-prone. Automation allows simultaneous updates across the network, ensuring consistency and reducing the time required for change implementation.

Personal Experience:
In my previous role as a network engineer, I witnessed the benefits of network automation firsthand. By implementing automation tools and processes, we were able to significantly improve our business agility and operations speed. We automated the provisioning of network devices, which reduced the time it took to deploy new services from days to hours. This agility allowed us to quickly respond to customer demands and gain a competitive edge in the market.

Additionally, automation helped us improve our operations speed by reducing the time spent on repetitive tasks. We automated routine configuration backups, software updates, and network monitoring. This freed up valuable time for our team to focus on more strategic initiatives, such as optimizing network performance and implementing new technologies.

Network automation not only enhanced our ability to adapt to changing business needs but also improved the efficiency and effectiveness of our day-to-day operations. It was a game-changer for our organization, enabling us to deliver services faster and with greater reliability.