Intent-based networking (IBN) provides a way to manage networks by focusing on high-level goals rather than low-level configuration, seamlessly integrating compliance technology into its framework. This approach aims to translate business objectives into network policies and deploy them automatically, ensuring that the network operations align with regulatory requirements and company policies through advanced compliance technology.
IBN also ingests diagnostic information from various network devices for quicker root-cause identification. It allows the network to update configurations, improve application performance, and resolve issues more quickly.
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Improved Security
Intent based networking slashes human error and improves compliance in network infrastructure by automatically validating configuration settings across the entire network. This process eliminates many tasks that network administrators would have had to perform manually in the past. It reduces the time it takes to deploy changes and ensures that the resulting network meets the desired performance criteria. Intent-based networking also provides immediate roll-back or roll-forward options so administrators can instantly return to a known good state if they encounter errors during a deployment push.
In addition, intent-based networking enables better visibility and security. This is accomplished by separating the control and data planes. As a result, the network can provide more granular access control while maintaining business continuity and application performance. It makes it easier to identify the source of issues, such as network hogs or bandwidth bottlenecks, and resolve them quickly.
Intent-based networking is also predicted to free up internal IT resources, allowing them to focus on more important projects contributing to the bottom line. Furthermore, the automated nature of intent-based networking means troubleshooting is faster and more effective. It translates into lower costs and more peace of mind for businesses. It also reduces the downtime that servers experience, which can cost companies millions. IBN can quickly identify and resolve issues before they become more significant.
Improved Compliance
Over time, IT networks can become cluttered with devices and software. It creates a complex network that can be difficult to manage. Manual configuration changes and lack of visibility into the network can lead to slowness, errors, and security vulnerabilities. Intent-based networking can help eliminate these issues by automatically configuring network devices and implementing security and performance prioritization policies.
Intent-based networking uses machine learning to analyze structured and unstructured data to identify and respond to network events. This information identifies potential issues and prevents them from becoming problems that could impact the business. This process reduces the time administrators need to troubleshoot, allowing them to save money and resources by quickly identifying and responding to issues.
IBN systems can understand what the network is trying to accomplish to implement appropriate configurations and policies. They also can perform self-checks to ensure they are operating as expected. It allows them to quickly identify issues and correct them before they disrupt the network.
The intent processing function helps to translate incoming user intents into actions and policies in a domain-agnostic manner. This is vital to intent-based networking as it helps ensure the network complies with the original business intent throughout the entire service lifecycle.
Increased Efficiency
With an intent-based network, you can immediately translate high-level business goals into network configurations that support those goals. It reduces the time it takes to deploy and configure network policies, reducing costs by reducing downtime and avoiding costly manual configuration errors.
An intent-based network can also perform continuous self-checks and updates, ensuring it always adheres to previously deployed policies. It prevents network devices from changing or enabling unapproved functions that could leave your organization vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Intent-based networks are also designed to adapt rapidly to business needs, such as increasing bandwidth for a new customer application or expanding Wi-Fi coverage for an event. By combining the speed and agility of a cloud platform with built-in security, businesses can deliver a better quality of experience for their customers.
Unlike legacy automation, which merely speeds up an arcane process, an intent-based network uses high-level language, not low-level CLI commands, to model intended outcomes. It makes it easy for IT personnel to change the network through a graphical interface and at scale instead of device by device with a CLI.
An intent-based network can ingest a wide range of diagnostic information from multiple sources, including traditional routers and other devices at the edge of your network, as well as SD-WAN appliances and WAN optimization controllers. It allows it to identify and proactively resolve problems in their early stages. It also provides faster root-cause identification, eliminating the need for manual troubleshooting and preventing network outages that can impact customer experience.
Increased Flexibility
As network infrastructure transitions to software-defined implementation, intent-based networking (IBN) offers several benefits that help businesses make the change easier and more cost-effective. These include scalability, control/visibility, and security.
When a business lays out its goals for the network, an IBN system can immediately translate those goals into a set of optimal configurations. It allows IT staff to review and choose vetted configuration options quickly. It significantly reduces the time needed to meet business objectives and can save much money on planning, testing, and manual configuration.
Intent-based networking systems also perform a continuous, self-checking process to ensure that all devices are configured correctly and following the policies that have been established. It eliminates many validation tasks traditionally performed by humans, such as verifying best practices, ensuring that bandwidth is properly allocated, notifying IT when a device is overloaded, and performing routine compliance checks to ensure all networks are in good standing.
IBN also improves flexibility by making it easier for IT to update the entire network with a graphical interface instead of working on one device at a time using a CLI. It makes scaling up the network more efficient and helps minimize operational and audit risks. In addition, IBN can detect issues like potential security threats in real time and automatically take corrective action to protect against them.
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