"Intent-based" popularity has risen in 2018, but how real is it? Intent-based networking is a major step up from autonomous networking (known as Tier 3 intent-based networking), but it is itself made up of many small advances. Many pretenders offer partial functionality, such as basic automation (Tier 0 based networking), but do not support vendor agnostic infrastructure, a single source of truth, and the ability to validate changes in real time, regardless of the underlying hardware or operating system. The technology. The first truly significant feature of the intent-based network must be an architecture based on a single source of truth, encompassing both the intent and the actual state of the network, including control of all aspects. The life cycle of network services. Without this single source of truth, questions like "Which users will be affected if link x fails or is out of order?", or "What is the link usage on all links carrying traffic from there? User X?", it means consulting the network map, checking that it is up to date, checking the operational status of each link... and so on. Even when all the necessary data has been collected and collected, the final answer has yet to be calculated. While a network with a single source of truth contains all the necessary data in this source and in a true intent-based system, the answer to these questions can be computed and displayed automatically and quickly. This single source of truth has already been realized in the most advanced data center automation solutions and is a very important step towards the autonomous network or data center.
Identification of the root cause.
Identifying root causes is another essential step. Once you have a single source of truth that summarizes what the network should and is actually doing in real time, the additional information can study incoming telemetry, detect irregularities, failures, or performance degradation. Not only denounce them, but also denounce them. also trace them back to the underlying root cause. Whether it's cars, computers, or appliances, there's nothing more infuriating than an intermittent failure. Something is wrong, but everything works perfectly when taken care of. As the service operator studies performance during the inspection, an appropriate intent-based system maintains a complete and continuous record of when and how problems occurred, as well as complete information about the infrastructure and components. The combination of a single source of truth and AI goes back to erratic symptoms to determine the cause.
Image Credit: Shutterstock (Image: © Image Credit: Shutterstock) Most data centers adopt a backbone or "closed" network topology to provide better application performance. The traditional three-tier hierarchy generated a lot of traffic on the system, while the "flat" backbone topology puts hosts at equal distances and applications behave more predictably. The result is higher bandwidth, lower latency, and relatively simpler network management. "Relatively" is the key word here because even for small leaf networks, network administrators must manually track and verify thousands of logical and virtual elements, as well as physical components. If just one of them is misconfigured or fails, a cascading effect can affect multiple compute, network, and storage nodes, with unpredictable consequences for system performance, user experience, management, and ultimately reputation. If, for example, the network operator needs to remove or configure a work switch in the middle of the workday, an advanced intent-based network will allow traffic to bypass that device so that daily activities can continue to be switched on. restores the device, system monitors are immediately notified so system and system visibility monitoring continues without interruption. All of this can be managed in real time from a single management console and a simple graphical interface. It's easy to see how this centralization and automation of management saves a lot of time and money, because all of these relatively dull and boring parameters are automatically and precisely implemented across the network. But in practice, it is the reduction in human error that constitutes the most important savings.