04/22/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 04/22/2024 07:07
I often get brought into meetings when a customer starts talking "DevOps". We'll discuss everything from infrastructure-as-code, automation, and continuous integration, to network as a service (NaaS), cloud, and all things modernization. Regardless of what we cover, the customer "wants" always tend to be consistent; predictable pricing, minimal risk, and (most importantly) to move faster. Once the meeting is over, I usually get the same question. "So, what do I need to buy?"
This is when the hard conversation actually starts. It's not necessarily from the customers perspective, but from our Cisco account team's perspective. The answer to their question is "technically, nothing." But after fifteen seconds of awkward silence, someone will respond with "what do you mean?" and justifiably so.
Here's why I answer with that . . . we can "software-define" and "as a service" just about anything. We're dedicated to our customers and we will figure out how to get the right gear from our factory to your warehouse as fast as you need it. Unfortunately, none of that really matters if you don't transform the way you operate the network. Of course, deployment is a key part of the process but truly transforming operations tends to be the much bigger challenge.
Let's put this in context of eliminating technical debt. Say we have a hypothetical government agency that has 30,000 devices going end-of-support in six months. This puts them at-risk. No support means no software patches - which means security gaps.
Unfortunately, their existing processes put them at eighteen months to refresh all 30,000 devices (not including procurement, award, lead times, etc). Now they're looking at closer to twenty months, which means well over a year that their agency is operating at-risk. This gets people's attention, often resulting in an all hands-on deck approach accompanied by a big check, replacing like-for-like while leveraging automation to deploy. Assuming everything goes off without a hitch, they'll get everything deployed. But even if they meet the six month at-risk window, what happens during the next end-of-support announcement?
You can keep kicking that can down the road but can you ever break the cycle? I believe you can and suggest the following steps to transform your operations before the risks appears:
Now that we've addressed moving faster and minimizing risk through data governance and testing, what about predictable cost models? Going back to our technical debt example, by fully separating the data from the infrastructure and focusing on managing the data itself, not the devices, we've unlocked your ability to consume technology as fast as you can field it.
This means models like hardware-as-a-service or subscription become financially beneficial. The best part, you own the data, so you are no longer locked into any single technology. There may be some details missing above since we have limited space, so I invite you to reach out to me personally to discuss. Until then, I encourage you to check out our latest in-depth newsletter titled Charting a New Course: Transforming Government Networks for the Digital Era. It features Gartner® research and also covers key issues and strategies that can help your agency tackle technical debt to modernize your mission networks, explores the Hype Cycle™ for Infrastructure Strategy, and how to modernize infrastructure platforms and operating models in support of digital foundations.
Notes:
Gartner, Hype Cycle for Infrastructure Strategy, 2023, Philip Dawson, Nathan Hill, 25 July 2023.
Gartner, Modernizing Infrastructure Platforms and Operating Models in Support of Digital Foundations, Dennis Smith, 7 June 2023.
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