Helping CTOs navigate SDN, Cloud, and IoT

“We are introducing a model intended to help CTOs and network operators evaluate and differentiate the maturity of IBN solutions with an objective set of criteria, beginning with Level 0 (low maturity/incomplete) offerings going up to Level 3 (mature/complete) offerings which enable companies to leverage full benefits of an IBN approach,” said Sasha Ratkovic, CTO and Founder of Apstra.

The lBN model addresses:

Level 0 IBN: Basic Automation

These offerings have the ability to:

• Generate device configurations from declarative specifications. For example: scripts running Ansible modules or other declarative libraries such as NAPALM.

• Support a heterogeneous infrastructure.
• Ingest real-time network status in a protocol- and transport-agnostic way.

At this level there is no presence of a single source of truth, which is a fundamental aspect of a mature IBN implementation, as it enables reasoning whether or not the intent has been met.

Level 1 IBN: Single Source of Truth

An implementation classified as Level 1 implements a single source of truth containing the intent and the network operational state. It contains data and state artifacts related to all aspects of a network service lifecycle: design, build, deploy, and validate. Level 1 can give you answers to important questions about the state of your intent and your infrastructure.

Level 2 IBN: Real-Time Change Validation

Building on top of Level 1, Level 2 IBN solution enables you to ask the right questions, at the right time to help assess the impact of business rule or policy changes, as well as the operational status changes and failures in real time.

Level 3 IBN:

 

Does the IBN solution validate and close the loop between the intent and operational state by providing observability, and deliver corrective actions on a path to self-operating networks? This step is impossible to tackle if one has not built solid foundations in Levels 2 and 3.