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Key Takeaways
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- Take a pragmatic approach to automating network operations activities, starting with routine tasks that deliver quick wins.
- Employ the DX NetOps Action Pack to automate a range of workflows.
- Leverage automation to boost operational efficiency, speed resolution, and reduce risk.
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For years, automation has held the promise of transforming network operations. According to an EMA report, through network automation, decision makers expect to improve operational efficiency (33%), reduce security risk (32%), improve compliance (29%), and reduce costs (27%).
Given this potential, it’s no surprise that, according to EMA analysts, automation ranks among the top three investment priorities in 40% of organizations. Gartner analysts estimate that, by 2026, 30% of organizations will automate more than half of their network activities.
However, despite the enthusiasm and investment, many teams have struggled to achieve the anticipated benefits of automated network operations. As a result, network teams continue to be burdened with repetitive tasks, leaving little time for the strategic initiatives that build business value.
A pragmatic approach to automation
To overcome these challenges, teams must take a pragmatic approach, starting with simple automation tasks that deliver quick wins and lay the foundation for more advanced implementations. Rather than aiming for full-scale automation immediately, teams can start with routine activities like opening a ticket, escalating a ticket, closing a ticket, or enriching alarms. As their automation practices mature, teams can expand into more advanced use cases, such as dynamically provisioning computing power to virtual network functions.
Introducing DX NetOps Action Pack
Today, Broadcom offers the advanced solutions that give network operations teams a fast, pragmatic way to start employing automation. Broadcom delivers these offerings:
- DX NetOps. DX NetOps provides comprehensive, end-to-end network visibility, offering the actionable insights necessary to inform automation. Through advanced pattern detection, DX NetOps identifies network anomalies and issues that require remediation.
- Automic Automation. Automic Automation is a service orchestration and automation platform designed to unify automation across today’s diverse IT environments, spanning on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure.
- DX NetOps Action Pack. The DX NetOps Action Pack enables customers to harness the combined power of DX NetOps and Automic to automate a range of workflows.
Based on data aggregated, correlated, and analyzed, DX NetOps provides advanced pattern detection that’s a key building block for automation. With the DX NetOps Action Pack, this information can be used to fuel intelligent ticket augmentation and routing.
The action pack makes it easy to automate the repetitive tasks and standard operating procedures that currently consume so much staff time. This offering is now available on the Automation Marketplace, which features hundreds of integrations.
Advantages of the DX NetOps Action Pack
By adopting the DX NetOps Action Pack, organizations can:
- Enhance operational efficiency and reduce manual workload.
- Accelerate root cause analysis and minimize mean time to resolution (MTTR).
- Reduce risk by ensuring quick, data-driven responses to network incidents.
- Automate repetitive tasks such as active testing, health checks, and alarm enrichment.
Consider a scenario in which a network operator notices a Cisco vManage device, an SD-WAN management system, has stopped responding to network polls. Traditionally, the administrator would manually run diagnostics, consult knowledge bases, and create a ticket. With the DX NetOps Action Pack, many of these steps can be automated.
Capabilities and workflows
Here are a few types of workflows that can be supported via the DX NetOps Action Pack:
- Health check. Automic can run an automated health check to determine if an issue exists. If the device is operational, an automated email can be sent that informs the team that no action is needed. If an issue is detected, the system can trigger further actions, such as opening a ServiceNow ticket.
- Alarm enrichment. If a ticket is created, the action pack can automatically enrich it with insights from DX NetOps and from the automated health check, including a direct link to the executed health check workflow.
- Conditional job execution. Based on the data gathered, the system can initiate additional tasks, such as an SSH login to the affected device and execution of predefined remediation actions.
Conclusion
For network operations teams looking to unlock the true potential of automation, the DX NetOps Action Pack provides a practical and powerful solution. With this offering, teams can establish intelligent ticket augmentation, automate routine network tasks, and speed incident resolution. This enables organizations to achieve greater efficiency, reduce operational costs, and free up valuable resources for strategic initiatives. Now available on the Automation Marketplace, the DX NetOps Action Pack is a key enabler for modern network automation strategies.
To learn more, be sure to view our Small Bytes webcast introducing the DX NetOps Action Pack.
