While network automation tools can help infrastructure and operations (I&O) teams improve their agility, lower their costs, and reduce the risk of manual errors, network management stubbornly remains a largely manual process. According to a recent Gartner report, less than 35% of enterprise network activities are automated today, forcing enterprises to run largely using a ClickOps model.

While your approach to network operations (NetOps) is critical to business performance, the challenges of managing the needs of a modern network can keep Infrastructure & Operations (I&O) teams from helping their organization reach its full potential. Here’s what you need to know about NetOps to meet those challenges head on.

As 5G technology advances in power and sophistication, telcos are encountering a new span of challenges. 5G network complexity, coupled with a spiraling volume of data traffic, raises barriers for telco companies seeking to smoothly manage their networks and sustain consistent quality of service (QoS). But a solution is now easily within reach.

Today’s Cognitive Network Operations Center (Cognitive NOC) is a significant advancement that employs artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to dramatically modernize and improve network management and operations. Working together, the NOC and IT Process Automation (ITPA) propel superior efficiency and effectiveness of network operations, minimize downtime, lower operational costs, and overcome additional challenges in optimizing network performance.

The true financial harm of downtime is significant. As of Aug 11, 2022, each minute costs an average of $9,000, according to the Ponemon Institute, raising the downtime cost per hour to over $500,000. It goes without saying that network outages hurt revenue, kill productivity, and harm the corporate brand, as well as the reputations of professionals who may be dragged into the mess.

Between on-premises data centers and private, public, and hybrid clouds, today's networks have never leveraged a more comprehensive range of technologies, nor have those technologies been this interconnected. The result is that networks are now far more capable than ever before, and are able to augment their capabilities by leveraging other technologies to their highest and best use.

Complex environments are notorious for generating a high volume of alerts. For IT teams, this deluge presents a critical, time-consuming challenge. Managing alerts and incident response keeps these busy professionals under constant pressure and risks alert fatigue. Nonstop “noise” can desensitize people and actually lead to missed or ignored alerts—risking delayed responses and downtime. These high stakes make handling alerts a key security and productivity issue.

The current state of the economy has left many companies in a state of uncertainty, with 58% of business leaders feeling the pressure of too many initiatives to be supported without the right resources. While these companies look for ways to stay competitive and, in many instances, to accomplish more with less, compromising on delivering high-quality experiences is not an option, particularly in a world where fast, seamless digital experiences have become the norm.

Even in the most structured environments with clear operational strategies, complexity build-up in infrastructure and operations is unavoidable as businesses grow. To help these environments thrive in a consistent, reliable way, it’s vital to optimize the IT function: the backbone that supports every business application and ensures service excellence across all other functions. Automating operations is the only way for IT to scale and support today’s business demands.

Operations management—whether IT, business, sales, marketing, etc.—has four essential main objectives: And in any industry, those objectives are driven by the most important goal, which is to generate revenue for the organization. While every single task or implementation may not directly impact revenue, the outcome of small improvements over time can be substantial. After a Google search for motivational quotes, I stumbled on James Clear’s “power of tiny gains” concept.