NAF’s AutoCon4: Where Technology, Strategy, and Business Case Converge

All the Pieces

Network Automation Forum’s AutoCon Conferences are helping us put all the pieces together.

With every AutoCon Conference the network automation landscape is brought into sharper focus. AutoCon4 (AC4) in particular really dialed it in.

Exceptional content around products, strategies, lessons learned, and more is what we have come to expect. AC4 set the bar even higher by introducing the Leadership track and an Advanced Track. More Advanced content was inevitable but the Leadership track was a bold move and really showcases NAF's commitment to moving network automation forward.

As a community, Network Engineers tend to not get excited (radical understatement here) about budgets and business cases.

You know...all the things that could make a business or service impacting automation project a reality and a success.

Its more than the technology

Yes, young Luke and Princess Lea, always and only about the technology, it is not.

Budgets & Business Case

It is no accident that just before AC4, EIA's leadership series by Anthony Martin published "Budget Cognizance" or "How Butch & Sundance failed to get their automation project approved and so turned to a life of crime". Despite its timely message, the article attracted limited attention. A comprehensive history of corporate expense policy might have generated more interest among the network engineering community.

So now we turn to the AutoCon4 keynote by Jeff Gray from Gluware who opens up AC4 with the budget perspective and pragmatic examples of how to build your business case. Another gutsy move. I mean the Leadership track OK but the Keynote?! The next keynote might as well be about documentation!

Network Automation Framework

On the heels of Jeff's Keynote, we had Dinesh Dutt (filling in for Ryan Shaw) present the NAF Network Automation Framework. An automation framework sponsored by NAF to help network practicioners work through the various functional components of Network Automation.

We have all the pieces!

Yes, the technology can be daunting but we won't get far if we can't articulate what problem we are solving (and how) and more importantly how solving it will benefit the company (with some real numbers).

What do I do with them?

These pieces will help us answer the questions Anthony put to us in his Budget Cognizance conclusion:

Conclusion

So keep some of this in the back of your mind when management gets very interested in your pitch for a great (development, automation, etc.) idea, but doesn't immediately commit funds to getting it done.

As soon as you present your idea, be prepared to answer the following:

Is this just you doing the project (a single FTE) or do you need support from other groups (internal or external), even part-time

Why did you decide to build (or buy)

What resources are you going to need (tools, computers, licences, hosting, etc, etc, etc)

How long will this “really” take

After you complete your project, what is your plan for on-going maintenance, operations, support

WHAT IS THE BENEFIT OF THIS PROJECT TO THE ORGANIZATION?

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON’T GET THE FUNDING

If you don’t take budget cycles and planning into consideration and make them work for you and if you are not ready to answer clearly and crisply the above questions, you and your project will be tagging along with Butch and Sundance to Bolivia.

Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid in Bolivia

Personal Productivity vs Organizational Service

So decision number one, are you working on automation for professional growth and your own personal productivity or something with more impact for your organization? Personal productivity is a fine goal and many of us got started this way. This type of automation is often done on your own time and is not typically presented to management with a financial business case.

This individual "I am going to use automation to execute some of my tasks" may be a first step but it will not achieve the impact and advantages of network automation at the business level . To do that you need to think about your network automation intitiative as a software development project offering an organizational service.

So to move forward with an Organizational Service, we will need to answer the questions above and then put some numbers behind it.

NAFs Network Automation Framework Solution Wizard

The NAF Network Automation Framework will help you think through your project so you can answer the questions above and so you can start putting together the costs and benefits for a business case to present to management.

We have put together a little App to help you craft this business case narrative.

This is a quick proof of concept to gauge usefulness.

You can preview it here on Streamlit.app or spin it up yourself from this repository.

If this proves useful, we have a financial business case wizard we are working on modeled after EIA's own experience and Jeff's excellent AutoCon4 Keynote.