Latest / Connectivity Without Chaos - The Podcast / Your Network Is Stealing Time, Talent and Capital From IT

Transcript

Your Network Is Stealing Time, Talent and Capital From IT · Connectivity Without Chaos - The Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Imagine paying full sticker price for a luxury car, right?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: But you completely ignore the fact that it breaks down every time you hit the highway.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: You're just stranded on the shoulder.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: That is exactly what happens with enterprise networking today.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it really is.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: Organizations,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: they generally know their exact invoice costs for things like firewalls
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: and access points,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: but they completely miss the massive hidden costs,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: of digging through logs or running routine firmware updates or even paying engineers
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: to travel to remote sites just to troubleshoot the Wi-Fi.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: It adds up fast.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: It says what we call the hidden IT tax.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: And today's mission for this deep dive is to look into the true economics
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: of your network to figure out how to eliminate it.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the traditional IP model is remarkably good at obscuring that tax.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you look at a typical IT dashboard, it usually just shows a wall of green.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just a wall of green.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: The switches are up.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The firewall is running.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: The Internet circuit is active.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So according to the metrics, the car is running perfectly.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, but if the firewall is running and the switch is actually on,
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: aren't those IT metrics technically accurate?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, why are we blaming the dashboard if
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: the equipment is doing exactly what it's supposed to do?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because technical accuracy doesn't always equal a working system for the user.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, fair point.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right, a switch might be powered on,
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: but your users are still dealing with So how do we bridge that gap?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: relying on vague support tickets that just say the Wi-Fi is broken where
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: the issue mysteriously vanishes before IT even investigates,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: that is clearly not working.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: The solution is continuous experience validation.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: The sources highlight systems like Provisions Healthy RF for this.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, interesting.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so instead of just pinging a router to see if it responds,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: it continuously tests the network specifically from the user's perspective.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: How does it actually do that though?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Is it just like looking at network traffic?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It goes a lot deeper by using software sensors that essentially mimic
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: a real human trying to connect.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: It constantly tests the crucial background services like DHCP,
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: which is the system that hands out IP addresses,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: and DNS, which acts as the internet's phone book.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I see.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it does this continuously even when nobody is actively reporting a problem.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning you can find the root cause of an issue remotely.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Before you ever have to put your expensive technical talent on an airplane
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: to go check out a remote office.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: You stop asking, hey,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: can we reproduce the error and start acting on the data of what happened when
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: the user actually experienced the error?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: That makes a ton of sense.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: You solve the problem before anyone gets in a truck.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: But changing how we troubleshoot really just highlights a deeper issue
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: with how we buy this technology in the first place.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: The ownership model itself.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the traditional networking cycle is a trap.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: You buy, install, monitor, troubleshoot, maintain, refresh, and then you just repeat.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but isn't that just how hardware works?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you buy it,
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: it gets old,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: you replace it,
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: it requires huge capital expenditures or CapEx every few years,
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: but like, what is the alternative to that cycle?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a modern approach called network as a service.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of buying hardware outright and taking on the burden of its aging process,
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: you buy a guaranteed outcome.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: A guaranteed outcome.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: The cycle shifts to consume, operate, evolve, and continue.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Equipment replacement just becomes part of a predictable operating expense.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: But wait,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: if an organization outsources this day-to-day operation to a service,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: does their internal IT team just disappear?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Are we talking about replacing people here?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Moving to network as a service transfers the technology lifecycle risk away from you.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: It actually gives your internal IT organization immense leverage
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: because they are no longer bogged down by the daily grind of keeping the lights on.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: So the return on investment isn't just about getting the discount on routers and switches.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: True ROI is measured in an organization's three most precious resources,
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: which are time, talent, and capital.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: The most valuable thing a modern network provides isn't bandwidth at all.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's capacity.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: every dollar committed to a traditional network refresh is capital you can't use for
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: a strategic initiative.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And every hour an engineer spends digging through logs is
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: an hour they aren't building something new.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: So if your highly skilled IT team wasn't forced to babysit that routine maintenance,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: what could they actually be doing with that reclaimed capacity?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they finally get to focus on high value priorities.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Things that actually drive
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: the business forward like Building advanced cybersecurity defenses,
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: launching AI initiatives, or accelerating cloud modernization.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: That is huge.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: The network doesn't become less important.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: It simply becomes less demanding.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: That makes a lot of sense.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: We started this deep dive by comparing traditional networking to buying a luxury car
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: and ignoring the cost of being constantly stranded
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: on the shoulder.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great analogy.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: When you stop buying the hardware and start buying the outcome,
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: you finally get to enjoy the drive.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll leave you with this to think about.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: If treating your network as a consumable service frees up your top technical talent
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: to drive the business forward,
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: what other traditional systems
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: in your organization are you needlessly babysitting instead of simply consuming
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: the outcome?