Analyst(s): Ron Westfall
Publication Date: November 15, 2024
Itential’s new Automation Service can expedite how NetDevOps engineers standardize, execute, and securely share infrastructure automations across teams.
What is Covered in this Article:
- Itential’s new automation solution combines cloud-enabled self-service with redefined gateway capabilities.
- Itential Automation Service can allow NetDevOps teams to streamline operations and standardize automation across their infrastructure.
- Enable network engineers to focus on building automations without the burden of setup or troubleshooting.
The News: Itential launches new automation as a service offering to standardize, execute, and securely share infrastructure automations.
NFD36: Itential Ups Network Automation Intentions with Automation Service Debut
Analyst Take: Itential, a provider of automation and orchestration software for hybrid cloud network infrastructure, announced at Networking Field Day 36 the general availability of its new Automation Service designed to help NetDevOps engineers standardize, execute, and securely share infrastructure automations across teams. With consumption-based pricing and a 30-day free trial, the service can make it easy for organizations to get started quickly and scale flexibly as needs grow.
In the current networking landscape, NetDevOps teams face a dilemma: they either sacrifice time managing and maintaining virtual environments or more complex custom operational stacks to enable others to execute their automations, or they spend valuable hours manually running scripts in response to tickets. As teams progress in their automation journey, the challenge of operationalizing automation intensifies rather than diminishes. Script proliferation has emerged as a significant hurdle for teams with expanding network automation libraries.
While there’s an unprecedented number of network engineers leveraging tools such as Python and Ansible, the task of managing and operationalizing a vast collection of automations across an organization is fundamentally different from sharing a handful of scripts among developers. This complexity arises from various factors, including:
- The time and effort required to operationalize automations
- A lack of standardization across network infrastructure
- The challenge of building resilient and scalable systems
- The intricacies of managing access control in distributed, hybrid network environments.
Itential’s new service is engineered to allow teams to bypass these obstacles. I find that Itential offers a streamlined experience and a scalable framework that provides automation builders with the flexibility they need while ensuring automation consumers have the necessary access and ease to execute these automations effortlessly.
Network Automation Landscape Overview and Prospects
Network automation is a journey. As a result, measuring the direction of network automation requires a multi-year perspective. This includes recognizing that many organizations report completing network automation projects although that does not necessarily mean the attainment of an automated network. For example, network automation projects are completed within a specific unit or set of units although not on an organization-wide basis. The journey can prove incremental and fragmented.
Factoring in such considerations has some bearing on understanding the direction of network automation. For example, in organizations that report completed projects, about 57% of all network tasks are still manual, meaning only 43% are automated today. However, that’s changing as respondents perceive that in two years, the scales will tip toward automation: 66% of network management tasks will be automated by 2026 (according to EMA).
This also aligns with network automation trends that EMA identified, and Itential shared in the announcement indicating that 100% of enterprises use at least one vendor-supported network automation solution, while 95% also leverage DIY tools. Both approaches play essential roles – DIY automation offers flexibility but can be difficult to scale, with teams often spending 3 to 30 hours per week maintaining and debugging scripts.
Vendor solutions complement these efforts by providing security, scalability, deeper functionality, and integration, helping enterprises extend automation efficiently across their operations. Itential aims squarely at augmenting enterprise DIY initiatives. How so?
Itential Automation Service Aims to Innovate Enterprise Network Automation
Itential Cloud’s Automation Service is designed to streamline how enterprises onboard, define, and execute automations. The essence of its new automation service offering is an all-new Itential Automation Gateway (IAG), which offers dynamic execution environments for Python scripts, Ansible Playbooks, and OpenTofu Plans. With IAG, automation developers can build automations using whatever tool suits the job, store them in a Git repository, and then pull those automations down from the repo to create services around them for others to consume.
A virtual environment is generated at runtime when a consumer goes to run that automation, and any changes to the script itself are immediately reflected in the service offering through Git. NetDevOps teams who adopt Itential’s automation service can expedite their evolution from consumers of automation to producers of value-creating services.
Itential Ready to Transform NetDevOps
The Automation Service debut follows on the recent launch of Itential’s free automation gateway tool torero – an agile automation execution system that empowers engineers to create user-friendly services incorporating Python scripts, Ansible Playbooks, and OpenTofu Plans. This approach enables team members with limited programming expertise to swiftly and securely implement these automated processes.
In my view, Itential’s new automation service can bridge the gaps between producing automation and consuming automation. It is designed to enable automation developers to use the full capabilities of an automation gateway for operationalizing their automations, while allowing automation consumers to independently access productized services without requiring any development skills.
The new service is a set of capabilities designed to enable NetDevOps teams to increase automation footprint and drive greater efficiency for the larger organization while being streamlined, cost-effective, and easy to adopt. Managing access across scripts, libraries, and environments can become more organized and efficient. Itential offers governance with role-based access controls that can ensure only authorized users can view, manage, and execute automations. By incorporating encryption, authentication, and comprehensive auditing, organizations can minimize risks, ensure compliance, and secure their automation processes.
When linked to Itential Cloud, automations transform into reusable services with standardized inputs, enabling operators to access them independently without needing to grasp the underlying code. This allows developers to concentrate on building, while teams can securely implement automations promptly.
Itential is better positioned to compete against solutions such as Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Red Hat Ansible is developed to help reduce the strain on IT resources and support efficient operations through interactive quickstart guides, the generation of Ansible playbooks using IBM watsonx Code Assistant, and an Ansible development tools package to aid in the creation of automation. Now Itential Automation Service gives NetDevOps teams more competitive leverage and options to advance their network automation journeys.
Looking Ahead
In my view, Itential gains immediate differentiation by providing a distinct approach to automation by creating individualized, temporary runtime environments that are instantly generated, single use, and consistently reliable. The Automation Service solution can ensure that scripts can be executed immediately or scheduled for future use, with the assurance of identical performance across different contexts and timeframes. Through Git synchronization and centralized management, Itential can minimize complex configuration challenges, maintaining up-to-date and well-functioning automations.
Overall, I believe Itential can transform automation management by converting diverse scripts into organized, service-oriented frameworks. This approach standardizes automations created with various tools such as Ansible, Python, or OpenTofu, providing uniform inputs for streamlined administration and execution. Moreover, the platform can allow engineers to develop automations using their preferred tools, while simultaneously enabling operations teams to utilize these services without grappling with the intricacies of the underlying code.
This separation of concerns can augment efficiency and collaboration across teams. Through unifying and structuring automations, Itential addresses the challenge of script proliferation. The result is a more cohesive, manageable automation ecosystem that bridges the gap between development and operations, fostering a more agile and responsive IT environment.
See the complete press release on the Itential website.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
