Enterprise data centers rarely stay “clean” over time—growth, acquisitions, and shifting priorities tend to leave IT teams managing a patchwork of platforms, tools, and operational models. For Nokia IT, that legacy complexity translated into a heterogeneous network estate that was difficult to operate and, at times, prone to lengthy outages that impacted mission-critical workloads.
To regain reliability and operational control, Nokia IT moved toward a modern, automation-first fabric approach—prioritizing simplified operations, a “network as code” mindset, and predictable, testable changes using digital-twin validation. The objective was not just modernization, but a repeatable operating model that could scale globally across data centers and workloads.
In our latest report, Nokia’s Global Data Center Network Migration: From Legacy Complexity to Automated, Reliable Operations, completed in partnership with Nokia, Futurum Research examines Nokia IT’s brownfield migration approach and early production outcomes—consolidating onto a data center fabric built on Nokia switches, the SR Linux network operating system, and the Event-Driven Automation (EDA) platform. The initial deployments delivered measurable results, including an approximate 80% reduction in network-related incidents, validating both the architecture and phased execution model.
In this report, you will learn:
To regain reliability and operational control, Nokia IT moved toward a modern, automation-first fabric approach—prioritizing simplified operations, a “network as code” mindset, and predictable, testable changes using digital-twin validation. The objective was not just modernization, but a repeatable operating model that could scale globally across data centers and workloads.
In our latest report, Nokia’s Global Data Center Network Migration: From Legacy Complexity to Automated, Reliable Operations, completed in partnership with Nokia, Futurum Research examines Nokia IT’s brownfield migration approach and early production outcomes—consolidating onto a data center fabric built on Nokia switches, the SR Linux network operating system, and the Event-Driven Automation (EDA) platform. The initial deployments delivered measurable results, including an approximate 80% reduction in network-related incidents, validating both the architecture and phased execution model.
In this report, you will learn:
- What drove Nokia IT’s transformation, including the operational risks of multi-vendor complexity and long outages
- The modernization principles Nokia used to guide design choices (simplicity, automation-first operations, global consistency)
- How digital-twin validation helps reduce “blast radius” uncertainty and enables safer, more predictable change management
- What Nokia learned from a phased, parallel-fabric migration approach—up to and including zero unplanned outages caused by the new network during migration
- The early operational outcomes and why they matter (incident reduction, fewer chronic disruptions, and more confident continuous changes)
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Author Information
Mitch Ashley is VP and Practice Lead for the CIO & Technology Buyers and Software Lifecycle Engineering practices at The Futurum Group. A multi-time CIO and CTO with 30+ years leading technical organizations, Mitch built and operated production systems spanning cybersecurity for the U.S. Department of Defense, PKI services for the broadband and 5G industries, SaaS platforms, large-scale telecom and banking systems, and a national broadband network. His work with AI began early, developing expert systems that diagnosed and repaired complex mainframe environments. That operator foundation grounds his analysis in operational consequence, covering the technology buyer's world of software engineering, cybersecurity, DevOps, cloud, and AI.
