Is Cisco Software Defined Access Intent Based Networking?

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about intent based networking – trying to define it – identifying its core tenets. Without a library of IETF drafts to go by, I listened to vendors explain their platforms, I read their whitepapers, I explored their solutions trying to figure out the commonalities among them and pinpoint exactly what they were all really trying to do.

I believe I came to a pretty good conclusion. IBN is a closed loop system of analytics, orchestration, and continuous validation. And in that process micro-configuration is abstracted from the network operator and replaced with higher level macro-configurations otherwise known as “intent.”

Using that definition, is Cisco Software Defined Access intent based networking?

Continue reading “Is Cisco Software Defined Access Intent Based Networking?”

Intent Based Networking Hype: Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

I got very interested in intent based networking a few years ago when the term was relatively unknown. However, in the last year or so the term has been adopted by a variety of networking vendors and applied to technologies that I believe have very little to do with intent based networking.

The term has become part of the current marketing narrative leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of many engineers and technical individuals. However, I believe it’s very important to consider that intent based networking is not simply the use of a new buzzword by networking vendors. IBN stands on its own as a new networking paradigm, despite it being hijacked by marketing teams.

Continue reading “Intent Based Networking Hype: Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater”

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