An Opengear study found that 87% of network managers, network architects, and network engineers in the UK, the U.S., France, and Germany say their organisations have increased their investment in network operations (NetOps) over the past two years. What’s more, nearly half (48%) of the respondents report spending increases of around 50% or more. Only 5% report that their organizations have decreased NetOps spending.
NetOps 2.0, the current iteration, embeds a growing amount of automation, virtualization, and orchestration to improve the speed and accessibility of networking operations, rapidly establishing itself as fundamental to network management. An overwhelming majority (97%) of respondents regard it as somewhat or very important to network infrastructure planning.
Underscoring the importance of the network, digital transformation was identified by 23% of respondents as the biggest driver of NetOps and network automation. Other major drivers included a need to achieve performance improvements (17%), a growing focus on the importance of business continuity (16%) and cost savings (16%).
Unsurprisingly, when asked to rank network-management issues they were most focused on implementing over the next 12 months, respondents cited NetOps functionality (54%) and network automation (28%) at the top.
“With engineers unable to visit sites and network teams confined to their homes, the pandemic has clearly played a part in the drive to invest in NetOps,” said Gary Marks, president of Opengear. “However, the manifest benefits of greater agility, improved performance, and lower costs have built market momentum. We expect spending on NetOps and network automation solutions to continue to ramp up in the years to come and will explore this in detail during our upcoming automation week event.”
About Opengear
Opengear, a Digi International company, delivers secure, resilient access and automation to critical IT infrastructure, even when the network is down. Provisioning, orchestration, and remote management of network devices, through innovative software and appliances, enable technical staff to manage data centers and remote network locations reliably and efficiently. Opengear’s business continuity solutions are trusted by global organizations across financial, digital communications, retail, and manufacturing industries. The company is headquartered in New Jersey, with R&D centers in Silicon Valley and Brisbane, Australia. Opengear was acquired by Digi International in 2019, bringing together two organizations with a deep commitment to providing the best products, software, and services that meet the demands of mission-critical networks. Both companies continue to build and support strong customer relationships. For more information, please visit www.opengear.com.
About Digi International
Digi International (NASDAQ: DGII) is a leading global provider of business and mission-critical Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity products and solutions. We help our customers create next-generation connected products and solutions to deploy, monitor, and manage critical communications infrastructures and compliance standards in demanding environments with high levels of security, relentless reliability, and bulletproof performance. Founded in 1985, the company has helped customers connect more than 100 million things – and counting. For more information, visit www.digi.com
