the networking industry has a hot new
buzzword intent-based networking what is
intent-based networking and why should
you care
intent-based networking represents the
next evolution of network software
management intent-based networking or
Ibn uses machine learning and advanced
orchestration to reduce the complexity
of managing and maintaining network
policies managing networks has always
been a complex process teams of network
administrators have been responsible for
managing network equipment provisioning
user access configuring policies and
ensuring the system is doing what it's
supposed to many admins use command-line
interfaces to control their networks
unfortunately this way of managing the
network does not scale very well the
idea of Ibn is that the network
administrator simply tell the network
what their intent is and the network
automatically implements it the Ibn
configures the network hardware if the
network changes for example if a new
firewall is added or a new Ram link is
created the IBM will change with it to
maintain the intent think of a hospital
with a network carrying sensitive
patient information using an intent
based networking system network
administrators could dictate their
intent that only doctors and nurses are
able to interact with sensitive patient
data and no other users have access the
ibn automatically recognizes the
identity of the doctor and enforces the
access policy the security implications
of Ibn are promising the ibn ingests the
intent of the network administrator and
can automatically maintain security
policies this frees up the network
security administrators to focus on
instant response rather than
implementing policies intent based
networking is still in the very early
days of development there are a plethora
of startups and big name vendors that
are developing IBM technology some
believe it could be the next
revolutionary step in network management
and that means it could be coming to a
network near you someday soon
you
