Why automate network management?

How we design data centers has radically changed in the last 30 years. In the 90s, a typical data center was full of physical machines, each with a particular purpose. In many companies, the servers were bought from different vendors based on the purpose of the machine. This meant that every time there was a need for new servers, network devices, and storage devices, those devices were bought, provisioned, configured, and delivered.

The big drawback here was the significant lag between identifying the need for the server and its delivery. At the time, this was acceptable since most companies had very few systems, and they tended to change very rarely. Also, this approach was costly as a lot of devices were underutilized.

With the progress of society and companies in the world of technology, it has become necessary for companies to get more efficiency from their infrastructure and cut their infrastructure deployment time and costs. These new requirements...