Cisco Cisco DWDM Transceiver Modules White Paper

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What You Will Learn

This document examines the increased importance of automation and programmability capabilities in the network.

It explores the various trends in the data center that necessitate flexible control of the underlying infrastructure:

from the emergence of modern self-service IT to increased use of continuous integration using development and

operations (DevOps) models. It discusses the automation and programmability demands on the network as a result

of these trends and describes the comprehensive support for these capabilities on the new Cisco Nexus

9000

Series Switches.

Automation and Programmability

Data center strategy has become a critical part of business strategy overall. Today, more than ever, the ways and

means of IT deployment can make the difference between an efficient, successful organization and an inefficient

one. That is because today IT applications and services support increasing numbers of business operations and

create competitive differentiation in many industries. However, the resulting proliferation of applications and their

underlying server, storage, and networking technologies is placing increasingly greater burdens on IT staff,

demanding more from IT than ever before. One of the major burdens is the management of this complex IT

environment, with considerable staff time needed to configure, deploy, and manage application infrastructure.

A recent IDC study shows just how heavy this burden has become. IT decision makers report that approximately

three-quarters (76.8 percent) of IT staff time and resources is spent maintaining existing environments, and less

than one-quarter (23.2 percent) of staff time is spent on value-added activities (Figure 1). Analysis of the

maintenance portion reveals the following:

●

24 percent of staff time and resources is consumed by presystem deployment.

●

23 percent of staff time and resources is consumed by turning on and preparing systems for applications.

●

29 percent of the remaining time is spent monitoring and maintaining the IT infrastructure, including

performing patch management, health monitoring, software and application updating, analysis, and

troubleshooting.

Figure 1. IT Staff Time and Resources Distribution