Organisations drag their heels on network automation

Nearly half of IT managers are being hit by network problems every month thanks to human error. That’s according to a survey carried out by research company EMA which found that 80% of US companies had at least one error per month.

The EMA survey found that on average, companies are correcting five to six errors a month and the problem is set to get worse. The move to IPv6, virtualisation and cloud computing will increase the complexity of networks and lead to more configuration errors.

Jim Frey, director of network management research at EMA, said, “I am afraid many organisations are primed for a rude awaking when they attempt to broadly take advantage of virtualisation applications; the amount of change in the network and real-time requirements will be daunting for IT representatives to tackle without the necessary automation tools in place.”

The move to IPv6 may prove to be particularly disruptive – according to the EMA survey, sponsored by Infoblox, only 43% of organisations have begun their transition to IPv6, even though the last block of IPv4 addresses have just been sent to the regional registries.

Despite the widespread acceptance of the importance of network automation, companies are being slow to implement the technology. According to the survey, only 14% of companies have automated more than half of their daily administrative tasks although 74% of managers agreed that it offered greater stability.