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Introduction
Change is hard – and organizational change is even harder. But if you want to be successful, change is also a necessity. With it, you gain the ability to:
- Quickly adapt and grow
- Foster creativity
- Improve efficiencies
- Become more resilient
- Develop new skills and practices
Although change can present challenges and disruptions, it also carries significant potential, paving the way for positive transformation. At Nile, we understand that our as-a-service model requires adjustments to how your network is designed, purchased, procured, deployed, and managed. But if the right organizational changes are addressed, we know the benefits far outweigh the effort.
Like other cloud and as-a-service models that have proven transformational within other areas of enterprise IT, that same success can be replicated across your network. With Nile, you achieve significantly improved TCO, resource optimization, automation and AI networking, security, and scalability in a service that was born in the cloud. In just five steps, let’s look at how you can best prepare for a successful transition to the Nile Access Service.
1. Transition network budgets to flexible expenditure
Traditional IT models have long required significant upfront investments. This typically involves lengthy planning and budgeting phases to identify and prioritize projects needing attention. IT teams must also spend significant time and effort evaluating various architecture and vendor options to find the ideal solution for the organization.
However, that ideal technology implementation is rarely achieved as concessions often must be made that fit within expected capital budget allocations. From a network standpoint, this entails discarding beneficial features – or gradually refreshing the network over multiple years. In either case, the results are less than desirable.
Transitioning to Nile, on the other hand, allows organizations to adapt a “pay-as-you-go” model as default, where IT spending is procured on a consumption basis. This comes with tremendous benefits, including:
- predictable spending,
- faster time-to-value,
- service guarantees,
- improved innovation and end-user experience, and
- lower IT operations workload.
Making the shift from CAPEX to OPEX for network procurement requires planning and buy-in from multiple organizational departments and roles. For organizations who want to continue to adopt upfront capital expense for a certain period or for a certain number of sites, that’s perfectly doable during this transition period. A methodical approach to achieving this goal is warranted and consists of the following;
Evaluate current network investments
The first step in this process is to evaluate your current network infrastructure’s operational state and value. This includes creating a network asset inventory of all hardware, software licensing, and support contracts.
Once the inventory is complete, assess the age (end-of-sales/end-of-support status), equipment performance capabilities, and license and contract lifespans. This will help you better understand the network’s current value and depreciation status.
Calculate existing network TCO and compare it to Nile
A TCO calculation should be conducted on the existing network. This process involves the consideration of various CAPEX and OPEX spending that contribute to the overall cost of owning, operating, and maintaining the current infrastructure throughout its lifecycle, including the cost of:
- Initial hardware and software acquisition
- Licensing
- Support contracts
- Design
- Implementation
- Monitoring and management tools
- Security tools
- Compliance audits
- Personnel
- Personnel training & development
- Outsourced support or consulting services
- Downtime/business impact
- Integration and interoperability
- Scalability and growth
- End-of-Life decommissioning and disposal
After reading this list, we know what you’re thinking. Tracking down each of these costs will be daunting, if not impossible. That’s why we provide an easy-to-use TCO calculator that requires just a few inputs to identify the real cost of your legacy network. You will also receive a custom report via email to learn more about the methodology behind our analysis that was built in partnership with ACG Research.
With the existing TCO complete, you can reach out to Nile for a detailed business value assessment where we assist you with calculating the projected TCO savings with a Nile Access Service deployed in your environment. We’re confident that the results will be enlightening and equip you with impactful data that will be useful in the next step of the process – educating stakeholders.
Educate stakeholders
From a stakeholder perspective, they will be interested in understanding the benefits of moving to Nile’s next-gen network and what steps must be taken for a successful transition. As is often said, the proof is in the pudding.
Utilizing your current TCO data alongside Nile’s, underscore the financial benefits of transitioning to Nile’s OPEX model over the legacy CAPEX model for network refresh projects. Here, you can showcase how Nile reduces upfront capital expenditures, improves cash flow, and delivers predictable operational costs – something that has never been possible in the network.
You’ll also want to discuss how Nile’s closed-loop automation capabilities powered by AI significantly reduce IT operations, eliminate 10+ network service, management, monitoring, and security components, and remove the painstaking task of network design and deployment from your to-do list. All of this while also providing service-level guarantees for overall system availability, network capacity, and wireless coverage.
Update budgeting, forecasting, procurement, and accounting methods
Once stakeholders have seen Nile’s clear financial and operational benefits, the final task is transforming how finance and accounting teams handle network spending.
Regarding budgeting and forecasting, say goodbye to the painstaking process of forecasting CAPEX for expected or unexpected network refresh projects. Instead, forecasts should focus on annual operating budgets that account for usage-based expenses on the Nile Access Service with wiggle room for anticipated growth. The as-a-service subscription model can then be incorporated into long-term financial forecasts moving forward.
The traditional procurement process will also shift (for the better) from static hardware and software purchases to a pay-as-you-go model that eliminates the need for time-consuming design, BOM creation, and implementation tasks.
Finally, your accounting team can transition network spending from capital expenses to operational costs and allocate expenses to the relevant business units. This improves your profitability metrics as operational expenses are recognized immediately instead of depreciating over time using complex amortization and depreciation calculations across multiple years. This shift results in more accurate financial reporting, improved cash flow management, and ultimately superior financial performance for your organization.
2. Optimize costs and resource utilization
After the table is set from a stakeholder and financial/accounting perspective, it’s time to refocus your attention on the IT team that supports existing network functions. While a handful of technical tasks will need to be performed, most of the effort will be in establishing new roles and responsibilities that add value to the organization instead of ensuring the network is operational for end users.
Earmarking existing tools/platforms for decommission
As mentioned, a number of services and tools likely exist on your network today can be eliminated or replaced with the Nile Access Service. IT network and security teams should be held responsible for earmarking these systems and services for decommissioning once the Nile network is placed into production. Examples include:
- DHCP
- Network Access Control (NAC)
- Network orchestration platform
- Network automation and scripting
- Network monitoring tools
- Wireless IPS/IDS sensors and software
- Packet capture (PCAP) tools
- Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Not only will this process prove yet again that Nile will save your organization tremendous amounts of money, but it will also open the eyes of IT teams to show just how powerful Nile Access Service is – as it will significantly reduce their need to manage network and security services and tools. It is designed to allow them to work on more challenging tasks with a focus on organizational improvement.
Identify value-added tasks
Collaborate with IT and other departments to create a list of projects that have fallen by the wayside due to time constraints or new projects that create innovation while aligning with business objectives. Set goals and responsibilities and provide training and skill development if necessary. This is your chance to truly empower your technology experts.
Instill a continuous improvement mindset
Moving away from a “keeping the lights on” mindset to one of continuous improvement is the ultimate goal for IT practitioners. Be sure to establish a feedback loop with the goal of gathering input from IT teams that work to identify new areas of IT infrastructure improvement that focus on productivity and taking on new challenges. Empower employees to start thinking outside the box and encourage development in aspects of IT that will drive innovation.
3. Embrace automation and AI networking
While some aspects of your IT infrastructure may partly rely on automation and artificial intelligence, bringing these technologies into the network using Nile’s AI-powered service delivery model may be a completely new concept for network professionals. Of course, one of the biggest concerns of automation and AI is a loss of control and visibility.
Fortunately, we understand this concern and have developed the Nile Copilot for IT admins that perfectly balances intent-based automation, service control, security policy orchestration, and network visibility into a single unified management dashboard. To reinforce the use of automation and AI networking, it will be important that the following steps be taken to inspire and enable IT teams:
Educate and train
We can help you demonstrate the power and simplicity of AI automation within the Nile Access Service. Engineers and operations teams can take a closer look at the Nile Access Service operational model either with a Nile Solutions Architect, Nile partner, or through the Nile Copilot Experience Center hosted online.
In a short order, IT practitioners will gain a thorough understanding of how they can quickly get visibility or control into:
- Nile service level guarantee status information,
- Infrastructure, device, and application health,
- Real-time and historical alerts,
- Network usage summary data,
- Service account, billing, and work order status information,
- Infrastructure, security, maintenance schedules,
- Third-party integration settings, and
- Live chat support and documentation.
This type of education will highlight how network operations can be streamlined and automated with the Nile Access Service – while maintaining all the necessary visibility and control that NetOps teams require.
Promote vendor relationships
Unlike reactionary support contracts used for legacy networks, the Nile Access Service uses a unique combination of automated monitoring, alerts, and access to live support via chat or phone. Nile will work with your team to inform them across the various communication channels and establish a partnership that promotes complete visibility and communication.
Reinforce stakeholder commitment in this cultural shift
Finally, it’s important that the entire IT team understand that organizational stakeholders have put their faith in Nile and our as-a-service offering. Much like other cloud-centric services that have come before us, restate the leadership team’s vision for the future of enterprise networking and their commitment to making it work. The saying “rising tides lift all boats” is a good slogan for this type of disruptive change.
4. Shift toward zero trust that’s born in the cloud
As the network forms the foundation of any enterprise IT infrastructure, it’s essential to consider the forthcoming changes within the IT security team. The Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) framework built into the Nile Access Service focuses on completely isolating every connected device in layer 3 without relying on any layer 2 network constructs. This eliminates the potential attack surface across the local area network (LAN) as lateral movement of malware and ransomware attacks between connected devices is prevented. With the Nile Access Service, before assigning an IP address to a connected device, each user and/or device is identified and verified. This identity-centric model drastically differs from perimeter-based security models that are likely already in place. Thus, the following practices should be conducted to ensure a seamless migration:
Define or redefine trust boundaries
Moving to ZTNA fundamentally changes trust boundaries within an organization. The framework moves from reliance on perimeter-based trust models to a distributed and identity-centric approach. An evaluation of existing trust boundaries is first required to set the baseline for implementing ZTNA. This includes changes and additions in terms of tools and policies for the following areas:
- Perimeter trust – Tools and policies used to enforce “trusted” and “untrusted perimeters. Examples include firewalls, IPS/IDS.
- Identity trust – Tools and policies used to identify user identity and device posture.
- Micro-segmentation – Logical network division using tools and configuration policies that divide the network into individual trust domains and deliver access based on the principle of least privilege.
Develop network segmentation policies
In many legacy networks, network segmentation uses a combination of perimeter firewalls and access control lists to logically segment networks. Micro-segmentation allows for more granular and centralized control over east-west traffic flows and access based on factors such as user roles, application/service type, and data sensitivity. These policies can be used to create network segment policies that follow users across the network no matter where or how they connect. This greatly eases the management burden while also enhancing security compliance.
Plan for the zero-trust transition
Because ZTNA follows the principle of least privilege, organizations now have the opportunity to eliminate excessive user privileges that may exist and introduce unnecessary risk. An audit of existing network access control (NAC), traditional access control lists, perimeter-based security, and IDS/IPS policies should be conducted to see which security policies can be eliminated or modified to reduce the reliance on a single security tool. Security teams may often conclude that several tools and policies may no longer be required.
Formulate user/admin policies and education
Once the research audit is complete and a ZTNA plan is in place, it’s time to create network security policies that outline security methods and educational material that informs administrators and end users. The types of formal policies that should be put in place are:
- User identity verification – Define how the security team verifies users before granting access to organizational resources.
- Device posture assessment – Like user identity, devices must go through an assessment prior to granting access.
- Contextual access controls – Factors such as user role and device type dynamically determine the level of access granted.
- Application access – Define role-based application and service access that provides granular control.
- Encryption and data protection – Establish policies for data encryption while at rest and in motion. The policy should also include information on encryption key management.
- Logging and monitoring – Define a policy that outlines access to logging and monitoring tools that aid in troubleshooting and for security incident investigations.
- Policy enforcement – Create a document detailing ZTNA policies and how violations will be handled. A supplemental end-user document instructs all users on adhering to policy and what happens when users violate those requirements.
5. Take advantage of scalability and flexibility
The Nile Access Services delivers unparalleled network scalability and flexibility. To take full advantage, however, the following tasks should be conducted:
Assess future requirements and needs
Looking at anticipated business goals and growth, assess future network requirements, including growth projections, upcoming applications and services, and increased user demand. This information can be used to determine areas of the existing network that may need to be bolstered to ensure performance and capacity.
Monitor existing performance and utilization
Using Nile Copilot, administrators can quickly access real-time and historical user/device performance and network utilization. Processes should be implemented to monitor this data and create thresholds that trigger a scalability assessment.
Collaborate on scale/change goals with Nile
The advantage of the Nile Access Service lies in customers’ ability to readily tap into our expertise and resources when undergoing a scalability assessment. Whether the increase in network users signals performance or usage issues that require attention, or if new applications/services are being introduced that might affect the end-user experience, we collaborate closely with you to identify and appropriately scale your wired and wireless access network to accommodate this current or anticipated growth.
Implement simplified auto-scaling policies
Because Nile continuously monitors your network, all of the scalability and performance data collection and analysis is performed on your behalf. This enables our customers to create auto-scaling policies that activate when specified thresholds are reached. Predefined horizontal or vertical network scalability procedures can then be triggered, efficiently managing capacity and workload expansion in an automated fashion. Be sure to involve Nile in this auto-scaling process, as they can help identify and prioritize areas where scalability is required.
The Nile difference
Change is the catalyst for progress, propelling you to success. Nile’s closed loop automation capabilities powered by AI hand you a network that eliminates traditionally operationally intensive lifecycle management. It allows for a flexible consumption and payment model for all the tools needed to streamline network and security operations. With just a few changes to organizational behaviors and processes, you can transition your network into a hub of innovation, driving your productivity to unprecedented levels. Looking forward to staying in touch to discuss transitioning your legacy network to Nile.
