Policy-as-Code: Why We Should Care

It has now become commonplace in the enterprise world to hear colleagues, vendors, and industry pundits alike remarking on the many challenges of managing systems in a context of ever-increasing complexity. Just as common is the litany of reasons put forward for this development: the rise of cloud computing, the persistence (often in the same organization) of on-premise, legacy environments, and the need to succeed in maintaining the security and resilience of both. To these, one can quickly add the seeming impossibility of keeping up…

Managing Risk and Automation with Policy as Code | ONUG Fall Session Recap

Using policy as code as the core of managing risk and automation was the topic at one session at the ONUG Fall 2022 Session.  Titled Managing Risk and Automation with Policy as Code, the panel included: Don Duet (Chairman & Co-Founder, Concourse Labs) Ruoh-Yann Huang (SVP, Global Head of Network Automation and Telemetry, Bank of America) James Walker (Managing Director, Network Services, Bank of America) Yesim Akdeniz (Managing Director for Network Services, Citi) Xiaobo Long (Sr. VP of Cloud Platform Security Engineering, Citi) Alexandra Shulman-Peleg…

The Complexities of Policy as Code

We say these things quite often, “tip of the iceberg” or “on the surface…”. I love a good metaphor. And while I’m not prone to hyperbole, metaphors are the greatest linguistic invention in the history of everything ever created in the universe. Ignoring that important reality, and with all due respect to similes and analogies, my brain landed on the previously mentioned metaphors whilst recently pondering Policy as Code. On the surface, it feels that Policy-as-code solutions should be very straight forward. There are clear…

The Year Ahead: Into 2023

2022 Was a Launching Pad for the Programmable Network Cloud Ecosystem at ONUG  As a community, we have so many 2022 accomplishments to be proud of. We laid the groundwork for a new multi-cloud era where infrastructure and developer teams gain greater choice and options to deliver business value creation. We focused on multi-cloud connectivity, automation and security with a special emphasis on Network and Security Operational Centers (NOCs and SOCs) automation through AI/ML. We started to define the programmable network cloud market that promises…

Looking Back

I like watching bad movies. I can’t help it really; I was born this way. Sometimes I’ll be sitting around with my older brothers, and we’ll talk about ridiculous movies, nonsensical movies, movies that are so stupid that they defy logic…and yet…they’re hilarious. “Did you see Tremors?” someone will ask. “Five times… at least!” is the reply. “OMG… really? Me too!” So you can see it’s a genetics issue. Nonetheless, no matter how bad the movie, there’s usually one or two redeeming moments. Maybe a…

The Whale…How to Eat It.

I don’t eat whales, but the truth is, many people, in many cultures, DO! Not so daunting a task perhaps if it’s a team sport, but what if it’s just YOU! Then, as the phrase goes, there’s only one way to do it….One Bite at a Time!!! Segue alert!!!!! Such is the case with Policy as Code (PaC). It’s such an important objective for today’s enterprises, but it also has (as I like to say): “More Questions than Answers”! The truth is, what PaC may…

Multi-Cloud Is the Next Wave of Enterprise Computing

Enterprise computing is multi-cloud computing; it’s hard, complex but so worth it as your IT organization gains control and choice for developer and infrastructure teams. Infrastructure teams’ main job is to make life easier for developers to write applications that deliver corporate digital value. Multi-cloud delivers the widest pallet of tools and constructs for corporations to create value for their customers and shareholders. But while multi-cloud may not be easy, being locked into a single cloud provider is far worse.   We all know that the…

Managing Risk and Automation in a Multi-Cloud World with Policy as Code

Enterprise organizations today face a daunting array of challenges in their quest to deliver optimally secure IT services that comply with corporate and government mandates. Addressing such challenges has never been a trivial affair. Indeed, over the past decade and more, as technology stacks and platforms have increased in their heterogeneity and complexity, meeting the demands of effective risk governance has only become more difficult. As is the case with much of enterprise management, the challenge here isn’t typically a matter of inadequate tools or…