Engineering simplicity

Today's backend networks need to seamlessly cater to consumer demand across devices

In today’s digital era, customers are more demanding, knowledgeable and empowered than ever. They want applications that are personalised to their highly specific needs, anywhere and anytime. Their expectations from enterprise products and servicesare compelling network operators and engineers to devise solutions that are similar in nature to consumer apps and can function on-demand while delivering the highest quality.

Due to these developments, backend networks have become more complex than ever whilst operating under unique operating conditions. They must seamlessly cater to a multitude of consumer demands across multi-cloud and multi-device environments. While the cloud is powered at its heart by the data center, it also places immense pressure on this data centre to function smoothly and profitably.

Network operators are thus investing significant resources towards scaling their infrastructure in a cost-effective manner to meet these enterprise and consumer demands. This is leading to the usage of complex programming languages and highly skilled developers. Additionally, human-machine interactions have also now come into the mix to further complicate matters. While the future appears promising due to the emergence of self-driving networks, the reality is that we have a long and winding way to go in order to achieve such a future.

The undervalued importance of engineered simplicity As organisations and network operators strive towards building such an infrastructure, engineering complexity often impedes their ability to respond. This forces them to relook at their network infrastructure and operations, and work towards making them as simple as possible. As we move to a more complex world, rising degrees of complexity can hinder innovation and negatively impact its rate of adoption and the trust that users ultimately have on the digital economy of the 21st century. This is why engineering simplicity is of utmost importance.

While good engineering is primarily about finding the most cost-efficient solution to a problem, measuring this cost is where most enterprise organizations begin to falter. This cost can be measured in terms of money, time, morale or even lost opportunities. While some of these costs can be repaid immediately, some accrue over time and become debts.

Time and money are easy to account for, but the most dangerously overlooked cost is — complexity cost, and this compounds heavily over time. This is the debt that is accrued by building complicated features or technology in order to solve problems.To resolve this, simplified engineering is the answer, but that is easier said than done.

Why network operators need engineered simplicity

For any enterprise, dealing with the emergence of 5G, IoT, edge computing and more, is leading to a situation of increased complexity that requires a relook at how network operators design and deploy their IT infrastructure. Advanced networks are some of the most resource-intensive IT operations, and for IT operators the challenge posed by increased complexity is often difficult to work with. Whether they must perform maintenance work or move new services to the cloud, they are required to divert hours and money towards operations — the simpler the better.

Engineered simplicity can greatly lower operational complexities, make network infrastructure more secure and also lead to innovative services as enterprises transform themselves in the digital era of 5G and IoT.With simplified architecture and self-driving networks, enterprise IT operators can thus simplify the management and the operational complexity of a network through automation, intent and machine learning.

Modern IT operators are realizing that they now need a flexible network architecture that can be easily ‘sliced’ into isolated networks that eliminate the inherent complexities of traditional IT. By adopting the philosophy of ‘engineering simplicity’, the modern enterprise can thus accelerate 5G/IoT adoption infrastructure, drive agility by integrating predictive and adaptive software, and lastly, build customer trust through dependable and always-on security solutions.

The real enemy of progress is complexity
 

For the implementation of modern day digital projects, every block of architecture, code and feature requires hours of development. Very often, this leads to – complexity and over-engineering. The software engineer is often surrounded by complex concepts that make it difficult for them to focus on the one key ask – keep it simple! In the race to build something more intelligent, beautiful and powerful, building something simpler takes a backseat.

The most dangerous impediment to collective progress today is complexity. Engineering and technological advancements have long solved the problems of scale with regards to enterprise operations, but the new enemy is the complexity this has generated. Previously innovative concepts have become rigid and complicated programming interfaces. And as long as network operators keep functioning within those complex structures, mankind is destined to continue down the same path.

Moreover, the indirect costs of complexity also run up to thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in lost productivity. Complexity also exposes network operators to unnecessary security risks that are harder to pinpoint and rectify. Several companies that have faced tough times due to network related issues may not have known it at the time, but they can probably attribute their problems to the layers of complexity in their engineering structure. With simplified engineering, organizations can move towards user-friendly, intuitive networking that controls where complexity shows up.

In spite of what you may read, simple is much harder to achieve than complex. And as we build out the networks of the future, baking simplicity into engineering as we strive to eliminate complexity will be key – as we usher in a world where everything is connected through the cloud, and the era of 5G and IoT.

Dinesh Verma, Managing director- India & SAARC,Juniper Networks