The Long Game: Why I Joined Itential

Throughout my career, I’ve always had a passion for automation and network engineering as a trade. I remember where I was sitting and even what I was wearing, when I ran my first successful Perl script. Although this was almost 20 years ago, I remember it very clearly because it was the start of an obsession and had an immediate impact on the how I would begin to think in the future.

Automation, for me, was never the main act; it was a powerful sidekick I used to make my work and my teams more efficient. Now, for the first time, automation is the main act — and I couldn’t be more excited to focus on it full-time at Itential.

Why has network engineering lagged behind the likes of compute and other technical domains when it comes to automation? Let’s examine why compute got there first.

• Abstraction Layers: Operating systems provided clean APIs and abstraction layers earlier on in history. Whether you were configuring or provisioning a new Linux server, you had consistent interaction surfaces.
• Stateless by Nature: Compute workloads shifted to being stateless in nature. If a server fails, you simply spin up another one. This made the wall much shorter for scaling automation since you weren’t dealing with complicated and stateful dependencies.
• Standardization: Like the network industry, there are many different vendors and platforms in the compute solar system. Compute environments largely standardized on x86 architecture and common operating systems. This created a uniform foundation for common patterns and tools to be built upon.

If you take each of the aforementioned points and compare them to the domain of networking, it paints a very different picture. While this isn’t an exhaustive list, the reason networking has lagged behind, has become increasingly obvious in 2025.

• Vendor Lock-in + Fragmentation: Each vendor has their own operating system, CLI syntax, and artisan way of accomplishing the same things. Juniper JUNOS is different from Cisco IOS which is different from Arista’s EOS. Add in some firewall vendors, cloud platforms, and an OSS NOS, and it helps fill in the picture as to why this fragmentation makes it difficult to create universal automation solutions.
• Stateful & Interdependent: Networks are inherently stateful. Making a single change on the network can have cascading effects on other parts. This introduces a higher order of risk — you can’t just “roll back” a network change as easily as you can revert common changes to compute.
• Legacy Mindset: From the beginning, network engineering has evolved in tandem with the CLI-first mentality. The CLI-driven network engineer is deeply ingrained in the culture which has created resistance to automation and API-driven approaches.
• Networking is Tier 0: All of an organization’s most critical systems run over the network. This tends to create a natural conservatism — if you make a change that takes the network down, everything is down. This gave “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” a VIP pass to enterprise network engineering.

The challenge is real — we’re dealing with decades of technical debt, entrenched practices, and new patterns from our friends in the cloud. Accomplishing end-to-end network automation remains challenging, but there is a path forward.

Large enterprise is undergoing a fundamental shift from a project-based mindset to a product-driven approach. Instead of delivering one-off projects which are complete once implemented, teams are now treating infrastructure as products with continuous deployment cycles and iterative improvements. The challenge of meeting practitioners where they are today in the data center and engaging new engineers that were born in the cloud requires innovation and creativity. Itential is well positioned to bridge this gap.

The landscape of network automation is rapidly evolving, driven by:

• Intent-Based Approaches: Defining what you want instead of manually specifying how to configure it.
• APIs Everywhere: Vendors are finally providing programmable interfaces, reducing reliance on CLI.
• Cloud-Native Principles Applied to Networking: Infrastructure as Code, DevOps methodologies, and automation-first approaches are reshaping networking.
• A Generational Shift: New engineers entering the workforce expect programmability, not just command lines.

From cost center to value creator – Networking isn’t just about keeping the lights on anymore — it’s a strategic enabler for digital transformation.

What drew me to Itential? They get these industry dynamics and are taking a pragmatic approach to solving real problems. Instead of preaching “rip-and-replace” solutions, they meet customers where they are — helping enterprises evolve their automation journey across traditional infrastructure, hybrid cloud, and everything in between.

At a time when networking is at an inflection point, Itential isn’t just building automation tools; they’re enabling a new way of thinking about network operations. That’s a movement I want to be part of.

The future of network operations will be defined by how effectively we can automate complex processes while maintaining reliability and security. The days of manual CLI configurations and ticket-driven changes are numbered. Organizations that fail to embrace automation will struggle to keep pace with business demands and cloud-native competitors.

I’m thrilled to join a team that’s tackling these challenges head-on. My journey from writing that first Perl script to joining Itential has shown me that automation isn’t just about efficiency — it’s about enabling innovation and transformation. I look forward to helping shape the future of network automation and enabling organizations to achieve their digital transformation goals.

The question isn’t whether automation is coming, it’s whether you’ll be ready for it. Let’s build the future together.

Stay tuned for more musings from me on network automation, infrastructure, and the evolving role of engineers. Feel free to reach out, connect with me on social, and follow along on my podcast, The Cloud Gambit, where I explore the intersection of automation, networking, and the cloud.