What NetDevOps looks like
Most enterprises begin their NetDevOps journey modestly by automating a limited set of repetitive, lower-level tasks.
Nearly 70% of enterprises pursuing infrastructure automation start with task-level scripting, rather than end-to-end automation, according to theCUBE Research’s AppDev Done Right Summit. This can include using tools such as Ansible or Python scripts to standardize device provisioning, configuration changes, or other routine changes. Then, more mature teams adopt Git for version control, define golden configurations, and apply basic validation before and after changes, explains Bob Laliberte, principal analyst at SiliconANGLE and theCUBE.
A smaller group of enterprises extends automation efforts into complete CI/CD-style workflows with consistent testing, staged deployments, and automated verification, Laliberte adds. This capability is present in less than 25% of enterprises today, according to theCUBE, and it is typically focused on specific domains such as data center fabric or cloud networking.
NetDevOps usually exists with the network organization as a dedicated automation or platform subgroup, and more than 60% of enterprises anchor NetDevOps initiatives within traditional infrastructure teams rather than application or platform engineering groups, according to Laliberte.
“In larger enterprises, NetDevOps capabilities are increasingly centralized within shared infrastructure or platform teams that provide tooling, pipelines, and guardrails across compute, storage, and networking,” Laliberte says. “In more advanced or cloud-native environments, network specialists may be embedded within application, site reliability engineering (SRE), or platform teams, particularly where networking directly impacts application performance.”
Transforming work
At its core, NetDevOps isn’t just about changing titles for network engineers. It is about changing workflows, behaviors, and operating models across network operations.
