The challenge is understanding which changes you must address and those you should address in order to capitalize upon them. From there, you must determine which effects of change can be reduced or eliminated altogether, and the best method to achieve each.

And it doesn't hurt to be able to foresee these changes before they occur, or to have friends that can help you through the disruption. But this is where things get complex, particularly when your survival depends on it.

The technology-imbued world in which we live and work has seen monumental waves of disruptions in just the last few decades. We've seen the introduction of the Internet, mobile phones, tablets, social media, and more. Today, we are facing disruptive technologies such as network virtualization, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the proliferation of the Internet of Things. What's more alarming is the collective totality of all these disruptions as they come together and converge in a hybrid environment.

Words like "software-defined" and "virtual" send shivers through even the most battle-hardened IT veterans, and for good reason too. But there is a sizable opportunity to be gained by dominating these disruptive technologies, as an enterprise or service provider organization.  For example, IDC forecasts the Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) market will exceed $8 billion within the next three years. Research and Markets estimates that software-defined networking (SDN) and Networks Functions Virtualization (NFV) investments will reach $22 billion by 2020. This looks a lot like an opportunity to thrive. But how?

Enter Dorado Software

I recently had the opportunity to interview Tim Sebring, the CEO and founder and Vicki Crozier, the vice president of marketing for Dorado Software to discuss how to mitigate the impact of these technical disruptions.

"It comes down to simplicity, automation, and choice," Sebring told Pipeline. "The more an organization can aggregate the effects of change into a single solution, automate actions, and the more flexibility they have to work within a hybrid environment; the more likely they will be able to thrive as new technologies emerge."

Dorado is a leading provider of Resource Management, Performance Monitoring and Service Orchestration software that helps enterprises, service providers, NFV Infrastructure and virtual network function vendors accelerate the time-to-benefits of virtualized cloud-based infrastructures. Dorado's products provide a solution with packaged and extensible capabilities to orchestrate, monitor, and provide closed-loop automation of both physical and virtual network functions in multi-vendor and evolving ecosystems. Dorado has been helping service providers and enterprises contend with disruptive technologies for twenty years.

"Handling disruption is in our DNA," Sebring added. "We've always been helping our clients transition operationally to new infrastructures and integrate new technologies."

In the beginning, Dorado specialized in helping service providers with IP-based and network transformation. Over the decades that have followed, Dorado has helped its clients with major infrastructure shifts, such the introduction of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and digital transformation as operators began to introduce media-rich content, such as video, into their service offerings. Today, Dorado is leading the charge in transformation with network virtualization, cloud, Software-Defined Networking, and Management and Orchestration (MANO) technologies.

"What we're really good at is helping organizations transform in a heterogeneous world made up of disparate things. Our customers live in a constantly changing environment, with an influx changing infrastructure and new technologies – with many, many moving parts. Our job is helping them eliminate disruption, so they can capitalize upon the benefits of change."

Sebring went on to explain that the company is seeing significant transformation related to cloud-based and native-cloud technologies and they have been undergoing a transformation of their own to better serve their customers.