EMA Unveils Crucial Research on Network Source of Truth Adoption

Enterprise Management Associates (EMAT), a leading IT research and consulting firm, has released a new research report, "The Network Source of Truth: How Engineering Teams Establish and Use These Critical Tools," authored by Shamus McGillicuddy, vice president of research for network infrastructure and operations at Enterprise Management Associates.

"As IT organizations try to optimize network operations and mature their approaches to network automation, they are discovering that they have a data problem. The data that represents their intent for a network is scattered across multiple spreadsheets, diagrams, wikis, and databases," says McGillicuddy. "The quality and authority of this data is also unclear. Network teams typically establish a NSoT solution to resolve these issues. However, the state of the NSoT market is very immature. Enterprises need guidance."

Network teams use NSoT tools to establish a centrally located, authoritative repository of operations data that network automation tools can reference programmatically when interacting with and making changes to a network. Enterprise Management Associates has observed a rising adoption of these tools as IT organizations mature their approach to network automation. Enterprise Management Associates' March 2024 study, "Enterprise Network Automation: Emerging From the Dark Ages and Reaching Toward NetDevOps," found that 80% of network automation teams already have an NSoT solution in place.

Despite this momentum, Enterprise Management Associates believes most enterprises are still in the early stages of NSoT maturity. While some will stay with open source tools and leverage internal personnel who have a mix of networking and software development skills to support them, many others are seeking vendor solutions to improve reliability, speed adoption, and scale capability. As a result, network teams are approaching a strategic crossroads in how they evaluate, invest in, and operationalize NSoT platforms.

Given this inflection point, Enterprise Management Associates conducted in-depth one-on-one interviews with 17 IT professionals actively implementing, maintaining, and using NSoTs. The research defines the concept of a network source of truth, explores why IT organizations are adopting these tools, examines how enterprises establish and use them, and identifies the key challenges that hinder progress.

The report closes with practical recommendations to address these challenges and advance NSoT initiatives. This independent research is sponsored by EfficientIP and Infoblox. A detailed analysis of the research findings is available in the report, "The Network Source of Truth: How Engineering Teams Establish and Use These Critical Tools." Readers can also join Shamus McGillicuddy for a free webinar on December 16 to explore the results.