Why Network Engineers Need Better Tech Tools

While the enterprise network continues to increase rapidly in size and complexity, most network engineers said they continue to rely on manual techniques and tools for critical tasks such as diagramming, according to a recent survey from NetBrain Technologies. The accompanying report, "2017 State of the Network Engineer: Toward an Automated Future," reveals that network diagrams often go one month or longer before getting needed updates, and as a result, they're often obsolete or insufficiently detailed. This creates difficulties during troubleshooting, as does a lack of collaboration among network teams. What would greatly help, survey respondents said, is a single solution for network visualization, management and analysis. "Today's enterprises have reached a tipping point when it comes to network management," according to the report. "Networks are growing rapidly and becoming more complex, yet most engineers still use manual processes for managing key IT workflows—network documentation, troubleshooting, change management and cyber-security. Collaboration and information sharing often mean the difference between quickly diagnosing a problem and hours of frustration and downtime. However, today's processes depend largely on institutional … knowledge to diagnose network issues, which can be inefficient and hamper IT's speed to resolution." More than 200 network engineers, architects and IT managers took part in the research.