HS142: The Blueprint for Automated Network Operations (Sponsored)

Johna Till-Johnson (0:03)

Hi, I'm Johna Till-Johnson, CEO of Numerties, here with my co-host John Burke, CTO of Numerties, and you're listening to Heavy Strategy, the show that tries to ask the right questions, not give the right answers. We're here with Ronny Wolf, Field CTO for EMEA at BlueCat to talk about why open platforms matter in network operations.

And Ronny, network operations is such a huge space, and I know this is the space that BlueCat operates in, and I know many folks are familiar with BlueCat, at least from a couple of years ago, but some listeners may not be. Can you give us a quick overview of the space in which BlueCat specifically operates?

Ronny Wolf (0:40)

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, BlueCat Networks traditionally came out of the core DDI business, so DNS, DHCP, IP address management, so basically all that boring stuff, right? What everybody needs to deal with us.

However, we basically we seen in the market the demand or the requirement to expand that platforms. So not just the core network services, I mean, network operations is all about to keep the lights up, right? So not just providing the service, but also to know what happens within the network. And through a couple of acquisitions over the last couple of years, BlueCat expanded their portfolio in network observability, in network packet capture, in infrastructure assurance solutions, and we build a platform around that, which we are calling right now Intelligent Network Operations.

Yeah, which combines basically also here both sides, providing the core service and really not just keep the lights up, know exactly what is within the network and what is the root cause behind them.

Johna Till-Johnson (1:55)

Got it. So it's expanding beyond the core DDI to understanding what's actually happening in the network. And before we talk about how you do that, just a quick bit about what is the field CTO actually do? What do you do day in, day out?

Ronny Wolf (2:10)

Yeah. I would define a field CTO here at BlueCat as a bridge between the customer and our strategy office. So I'm not aligned to a sales office or something like that. So yes, for sure. We have also a sales motion within BlueCat. Otherwise, we are not able to earn any money. However, we are there to listen towards the customers. So understand really their requirements. And not just on what we provide as BlueCat, also what drives them, what drives the different entities or the different business units.

So we try to listen to that and basically then try to get that into a roadmap or a strategic direction within BlueCat where our products are heading, what we need to change and how we can help our customers.

Johna Till-Johnson (3:06)

So your job basically is to understand the challenges your customers are facing and encourage the company to develop solutions ahead of those challenges becoming super acute.

Ronny Wolf (3:17)

Correct.

Johna Till-Johnson (3:19)

Okay. And I know we talked a little bit and during the planning sessions that one of the key components to open networking is using APIs and being API first. And you had mentioned that internally, while you were integrating those acquisitions that you made, BlueCat began to use APIs for modular development so that you could develop behind the APIs and keep everything glued together.

And you're going to talk a little bit about that for network operations. So how did that work within BlueCat and what were some of the lessons learned from BlueCat that you're actually taking to your customers now?

Ronny Wolf (3:55)

Yeah. I mean, especially our strategy office was for sure a big part of that initiative. When we listen to our customers, I mean, we started as well as some kind of a siloed approach. Think about that. We are providing a core service, our bread and butter business, our customers were happy and so on. However, we recognized when their requirements changing, additional initiatives. So security, automation, integration. I mean, there is a vast majority, a vast, a huge portfolio what customers are looking to integrate into. Especially if we want to be a single source of truth, if they want to follow a platform approach and so on. And what we recognized within BlueCat, even if the solutions were proven at customers say they like all of these functionalities and features, we get to our limits. We were not able, first of all, to act fast enough to turn it into products or into integrations. And on the other hand as well, we limit ourselves to have these kind of house divided. There is a user interface, there is an automation or an API.

Different platforms, different usage, different APIs, different user interfaces and stuff like that. There was no corporate identity we can enforce because everything was...