Written by Richard Thompson, Senior Technical Consultant, Mood
Team sports and consultancy may at first appear to be separate disciplines, but scratch beneath the surface and there are many similarities that can be drawn between the two. The drive to produce top–class performances is not something that comes naturally to all, but for those who strive for it,the end result can be quite special. The quest for excellence is an attitude that is forged and shared by all whom strive to be at the top of their game and constantly improve.
Working on the analogy further,additionalcommonalities between sports and consultancy unveil themselves, especially in terms of the approach taken. Nothing is achieved easily; judgement is based on the outcome, and difficulties are faced along the journey to achievingdesired goals.
While everyone involved will have a different take, below are my four main focuses when undertaking any activity (both sporting and consultancy) to ensure my team achieves its greatest potential.
1. Why are we doing this?
In any aspect of life, if people innately understand why they are conducting a task and believe in its benefits, they will give it their all. Havingpersonally been involved in consultancy for 13 years and coaching sports for 25,,I always ask the team “Why are we doing this?” upon carrying out any activity for the first time. The answers serve as a great barometer as to whether they have understood what they are being asked to do, and will flush out any concerns (or better alternatives) and will often provide previously unsought insights.
This can also be a great validation tool for why the action is being conducted, and the response “We’ve always done it that way” simply does not cut it as a reason. Time and techniques move on, and if people do not keep up, teams will be behind from the start.
2.Teamwork
Cooperation between team members is crucial to achieving the desired result.Even individual efforts are reliant on a team who are often behind the scenes, who can ensure the preparation is correct and the conditions are in place for an optimal outcome.
A top-class performer places immense value on their team, knowing that in order to succeed,everyone must align.Therefore, each individualmust be treated with utmost respect. Appreciation on all levels works, whether it be calling out a colleague’s efforts, a token of appreciation or even a small compliment. Teammates are the ultimate ambassadors for future efforts.
3. “I can’t”
Admitting that you cannot do everything should never be seen as a weakness.Self-evaluation is vital in all walks of life and ensures the team has the right people in the right place, at the right time. This does not mean individual ability is not desired, but it should be used in conjunction with the right mix of abilities. The world’s best footballer cannot beat the best team on their own, for example, they need a strong mix of abilities around them to put them in right position at the right time, to do what they do best.
The statement “I can’t”should therefore be “I can’t on my own.”
4. Effort
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” – Tim Notke, high school basketball coach.
Effort is the backbone of growth and success.This applies in all aspects of life, especially in learning and improvement. Effort drives learning, and when you put effort into a task,you are actively engaging with it. Effort allows you to learn from mistakes and gain new skills or knowledge while increasing your resilience and determination.
How CACIcan help
Whether you feel you have any sort of sporting mindset or not is irrelevant.What is vital, however, is the merits of the why, the who, the what and the how.
At CACI, we have the optimal mix of talent and experience across multiple domains, from business analysts defining the why, the who and the what, to consultants, designers and architects providing the how. Wehelp global businesses turn data and information assets to key success drivers as strategic components in a coherent and evolving system architecture, while also connecting stakeholders and practitioners to collaborate in complex business architecture projects.
If you have a complex problem, contact Mood to see how we may help you align strategy and vision, optimise data driven decision-making and future-proof your business.
The conference serves as a focal point for enterprise architects, BPM specialists, and industry leaders to exchange insights and experiences in applying these methodologies within real-world organisations. EABPM offers a rich educational platform, attracting influential speakers from leading organisations who provide invaluable insights into leveraging enterprise architecture and BPM to propel digital transformation and business value.
Reflecting on the workshops and discussions of the previous year, attendees explored how organisations leverage enterprise architecture to optimise business capabilities and streamline processes. The exhibition aspect of the conference provided access to solution providers showcasing their latest tools and technologies for managing enterprise architecture, modelling business processes, and facilitating automation.
Looking forward to EABPM 2024
This year, CACI Mood not only continues its participation and also takes pride in sponsoring the event alongside industry peers. Our team consists of Vickie White, Jess Robinson, and Matt Bosson will be actively involved, both at our stand and attending various workshops throughout the event. The team is excited to showcase CACI Mood’s enterprise architecture software platform and services, building upon the insights gained from last year’s event.
With an impressive line-up of speakers from diverse industries, this year’s agenda promises high-level technical sessions covering a range of topics. Attendees will gain valuable insights from representatives of large tech companies, consultancies, universities, and more.
Mood’s expertise
In a world of complex systems and evolving business challenges, Mood transforms scattered information into a living digital operating model, providing clarity and unparalleled collaboration. Mood drives strategic decision-making and ensures sustainable success by aligning strategy and operations, demonstrating impact, highlighting risks, and surfacing insights.
Mood delivers infinite value by enabling powerful analysis, rapid design, verification and validation, and appropriate presentation of complex architectures and systems, for targeted audiences. Whether your business needs a tool for enterprise architecture, a no-code application development tool, or a full digital twin platform, Mood has you covered.
Our Defence Digital case study is a perfect example of how CACI Mood software, meets the diverse needs of Defence Digital within the Ministry of Defence (MOD). Defence Digital swiftly fulfilled various requirements, from creating architectural models to developing interactive solutions. Explore our wide range of Mood case studies for further insights.
If you will be attending EABPM 2024 and wish to explore our enterprise architecture services or simply connect with the Mood team, please drop by the CACI stand. For those interested in arranging a meeting beforehand, kindly reach out to us at moodenquiries@caci.co.uk.
CACI’s new Digital Forensics Laboratory has successfully passed its initial assessment and been granted accreditation to ISO/IEC 17043:2023 by UKAS for its Digital Forensic Proficiency Test schemes. This builds on the Laboratory recently receiving ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accreditation back in February. This accreditation means that CACI are now the only accredited Digital Forensics Proficiency Testing provider in Europe.
Full scope details:
The following CACI Ltd Proficiency Testing Schemes have been accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) for ISO/IEC 17043:2023:
All schemes are tailored to meet the criteria for accredited digital forensics (DF) laboratories operating in law enforcement. Participation rates during proficiency testing cycles have been consistently increasing.
CACI’s DF Laboratory’s Operations Director, Richard Cockerill, had this to say:
“CACI are delighted with the news that we have been granted ISO/IEC 17043:2023 accreditation for our digital forensic proficiency testing services. Over the past year we have successfully delivered realistic and challenging PT schemes to UK Law Enforcement related organisations. Feedback from participants has been really positive. Now that we are an accredited PT provider we look forward to expanding our support in this area for both existing and new law enforcement clients.”
*The certificate of accreditation awarded to CACI will be available from the UKAS website shortly.
If you would like to enquire to our expert team about our proficiency testing or other digital forensics services, you can get in touch here.
In the first blog of this two-part series, we assessed the impact of network automation on a business and ways in which a successful business case can be created. In this blog, we’ll look at strategies for keeping the C-suite interested in pursuing network automation and mistakes to avoid when developing strategies.
How to keep C-suite interested
Long-term network automation strategies will only be successful if the C-suite has consistent buy-in on its implementation and maintenance. This can be achieved through:
Providing progress updates: Sharing network automation progress updates with C-suite staff will help quantify its impact on the business and keep momentum high in terms of maintaining it.
Highlighting ROI for the business: Cost reductions, increased capacity or resources and overall performance are all high interest to C-suite staff. Ensuring the C-suite is aware of how network automation affects these will be critical.
Demonstrating alignment with the business’ strategic goals: Highlighting the ways in which network automation consistently aligns with the business’ strategic goals will help C-suite staff visualise the long-term business outcomes.
Adapting to changes: C-suite members’ business priorities are likely to change over time. Remaining flexible and willing to re-align to changing priorities as needed will ensure long-term success of network automation within the business.
It is often the case where organisations’ focus on network automation, while well-intended, results in them biting off more than they can chew rather than breaking down more tactical, low-hanging fruit. Despite this having an immediate impact, it can be less visible to senior executives. In general, network automation should be applied to try and achieve two key areas for immediate impact:
Improve the consistency of network deployment
Reduce noise within network operations.
4 common mistakes to avoid when developing a network automation strategy
Some of the common mistakes we see that diverge these two key aims include:
Trying to do too much too soon
The key with any automation in winning over detractors is incremental consistency over widespread adoption. We often find that small, tactical, lower-level automations with well-scoped outcomes for low-hanging fruit can exceptionally impact the overall consistency of deployment for this element and kickstart the incremental flywheel of trust. This is due to lower-level engineers and operations staff seeing the immediate benefit of automation and beginning to organically adopt these approaches within other higher-value, business-impacting tasks.
Successfully adopted and maintained automation efforts nearly always look like bottom-up, grassroots endeavours, where buy-in through adoption and proven time efficiency or consistency outcomes have been recognised by low-level engineering resources closest to the network who can advocate for the approach to other peers on their level to the wider organisation. Quantifiable results which prove IT’s ability to deliver are key in achieving grassroots adoption which flows up the organisational hierarchy, rather than trying to mandate this as a top-down approach. Human psychology is as big a factor in network automation’s success in an organisation as technical prowess, given the personal friction many engineers will have to automation as something which could affect their personal wellbeing or circumstances.
Focusing on the wrong use cases (selection bias)
Use cases which resonate with the business context faced by your organisation are pivotal in creating network automations that are immediately impactful and reap actual business rewards. Executive-led automation efforts can focus too intently on senior IT leaders’ specific issues that may be perceived as higher-affecting but are often more niche and low-scale than more commodity – but wider-scale – issues as seen by engineering and deployment resources.
Network automation should focus on the daily toil rather than the aspirational state. For example, more dividend will be yielded by automating a firewall rule request process which several of your engineers unknowingly gatekeep as a bottleneck to your application development and implementation projects than would be from, for example, automating network configuration backups, which will likely already be catered for by a disaster recovery process, no matter how human-intensive that may be.
Tool-led strategy adoption
Network automation is a complex area of abstractions and principles built atop chains of other abstractions or fundamentals. For this reason, it can be tempting to lean on the lowest common denominator within the field – often the “lingua franca” of the tooling and framework buzzwords such as Terraform, Ansible, IaC, YAML, YANG and so on.
While countless types and competing network automation tools exist, this doesn’t always mean they’re developed for or relevant to your business’ specific issues. It’s also worth being mindful of “resume-driven development” here– while the “new shiny” might look great to your engineering and architecture teams, it doesn’t always mean it’s best for your business context, budget or other regulatory constraints.
Automation in isolation of process review and improvement
There’s a reason “garbage in, garbage out” is a phrase– automating the garbage to go faster doesn’t get rid of its existence. Automation often lives in the space between process and technology, so improvements in one can feedback into the other. Automation tends to inform improvements to existing business processes through its installation than for static business processes that were perfect all along.
The mere act of undergoing an automation journey can also be an exponential value-add when focusing on and improving business processes which would otherwise not have been explored. This ensures a double win from both optimising the business process itself and enables an extended reach of that into the network and IT plane, speeding up the process and improving its efficiency. This virtuous flywheel can often become a force-multiplier that tremendously benefits the organisation for relatively little upfront effort.
How can CACI help?
CACI’s expert team comprises multidisciplined IT, networking infrastructure and consultant and automation engineers with extensive experience in network automation. We can support and consult on every aspect of your organisation’s network from its architecture, design and deployment through to cloud architecture adoption and deployment, as well as maintaining an optimised managed network service.
This blog is the first of a two-part series that will uncover the value that network automation can bring to a business and how to effectively persuade the C-suite of its value. Part two explores strategies for keeping the C-suite interested in pursuing network automation and mistakes to avoid when developing strategies.
Why is network automation critical in a business?
Network automation allows you to automate planning, deploying and optimising your business’ operations, networks and services. It is a game changer because it enhances the efficiency, reliability and capacity of your business’ management of its network infrastructure. This minimises the risk of human error, maximises scalability and helps you maintain a competitive edge in the market.
With an increasing focus on digital services and data connectivity, ensuring that network automation becomes commonplace in a business has become paramount to long-term operational success. The importance and prevalence of network automation in businesses has skyrocketed in recent years, despite a reported 77% of technology professionals seeing room for improvement in their data centre network automation strategies.
This, coupled with the expectation from 45% of organisations expecting their data centre network automation investments to earn an ROI within two years stresses the need for businesses to get the C-suite on board with network automation and ensure they invest in a network automation strategy. But how do you go about effectively and strategically selling the value of network automation to the C-suite?
How to create a successful business case
Step 1: Lead with evidence
According to an article by Enconnex, the weakest link in data operations tends to be humans, with human error accounting for ~80% of all outages. Existing pipelines in businesses tend to operate sequentially and manually, increasing the probability of human error through the involvement of multiple individuals in the chain of events.
Step 2: Outline a strategic software development process
Ensuring each step of the operational process from integration to delivery is tested and accounted for and outlining this in a cohesive plan for the C-suite level will help earn their trust. Developing a process flow that outlines a long-term strategy and what the business will achieve through network automation will further encourage this crucial buy-in. A visualisation tool or platform to convey this can significantly enhance their understanding.
Step 3: Stage a production deployment in a test environment
Unlike application testing, network testing is often difficult because the network itself doesn’t exist in isolation and is nearly always the lowest level of the technical stack. This makes performing tests complex. While the applications within a development or pre-production environment are often considered non-production, the underlying network to these application test environments is nearly always considered “production” in that it must work, in a production-like, always-on, fault-free state for the applications atop it to be tested and fulfil their function. Replicating complex enterprise, data centre or even cloud networks often come at a price. Organisations can typically only duplicate or approximate small proportions of their network estate. As a result, staging looks more like unit testing in software development by making small but incremental gains and applying them exponentially to the production network looking to be automated.
While many organisations may opt for a waterfall, agile or other project management approach, we nearly always find that an agile-like, iterative, unit-tested approach to developing network automations – such as scripts, runbooks, playbooks and modules — are more beneficial in pushing automation both into the organisation and into wider adoption than any other approach.
Step 4: Prove that benefits will be reaped through the staged production
One of the benefits of modern network engineering is quickly leveraging the commoditisation of the vertically integrated network hardware stack the industry has embarked upon over the last decade. It is now easier – and cheaper – than ever before to spin up a virtual machine, container or other VNF/NFV-equivalent of a production router, switch, firewall, proxy or other network device that will look, feel, act and fail in the same way that its production network equivalent device would. When combined with software development approaches like CI/CD pipelines for deployment and rapid prototyping of network automation code, this can be a winning combination to rapidly pre-test activities within ephemeral container-like staging environments and maintain dedicated staging areas which look like production.
How can CACI help?
CACI’s Network Services team comprises multidisciplined IT, networking infrastructure and consultant and automation engineers with extensive experience in network automation. We can support and consult on every aspect of your organisation’s network from its architecture, design and deployment through to cloud architecture adoption and deployment, as well as maintaining an optimised managed network service.
As the year comes to an end, the networking space is showing no signs of slowing down. Networking is continuing to show remarkable advances, marked by emerging technologies such as AI and network-specific LLMs, with changing business demands that are paving the way for a more secure and connected future.
Businesses and industries that recognise the power of adopting these evolving networking technologies and best practices in improving their performance will set themselves up for unparalleled future growth, solution scalability and competitiveness. Those that don’t are increasingly getting left behind.
So, what are the main networking trends that we have seen in 2024?
Rollout of 5G
As 5G becomes readily available and increasingly adopted, it has become recognised as one of the most significant trends to come out of the year so far, recognised for its unmatched speed and capacity. Additionally, unlike its 4G and 3G predecessors, the availability of industrialised, private 5G offerings – acting as a more-capable, longer-reaching alternative to wi-fi in specific building scenarios – is leading to the global 5G services market is set to reach an annual growth rate of 59.4% by 2030.
Network services have had to make way for the increased bandwidth and low latency that has come from the rollout of 5G, ensuring a smooth and responsive user experience and the ability to connect even more devices within a small area without compromising on performance. These capabilities have augmented the likes of IoT devices and virtual reality (VR) applications, which require speedy transfer and real-time communication. We expect trends such as VR and augmented reality (AR) – such as the Apple Visio Pro – to accelerate the dependence on not only bandwidth (speed) in networking, but also in latency (lag); the latter of which has often been neglected by many enterprise networking technologies.
5G is ultimately positioning itself to strengthen the economy and help transform businesses through speed and interconnectedness.
Edge computing migration
Despite its industry presence for years now, edge computing has been gaining prominence in 2024 as a means to support organisations with processing their data closer to the sources of data or users—at the edge of the network. What’s old is in many ways new again, with the content delivery network (CDN) coming back to the fore as a primary on-ramp into public cloud and other aggregated network ecosystems and walled gardens. Both edge and CDN minimise latency and enhance real-time processing capabilities that are not possible purely via the public cloud. By processing data at the edge of the network, the strain on network bandwidth is also alleviated.
Edge computing will continue influencing network architecture design and redefining the parameters of data processing with the development of smart cities, IoT and AI-powered applications that rely on data processing, with businesses strongly encouraged to migrate workloads to edge computing.
Multi-cloud networking and environments
With an increased demand for flexible and scalable solutions in networking, multi-cloud networking (MCN) and environments have become essential for businesses to keep up. Multi-cloud networking and environments consist of many tools and solutions that enable networking and connectivity across cloud environments. They mitigate the limitations that come with using traditional network architecture by allowing for seamless integration across multiple cloud environments.
The key challenge we see in our customerbase with multi-cloud networking is the sheer amount of complexity and same-but-different solutions within constructs such as cloud networking, underlay networking and overlay networking. Many customers will have multi-cloud through necessity rather than strategy – for instance, using Microsoft Cloud for Office365 collaboration, alongside AWS for developer-led public cloud and likely a smattering of other PaaS and SaaS cloud offerings. We’re increasingly seeing the rise of cloud exchange gateways as an alternative to Internet exchange (IX), bringing the same complexity of IX management – such as peering management, route policy and the like – down from the ISP domain and into the enterprise domain.
By 2031, the global market size of multi-cloud networking is projected to reach $19.9 billion USD (£15.7 billion) and grow at a rate of 23.3%. Businesses that embrace multi-cloud networking and environments will find themselves connecting and managing workloads across diverse cloud environments and establishing a secure, high-performance network that will carry out operations as efficiently as possible, steadily flow data between clouds to reduce data silos, optimise data transmission speeds for faster response times and improve customer experiences by evolving along with users.
AI networking
Of all the trends unfolding in the networking space this year, AI is proving to be a substantial one. Networking solutions have become increasingly reliant upon artificial intelligence (AI) for optimisation, maintenance and analytical purposes. AI networking has also bolstered capabilities within industries like network services to develop robust and efficient networks that will continue to support operations.
Trends such as network observability and network telemetry mean the amount of logging, traces and metrics required to be analysed is becoming untenable for any one human. AIOps is becoming a necessity to augment overworked and often under-tooled network operations staff in delivering, maintaining and optimising increasingly agile, complex and demanding enterprise networks.
By continuously influencing how networking infrastructure is built and integrating into network automation tools to enhance decision-making and analyses, AI is proving to be a game-changer when it comes to networking. We’re finding several amazing use cases where the use of an AI tool, such as GPT, enables us to grok an API with a contextually-specific use case, or quickly glean through pages of troubleshooting documentation to find the exact nuance of bug, CVE or PSIRT we’re in the midst of fixing or coding.
To learn more about the impact of AI on networking through 2024, take a look at our blog on the top network automation trends.
Intent-based networking (IBN)
Intent-based networking (IBN) has been a groundbreaking networking advancement thanks to its ability to use automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to simplify network management. This technology has rapidly grown in popularity for networking-oriented businesses, as it allows administrators to define a network’s intent and automatically translate and implement these intentions across the wider network infrastructure to optimise its performance, security and scalability.
IBN eliminates the need for manual configuration—often a requirement of traditional networks– through its automated processing that is based on real-time analytics, ultimately improving efficiency while decreasing the margin of error and revolutionising the ways in which businesses can streamline their network management.
While still not mature, the concepts of IBN are finding their way into mainstream NMS, OSS – and increasingly even ITSM – products, and matching the “as a service” patterns application development teams are used to from the public cloud world.
How CACI can support your networking journey
At CACI, our trained cohort of network automation engineers, network reliability engineers (NREs) and consultants are well versed in a plethora of IT, networking and cloud technologies, ready and willing to share their industry knowledge to benefit your unique networking requirements.
We act as a trusted advisor to help your organisation drive better experiences by enabling more effective use of technology and business processes. Our in-house experts have architected, designed, built and automated some of the UK’s largest enterprise networks and data centres. From NSoT through CI/CD, version control, observability, operational state verification, network programming and orchestration, our expert consulting engineers have architected, designed, built and automated some of the UK’s largest enterprise, service provider and data centre networks, with our deep heritage in network engineering spanning over 20 years.
Take a look at Network Automation and NetDevOps at CACI to learn more about some of the technologies, frameworks, protocols and capabilities we have, from YAML, YANG, Python, Go, Terraform, IaC, API, REST, Batfish, Git, NetBox and beyond.
Digitisation of Joint Service Manuals (JSM) for Defence Equipment and Support Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) are the procurement arm of the UK Ministry of Defence. They have a pivotal role in fulfilling equipment requests from across the Front-Line Commands, Executive Agencies and At Arm’s Length Bodies such as the Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA). Their remit ranges from straightforward equipment procurement to the development of new technologies and ensuring the UK Armed Forces can maintain availability and readiness for a fleet of over 400 different platforms.
DE&S summarised the overall task as “to develop the Joint Service Manual (JSM) concept and codify the Receipt, Inspection, Issue, Storage & Maintenance (RIISM) Service Category”. CACI’s main task was to digitise the JSM by bringing them into the “COMPASS for Land” digitised group of capabilities. In fact, CACI were able to go beyond digital transformation of the RIISM manual by adding 3 other important manuals.
DE&S prioritised a solution that not only digitised JSMs but also facilitated improved compliance and included interactive features to enhance suppliers’ understanding of and adherence to JSMs, making the process easier for them.
THE CHALLENGE
The commercial documentation is complex, lengthy, and sometimes didn’t keep pace with the evolution of processes over time. Because of this:
Compliance wasn’t high enough.
Interpretations of the commercial documentation sometimes resulted in incorrect actions.
DE&S needed a better way to support all actors in the procurement processes to save time, reduce individual differing interpretations, and improve compliance overall.
DE&S required a digitised version of its current paper-based product. This would ensure that JSM information could be found, searched, accessed, and condensed for ease of absorption, with clear explanations. The search function was important, aiming to make it easier to look across several JSMs for information and links.
THE SOLUTION
CACI created digitised JSMs with a flexible search facility, explanations of roles and responsibilities, and relevant dependencies involved in delivering items for DE&S. The solution enables searching across multiple JSMs, for instance a search for “quality” can be set to bring back all quality references in all JSMs. A user can bookmark favourite sections for repeat reference and can make suggestions in the solution for future enhancements of the functionality.
Mood was employed for the document digitisation aspect of the project. From a delivery perspective, this was an example of the CACI Mood team working alongside colleagues from other suppliers and within the Defence industry in a single delivery team under the overall management of Equinox, DE&S’s private sector programme delivery partner. This type of “Rainbow Team” approach worked well. Not only is Mood easy to integrate within a wider process that uses other software tools, but bringing different suppliers together into one team with a single leadership reduces barriers in communications and speeds up delivery.
Bringing the JSMs into the overall Mood Compass for Land solution brought extra benefits of a pre-existing sign-in apparatus, admin functions and feedback loops.
THE RESULTS
Users are reporting:
It’s much easier to find the instructions they need.
They have confidence that these are up to date.
Fewer issues relating to process are arising.
Efficiency is increasing.
Communications between parties in an end-to-end process have been improved.
Agreement is reached on actions faster, and with less debate.
In addition to the day-to-day operational benefits, the new digitised JSMs are supporting highly beneficial business analysis and root cause identification of areas for improvement.
THE FUTURE
CACI will continue to digitise JSMs as and when they are prioritised for action and will continue to make enhancements as required.
Although this Case Study focuses on a Defence context, the challenges outlined in this case study will be replicated across multiple industries and operations where adherence to instructions is critical, sometimes even for the preservation of life and limb, but the quantity, complexity and changing nature of those instructions mitigate against compliance.
*Compass for Land is a Mood software solution that digitised the Common Support Model
Defence Digital provide a set of global personnel across the Ministry of Defence with core IT services vital to their role. Either on the front line, or in the back office, enabling mobilisation, modernisation and transformation, Defence Digital are the digital lynchpin in the MOD’s operations.
Many teams from all commands across the MOD, as well as industry partners, have a need to create architectural models of operations and processes or create interactive solutions for their people to aid them in coordinated, efficient, and safe working. These needs can be short or long-term, be planned well in advance or an unplanned urgent requirement, they could be for 1 person or over a thousand users.
Defence Digital needed a software product and dedicated support that would be flexible enough to meet these multiple requirements, was scalable, and instantly available without commercial delays or constraints.
THE CHALLENGE
A solution was required that could be easily learned, deployed swiftly, that enabled rapid building of models and operational solutions, but would be technically sophisticated enough to tackle a wide range of tasks.
The MOD required a service that would deliver:
Flexible functionality in a single platform.
Speed in deployment and training of users.
A responsive support function.
The opportunity to influence the future development of the software in partnership with the supplier.
Build and maintenance of the IT infrastructure to support the software platform.
The software platform needed to:
Be a no-code / low-code software platform.
Give the ability to build architectures from which stakeholders could gain business insights.
Be architecture framework agnostic.
Deliver the ability to create digitised operating frameworks.
Enable analysis and presentation.
THE SOLUTION
Mood software is a great fit and CACI have proudly supported Defence Digital for around 8 years.
CACI agreed an enterprise licensing approach that means anyone in the MOD can request a Mood license online or by telephone and is given access to a new Mood repository, the same day. Training is provided on request, speedily and a short course is all that’s needed to start working productively with the software.
The support service provides help and guidance, making sure users get the most benefit from Mood, and CACI run regular user forums to help the MOD Mood User community share great ideas.
Many people in the MOD have become expert creators of material in Mood, and, because of the excellence of the presentation layer, many of the solutions built with it have hundreds of regular users who view and work with outcomes rather than building in Mood.
Mood Business Architect (MBA) software provides a no code/low code Enterprise Architecture tool for developing and maintaining models. The product is extremely flexible and enables users to define data structures and relationships as required to model their problem space. The software utilises a SQL Server database, and network hosting enables multiple architects to access and contribute to the model. A powerful permissions model with the MBA tool enables administrators to protect and restrict access as applicable.
Once developed, models can be shared with a wider stakeholder base via Mood Active Enterprise (MAE). Models are presented in a web browser and tools are available to make the user experience fully interactive, for instance, providing opportunities to update data, apply filters, drill down/up into lower or higher levels, etc.
THE RESULTS
There are between 60 and 100 individual repositories built in Mood at any one time, all supported through the Managed Service. Here are some of them:
GEAR, the Guide to Engineering Activities and Reviews, is a mandated source of guidance to the defence engineering community. Built originally by contractors and now maintained by the MOD personnel using Mood software, it replaces an unwieldy set of previous materials with fully digitised guidance, with unlimited user access. Widely and frequently used, GEAR has around 22,000 logins per year.
DLF, the Defence Logistics Framework is a one-stop shop for defence logistics policy, digitising for the first time a comprehensive set of documents, and supporting re-authoring. DLF has over 52,000 logins a year.
Maritime, Air and Land Defence Frameworks are all Mood-based high-level capability models of the domains. These provide a vital overview and breakdown of defence capabilities in their respective domains.
The reference frameworks save significant time for staff officers new in post, and ensure consistency is maintained within the FLC’s.
Support Chain Information Service Architectural Repository (Formerly LNECA: Logistics Net Enabled Capability Architecture) holds information on all of the logistics systems and has been in operation since 2008. It’s continuously updated and developed and is the intelligence source for briefings to senior managers. If deleted, it would have to be re-built as it’s vital to strategic and operational thinking.
THE FUTURE
The Managed Service (MS) provided to Defence Digital continues to support users throughout the MOD, giving users access to licensing and support via the MS desk. This provision underpins a wide range of operational capability through the Ministry and provides continued value through the delivery of comprehensive support and advice for enterprise architects and users of Mood applications.
As the Mood software platform develops, so do the capabilities it supports across the MOD, providing new functionality and performance so that MOD personnel can use the tool to drive operational efficiency in their respective areas of interest. The Mood Managed Service is a solution for Enterprise Architecture at the MOD and continues to drive collaboration throughout the organisation, providing the ability to model core business functions and processes, as well as their interdependencies MOD-wide.
As the MOD continues to modernise, the importance of such a function is clear and CACI remain committed to delivering a robust and capable Managed Service that continues to demonstrate Mood’s capability as the Enterprise Architecture tool of choice.
The Managed Service is excellent. It provides a means for anybody in the MOD to take advantage of the flexibility of Mood in the development of online applications or architectural models. In this it is second to none. In addition, the CACI team provide the support and management of the service to ensure that the end user has a trouble-free experience.
The responsiveness of this service to requests, issues and queries, in general, is quick, efficient and effective. The software is kept up to date in a controlled and risk-free way. This does not mean that there aren’t issues, but these are generally dealt with quickly and, in the main, transparently. Our experience of the Service in the development of Lighthouse (Defence Exercise Programme) and Lantern (Observation Capture and Analysis) for JW and Astral (Collective Training Objectives Management) for Air has enabled us to deliver solutions that are effective and adaptive to changing user needs, offering significant cost-effective benefits to their end user communities.
Alan Payne, Managing Director, Agilient International
The Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA) is part of Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S). Its purpose is to procure and project-manage the construction of future Royal Navy submarines and support those in-service working with Navy Command and the Defence Nuclear Organisation (DNO). The In-Service Management Team (ISM) sits within the SDA.
As part of the In-Service Management (ISM) team’s quality assurance function, periodic engineering audits are performed to ensure that processes are correctly followed when delivering equipment parts. During these audits, non-conformances may be identified which require attention, resulting in actions which must be tracked to completion.
ISM required a new capability to automate the management of this work and improve governance.
THE CHALLENGE
Equipment failure could occur with associated potential safety issues, because of a failure to track non-conformance actions.
Experience was being lost as staff are normally moved to new posts every two years.
Lessons from previous audits were not always applied due to limited information accessibility.
Efficiency needed improvement. Previous tools used to manage audit work (e.g. Excel and SharePoint) required significant overheads to track and manage the audit calendar.
ISM wanted a tool that would secure the audit process and better support operations by decreasing the probability of actions being missed or delayed. Easy access to previous audit outcomes would help preserve team knowledge.
The solution needed to be self-sufficient in that all details of the item being audited could be input to the tool, and the audit team assigned. In addition, ISM looked for a significant reduction in elapsed time to complete each audit.
THE SOLUTION
The SDA chose CACI’s Mood Software to underpin their solution because of how well it lends itself to extending capabilities through the addition of new modules. COMPASS Submarines was initially developed to provide management of documented business processes, and CACI were able to weave in a new audit module that would avoid users needing to log in to separate software tools.
The new tool digitises the recording of audit details such as non-conformance findings and related actions. This is underpinned by a workflow with alert emails triggered by activities like adding or updating audits, or a non-conformance needed to be acted upon.
Scheduled emails act as reminders, for example when an audit is due. This is a successful instance of Mood software’s ability to be customised using JavaScript to deliver extra functionality to the end solution.
THE RESULTS
Efficiency is improved through system-driven working rather than relying on personnel knowledge and human driven processes:
Strengthened governance, as there’s auditable evidence that findings are being captured and tracked.
Reduced likelihood of recurring issues.
Management overhead surrounding audits have been significantly lowered, allowing a reduction in FTE dedicated to the tasks.
Retention of knowledge is improved, as outcomes of latest and previous audits are readily available.
THE FUTURE
The audit module is available to other parts of Defence, however, its value as an engineering audit compliance tool isn’t limited to a Defence context. We’ll be exploring new uses and are actively looking at extending the solution design to be relevant to other types of audits such as the complete range of ISO standards.
We’re proud to share that the audit module was recognised with an award at the SDA Improvement Awards in November 2022.
Network automation has become increasingly prevalent in enterprises and IT organisations over the years, with its growth showing no signs of slowing down.
So, how is the network automation space evolving, and what are the top network automation trends that are steering the direction of the market in 2024?
Hyperautomation
With the increasing complexity of networks that has come with the proliferation of devices, an ever-growing volume of data and the adoption of emerging technologies in enterprises and organisations, manual network management practices have become increasingly difficult to uphold. This is where hyperautomation has been proving itself to be vital for operational resilience into 2024.
As an advanced approach that integrates artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), robotic process automation (RPA), process mining and other automation technologies, hyperautomation streamlines complex network operations by not only automating repetitive tasks, but the overall decision-making process. This augments central log management systems such as SIEM and SOAR with functions to establish operationally resilient business processes that increase productivity and decrease human involvement. Protocols such as gNMI and gRPC for streaming telemetry and the increased adoption of service mesh and overlay networking mean that network telemetry and event logging are now growing to a state where no one human can adequately “parse the logs” for an event. Therefore, the time is ripe for AI and ML to push business value through AIOps practices to help find the ubiquitous “needle” in the ever-growing haystack.
Enterprises shifting towards hyperautomation this year will find themselves improving their security and operational efficiency, reducing their operational overhead and margin of human error and bolstering their network’s resilience and responsiveness. When combined with ITSM tooling such as ServiceNow for self-service delivery, hyperautomation can truly transcend the IT infrastructure silo and enter the realm of business by achieving wins in business process automation (BPA) to push the enterprise into true digital transformation.
Increasing dependence on Network Source of Truth (NSoT)
With an increasing importance placed on agility, scalability and security in network operations, NSoT is proving to be indispensable in 2024, achieving everything the CMDB hoped for and more.
As a centralised repository of network-related data that manages IP addresses (IPAM), devices and network configurations and supplies a single source of truth from these, NSoT has been revolutionising network infrastructure management and orchestration by addressing challenges brought on by complex modern networks to ensure that operational teams can continue to understand their infrastructure. It also ensures that data is not siloed across an organisation and that managing network objects and devices can be done easily and efficiently, while also promoting accurate data sharing via data modelling with YAML and YANG and open integration via API into other BSS, OSS and NMS systems.
Enterprises and organisations that leverage the benefits of centralising their network information through NSoT this year will gain a clearer, more comprehensive view of their network, generating more efficient and effective overall network operations. Not to mention, many NSoT repositories are much more well-refined than their CMDB predecessors, and some – such as NetBox – are truly a joy to use in daily Day 2 operations life compared to the clunky ITSMs of old.
Adoption of Network as Service (NaaS)
Network as a Service (NaaS) has been altering the management and deployment of networking infrastructure in 2024. With the rise of digital transformation and cloud adoption in businesses, this cloud-based service model enables on-demand access and the utilisation of networking resources, allowing enterprises and organisations to supply scalable, flexible solutions that meet ever-changing business demands.
As the concept gains popularity, service providers have begun offering a range of NaaS solutions, from basic connectivity services such as virtual private networks (VPNs) and wide area networks (WANs) to the more advanced offerings of software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV).
These technologies have empowered businesses to streamline their network management, enhance performance and lower costs. NaaS also has its place at the table against its aaS siblings (IaaS, PaaS and SaaS), pushing the previously immovable, static-driven domain of network provisioning into a much more dynamic, elastic and OpEx-driven capability for modern enterprise and service providers alike.
Network functions virtualisation (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN)
A symbiotic relationship between network functions virtualisation (NFV), software-defined networking (SDN) and network automation is proving to be instrumental in bolstering agility, responsiveness and intelligent network infrastructure as the year is underway. As is often opined by many network vendors, “MPLS are dead, long live SD-WAN”; which, while not 100% factually correct (we still see demand in the SP space for MPLS and MPLS-like technologies such as PCEP and SR), is certainly directionally correct in our client base across finance, telco, media, utilities and increasingly government and public sectors.
NFV enables the decoupling of hardware from software, as well as the deployment of network services without physical infrastructure constraints. SDN, on the other hand, centralises network control through programmable software, allowing for the dynamic, automated configuration of network resources. Together, they streamline operations and ensure advanced technologies will be deployed effectively, such as AI-driven analytics and intent-based networking (IBN).
We’re seeing increased adoption of NFV via network virtual appliances (NVA) deployed into public cloud environments like Azure and AWS for some of our clients, as well as an increasing trend towards packet fabric brokers such as Equinix Fabric and Megaport MVE to create internet exchange (IX), cloud exchange (CX) and related gateway-like functionality as the enterprise trend towards multicloud grows a whole gamut of SDCI cloud dedicated interconnects to stitch together all the XaaS components that modern enterprises require.
Intent-based networking (IBN)
As businesses continue to lean into establishing efficient, prompt and precise best practices when it comes to network automation, intent-based networking (IBN) has been an up-and-coming approach to implement. This follows wider initiatives in the network industry to push “up the stack” with overlay networking technologies such as SD-WAN, service mesh and cloud native supplanting traditional Underlay Network approaches in Enterprise Application provision.
With the inefficiencies that can come with traditional networks and manual input, IBN has come to network operations teams’ rescue by defining business objectives in high-level, abstract manners that ensure the network can automatically configure and optimise itself to meet said objectives. Network operations teams that can devote more time and effort to strategic activities versus labour-intensive manual configurations will notice significant improvements in the overall network agility, reductions in time-to-delivery and better alignment with the wider organisation’s goals. IBN also brings intelligence and self-healing capabilities to networks— in case of changes or anomalies detected in the network, it enables the network to automatically adapt itself to address those changes while maintaining the desired outcome, bolstering network reliability and minimising downtime.
As more organisations realise the benefits of implementing this approach, the rise of intent-based networking is expected to continue, reshaping the network industry as we know it. The SDx revolution is truly here to stay, and the move of influence of the network up the stack will only increase as reliance on interconnection of all aspects becomes the norm.
How CACI can support your network automation journey?
CACI is adept at a plethora of IT, networking and cloud technologies. Our trained cohort of network automation engineers and consultants are ready and willing to share their industry knowledge to benefit your unique network automation requirements.
From NSoT through CI/CD, version control, observability, operational state verification, network programming and orchestration, our expert consulting engineers have architected, designed, built and automated some of the UK’s largest enterprise, service provider and data centre networks, with our deep heritage in network engineering spanning over 20 years.
Take a look at Network Automation and NetDevOps at CACI to learn more about some of the technologies, frameworks, protocols and capabilities we have, from YAML, YANG, Python, Go, Terraform, IaC, API, REST, Batfish, Git, NetBox and beyond.
