Repetition is the Key to Network Automation Success

Training your data center “muscle memory” will ensure that when the pressure is on your network will make all the right moves.

If you’ve ever taken dancing lessons – or musical lessons – or tried to teach yourself to type you know that repetition is the key to success. Or as your mom would tell you, “practice makes perfect.” The reason repetition is a key factor in the success of endeavors that require specific movements in a precisely orchestrated fashion is that it builds what instructors call “muscle memory.” You’re actually teaching your muscles to react to a thought or movement automatically. Once you’ve repeated the same movement over and over it becomes second nature, like a Pavlovian response.

To achieve the efficiencies associated with network automation you’ve got to build the data center’s “muscle memory”, as it were. You can’t jump from no automation to full automation in one day, just as you can’t go from the basic steps of a waltz to flying around the floor like a seasoned pro. It takes time and repetition.

Application developers may recognize this approach as an iterative, or agile one, with the key mantra being “test early, test often.”


Published May 25, 2010
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