CloudNets S5 E1: Automating Network Upgrades
Automate gradually and minimize risk
In this episode, we explain the challenge network operators face when introducing new features—balancing speed, risk, and maintenance windows—and why traditional “big bang” upgrades are risky and slow. Here, we introduce automated scheduled maintenance that allows gradual, controlled software rollouts, reducing risk while accelerating innovation without late-night manual work.
CloudNets S5E1: Automating Network Upgrades
Dudy Cohen and David Watson cover 3 main challenges network operators face in bringing automation to network upgrades.
Chapters:
- 0:00 – Intro
- 00:49 – The Operator Dilemma: Speed vs. Risk
- 01:33 – DriveNets automates software upgrades
- 01:49 – No maintenance-window scheduled upgrades
- 02:16 – Summary
Key Takeaways
- Introducing new network features requires balancing speed with risk to avoid outages
- Traditional upgrades are manual, slow, and often require engineers to work overnight, increasing operational overhead
- Automated, scheduled maintenance enables gradual, controlled rollouts that reduce risk while delivering new features faster
Listen on your favorite platform
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Watch on YouTube
Read the full transcript
Hi and welcome to CloudNets where networks meet cloud. And today we’re going to talk about how you introduce new features into your network. This is a painful process and I have day with David with me to walk us through it. So David, what are the trade offs or consideration when you think about the pace in which you want to introduce a new version, new features into your network?
Great question, Dudy.
The Operator Dilemma: Speed vs. Risk
One thing that our operators are always dealing with is how do they get new features, deploy the network, maybe improvements that are deployed the network and schedule these maintenance windows in a time that are appropriate for their staff as well as the scheduling of all these activities around it. The one thing they have to balance is the rate at which they deploy these one to introduce maybe risk to their customers and maybe risking SLA contracts they have which no one wants to break those as well as getting those improvements into the networks. So that’s the trade offs they’re looking at is kind of the speed and the risk. We’re kind of going a little bit slower but maybe taking longer to get those improvements into the network, new features in the network and kind of generate more revenue for the company.
Yeah. So this is basically a dilemma that I think many of our customers are handling. Is there a way to enjoy both worlds so to introduce the features not in a big bang with this big risk, but still do not have the overhead and you know the time it takes to introduce in baby step.
DriveNets automates software upgrades
Definitely at DriveNets we’re introducing some automation to help with this. So traditionally what we’ve seen is network engineers have to stay up late at night and start moving software through the network.
Right.
No maintenance-window scheduled upgrades
And they’re doing this kind of network element by network element, router by router through the network. As they’re doing this, what we’ve introduced is a software package called Scheduled Maintenance Window where we can actually go through schedule the delivery of the software out to the nodes. We can determine which nodes we want on which days of the week, which hours of the day, at which rate, how many nodes.
It’s one. Exactly.
Because maybe I don’t want to go and flood one HUD site and say if I got a hundred devices, push the code to a hundred devices at once, maybe I want to do baby steps for that.
Do 10 nodes. Okay. And at a time.
Wow. So, so this is actually the, I think the feature many have been waiting for. The ability to enjoy the best of both worlds. Both do it gradually. So reduce the risk of having a bad version flooding the network, but do it fairly quickly. Quickly and with low overhead. So planning in advance and automating this process so we don’t have to stay up many, many nights in a row.
Exactly.
Okay. So thank you very much today for this. Thank you for watching. See you next time on CloudNets. Bye. Bye.
