Re: Operational feedback on policy redundancy

[Nick Hilliard via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

Tom Beecher via NANOG wrote on 04/04/2026 23:12:
> Intent Based Networking is the love child of a failed network engineer, and
> an MBA.

it's mostly relevant to small/medium enterprise networks, which will 
have different operational goals to service provider networks.

As a general principle, if you try to optimise for a specific outcome on 
any system - e.g. improving latency/throughput to a specific destination 
- there's invariably a cost. In the case of intent-based networking, the 
cost will be complexity and routing consistency and long term 
maintenance. For a tiny network with simple edges, that might not be a 
problem. For larger networks, it probably will be. Worse still, undoing 
complex networking configuration is a complex operation in its own right 
and often leads to unexpected service loss. Any fool can build a complex 
network, but it takes skill to create a simple one.

The fact that some larger networks use intent-based networking doesn't 
change this calculus.

Nick

_______________________________________________
NANOG mailing list 
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog () lists nanog org/message/6LZPKBJBVL5UQD7SKSWA744T5Y4FARER/