Toward Autonomy#

Scott Robohn — NAF | Solutional

• Why: The best framing talk of the cycle for where closed-loop network operations is heading — useful context for any PM whose roadmap touches autonomous remediation.
• What: "Control Plane 3.0": autonomy as a continuum (scripted automation → goal-driven adaptive behavior), not a feature you turn on. Argues we already run autonomous systems — BGP being the exemplary model (distributed, convergent, bounded impact) — and enumerates the necessary ingredients: control loops fed by telemetry, fail-safe error handling for states you didn't anticipate, incremental workflow-by-workflow development, and people and trust built through measurable experiments and gated rollouts.
• How: Phased rollout per use case (experiment → PoC → limited prod → scale), with a difficulty tiering that rings true (easy: device OS upgrade, branch CPE turn-up; medium: SP edge turn-up, multi-tenant segmentation; hard: global failover orchestration, brownout mitigation, intent-drift remediation). AI is positioned as a "how, not a what" — one tool among several, with hybrids of AI and traditional mechanisms called the most likely effective path. Reference scaffolds: TM Forum autonomy models, ETSI ENI, IBN — "models as scaffolding, not doctrine."
• Where applicable: Conceptual rather than a case study, but the difficulty tiers and cross-domain orchestration framing (LAN + DC + WAN + cloud + security, and IP/optical alignment as an opportunity) are directly relevant to DC/WAN planning. No org-specific dependencies.