APIs Alone Won't Fix Networking Management Challenges

A leading networking expert has shared their experiences on why adding an API to networking hardware doesn't solve management challenges. The author, who made a career change from Cisco to Nicira in 2011, notes that traditional network operators face significant difficulties due to the inconsistent features across devices.

The problem is not just limited to different vendors but also within the same vendor's products. According to the author, even devices with the same operating system may have varying feature sets and behaviors.

In an attempt to address this issue, the author tried to introduce a programmatic API to a range of products in the late 1990s. However, this project failed due to the centrality of CLI management and the lack of incentive for product teams to support additional configuration interfaces.