Intent-Based Networking Taxonomy

Customers and partners, and recently investors ask the question “How is one Intent-Based Networking (IBN) offering different than the others?” And more often than not I hear answers that sound subjective, descriptive, and subject to interpretation. What is needed are tangible, fact-based nomenclature that can help you reason about the maturity of IBN solutions. Using this nomenclature, we should be able to map IBN solutions to an IBN maturity level, starting with Level 0 (low maturity/incomplete) and going up to Level 3 which enables a fully compliant IBN solution (mature/complete).