Begin with the environment.
The first task is to define the operating reality: the services that matter, who depends on them, the technical and commercial constraints, what has already been tried and what outcome the organisation is actually seeking.
Only then should products, platforms or delivery routes be compared. This prevents the available solution from quietly redefining the problem.
The network is a shared dependency. Its architecture should support performance, secure access and change without becoming invisible technical debt.
Questions worth answering
- End-to-end service-path behaviour
- Segmentation and trust boundaries
- Wireless, WAN and internet dependencies
- Observability, resilience and supportability
- What evidence would change the current direction?
- Who will own and operate the outcome?
A useful output
The result should be more than a list of observations. It should describe the decision, the evidence, the viable options, the trade-offs, the recommended direction and the work required to make that direction succeed.
