Organizations must stop viewing the IT network as a purely technical asset. It has become far more strategic than that.
For many years, the campus network has been the responsibility of the IT department. Something to be planned, operated, and renewed alongside the rest of the technical infrastructure. It was procured in much the same way as parts of a building: as an investment in something physical and measurable.
The world around us has changed faster than the infrastructure beneath us. New demands for security, flexibility, and digital collaboration mean that the network is no longer just about capacity and ports. It is about governance, risk, and the ability to change safely.
A shift in mindset
For large organizations and corporatotions, municipalities, agencies, and ministries, this represents a fundamental shift. The network must move from being a technical asset to becoming a strategic platform. That requires a new understanding of ownership and responsibility.
The physical network should be treated as part of the building itself. It is infrastructure that belongs there, in the same way as ventilation and electrical systems.
What does not belong to the building, however, are the services that depend on the network. Security, visibility, identity, and other digital control mechanisms are part of the organization’s own platform. They move with the organization and must be renewed and governed independently of which equipment happens to be installed in a rack, or whether the organization relocates to another building.
We must therefore stop tying functionality and security to physical devices in technical rooms, and instead elevate them into services that can be consumed regardless of where the organization operates.
Many organizations are currently in the middle of this transition. They are moving from owning boxes to managing capabilities, from thinking in terms of physical operations to thinking in terms of digital service flows.
From infrastructure to governance
When networking is delivered as a service, Network as a Service, the governance model also changes. We move from acquisition and lifecycle management to consumption and control. From local decisions to shared principles. From purchasing features embedded in hardware to purchasing measurable outcomes such as availability, capacity, security, and compliance.
This is not about technology. It is about organizational maturity and the ability to combine stable operations with continuous innovation.
Zero Trust as a governance philosophy
The same applies to security. Zero Trust is not a product, but a principle: never trust, always verify.
When an organization adopts this principle as a part of its governance model, the discussion is no longer about where the firewall is placed, but about how trust, responsibility, and decision authority are defined across the entire organization.
The network then becomes more than a technical structure. It becomes part of how the organization understands and manages risk, it becomes part of the governance system, alongside finance, quality, and sustainability.
Sustainability and responsibility
The physical infrastructure is also part of the sustainability equation. New requirements for security and functionality often lead to hardware being replaced long before it is worn out. Not because it is broken, but because it no longer supports the next version of a service.
Standardizing, reusing, and extending the lifespan of equipment is therefore not only technically sound, but also an important element of an organization’s environmental strategy. When intelligence and control are moved up into the service layer, the underlying infrastructure can be simpler, more energy-efficient, and last longer. That is both sound economics and responsible resource management.
The road ahead
For many organizations, this represents a genuine shift in thinking. From buying technology to buying capacity, control, and assurance. From projects to platforms. From counting ports to measuring compliance, availability, and sustainability.
When governance, security, and sustainability converge, the result is not a technology project, but a strategic change in how organizations build, own, and protect their digital assets.
Technology evolves rapidly. Maturity is not about chasing it, but about knowing what should remain stable and what must be allowed to move forward. The physical network should be the first thing to remain stable. Everything else can—and should—be built on top of it, without unnecessary constraints.
First posted, in Norwegian at ComputerWorld
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