Intent-Based WAN – From High-Level Goals to Automated Assurance
Introduction
Between 2020 and 2025, the industry saw a surge of interest in Intent-Based Networking (IBN). While much of the early hype surrounded data center automation, intent-based approaches also began shaping wide-area network (WAN) operations. The premise is straightforward: instead of defining device configurations, network teams define what they want in business terms, and the system translates, enforces, and continuously verifies that the intent is met.
This blog explores how intent-based design influenced WANs, the standards that codified the terminology, and practical implications for enterprises dealing with hybrid work, cloud adoption, and regulatory constraints.
What Is Intent in the WAN?
Intent captures business-level requirements, not device commands. For example:
- “Ensure video conferencing maintains MOS ≥ 4.1 for finance users during market hours.”
- “All traffic involving payroll systems must remain within India.”
These intents translate into policies: QoS classes, path selection rules, security segmentation, and monitoring probes. Unlike static policies, intents are living contracts between business needs and network state.
The Four Stages of Intent Lifecycle
According to RFC 9315 (2022), intent-driven systems in the WAN follow four stages:
- Capture
- Collect high-level requirements from operators, often expressed in human-readable or structured policy languages.
- Translation
- Convert intents into vendor-agnostic, low-level configurations.
- For example, translate “limit SaaS latency <120 ms” into DSCP marking + SLA policy + steering rules.
- Verification
- Simulate or analyze the compiled intent against historical flow data.
- Prevent rollouts that would break critical paths.
- Assurance
- Continuously monitor live telemetry to confirm the network still satisfies the intent.
- Trigger alerts or remediation if gaps appear.
Why the WAN Needs Intent
The WAN is inherently heterogeneous and dynamic: multiple access types (fiber, broadband, 5G), multiple providers, and workloads spread across multi-cloud. Static, device-centric policy does not scale. Intent-based methods provide:
- Consistency: Same business goals applied across diverse devices and providers.
- Auditability: Intents can be versioned, showing exactly what business requirement drove a change.
- Faster change velocity: Declarative inputs reduce configuration errors.
Industry Developments (2020–2025)
- IETF/IRTF: RFC 9315 created a common terminology, clarifying differences between intent, policy, and configuration.
- MEF LSO APIs: Introduced programmatic methods for service ordering and assurance, aligning well with intent-driven orchestration.
- Academic research: Explored applying formal verification to WAN intents, ensuring mathematical correctness before deployment.
Indian Context
Enterprises in India, especially BFSI and telecom sectors, began piloting intent-driven WAN use cases such as:
- Regulatory intents: “Customer data must remain within India” → enforced via region-aware routing policies.
- Sector-specific intents: “Trading apps must maintain latency <20 ms during market hours” for financial institutions in Mumbai.
- QoE intents: “Collaboration apps must meet MOS thresholds across distributed workforce.”
Given India’s hybrid work boom, intent-based WANs also helped simplify policy across home offices, branch offices, and cloud workloads.
Challenges in Practice
- Language and abstraction: Enterprises struggled to define intents precisely enough to translate into actionable policies.
- Telemetry gaps: Without reliable per-app, per-user telemetry, assurance stages often failed.
- Skill gaps: WAN engineers had to evolve into “policy engineers,” bridging business and technical domains.
Future Outlook (2025–2030)
- Standardized intent languages: Expect formal, interoperable policy languages to emerge, enabling portability across vendors.
- AI-assisted translation: Systems will suggest intents based on observed traffic patterns.
- Closed-loop remediation: WANs will automatically adapt paths when SLOs drift, with human approval gates only for high-risk actions.
Conclusion
Intent-based WAN design represents a cultural and technical shift. By focusing on outcomes rather than configurations, enterprises can align networks with business goals, improve agility, and strengthen compliance. While the tooling is still maturing, the trajectory is clear: by 2030, intent-driven WAN operations will be a standard expectation.
Sources
- RFC 9315 (Intent-Based Networking Concepts and Definitions)
- MEF LSO APIs and standards
- Indian BFSI and telecom regulatory guidelines