I was in Belgium this week for the tenth annual TERENA Networking Conference. This meeting gathers networking and security experts from research and education networks throughout Europe and around the world. My talk (titled “Network Access Control and Beyond”) was one of many at the conference that focused on the theme of pushing beyond the ordinary. The medieval town of Bruges provided a lovely setting for this cutting-edge networking conference, causing me to reflect on the balance between stability and innovation.

Research and education networkers operate on the edge between practice and theory, always balancing the dual goals of keeping their networks stable and pushing the envelope to develop next-generation services. This is not so different from corporate IT or anything else in life. There’s always a tension between stasis and change. Should we stick with the old reliable ways or move to the new? Of course, we must mix both. Without change, our networks and businesses will become obsolete. Yet uncontrolled change will make our networks unreliable.

What can we learn from the TERENA researchers about living with change? Here are some of their techniques, which I think we can apply well to our own networks and organizations:

1. Start with a grand vision but stay open to new ideas and surprises. Without high hopes, you will never go far. But having a vision can blind you. All great ideas start out as one person’s crazy brainstorm so keep an open mind. TERENA is full of wild ideas and grand visions. Nobody expects them all to pan out but everyone’s happy to dive in and discuss them (not how to kill them but what they could do and how to fix the problems with them).
2. Favor broad, enabling technologies. Technologies like TCP/IP and the World Wide Web (developed in research and education networks) are simple but very powerful because they allow anyone to come up with a new idea and try it out.
3. Deploy incrementally. TERENA is a federation of national networks, which in turn consist of many universities and other institutions. New ideas are piloted on a small scale before they are considered for wide adoption. This lowers the barrier to trying new things.

All of this comes down to creating a culture that encourages innovation while managing risk. TERENA has mastered this lesson and it’s a great one for IT organizations. Innovation is the lifeblood of any enterprise. IT is a natural source of innovation. Master the lessons above and you’ll make sure that your network is reliable but not obsolete.

Tawnee Kendall and I sat down and recorded this video on Interop 2008. Check it out!