Aviatrix Blog 
Aviatrix wants to elevate the work of cloud networking heroes who labor to keep networks secure, effective, and performant. We’re proud to highlight people who have taught themselves the necessary skills, designed and managed successful networks, and have the expertise to share.
Our next hero spotlight is on Ansley A. Moyo, Network Engineer. See our previous hero spotlights here.
Background: From PC Gaming to Networking Engineering
Ansley’s love for tech and computers dates back to his primary school days in his hometown, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. His curiosity and enthusiasm for PCs, the dominant model at the time, led him to win a citywide computer quiz competition. After that, his passion for computers grew through PC gaming.
Ansley earned a Computer Science degree and began his career in Retail IT, learning networking and computer hardware/software consulting for a small company through his final year of university, before eventually joining a Financial Services Group, Old Mutual, as a graduate engineer in the ICT Infrastructure and Networking space.
“Three and a half years later, I am now a Network Engineer, working with a Cisco Enterprise on-prem, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Microsoft Azure multicloud network ecosystem,” he said. He describes designing, deploying, and maintaining network systems as some of his favorite things. “The network is the baseline of the IT ecosystem,” he said. “It is from there that we build and connect different ICT solutions and teams together, from Operations, Development, Security, Storage, and Database, all the way to the End-User Service Delivery.”
Other milestones he’s proud of include going through a graduate program within his current organization and upskilling with certifications in the cloud such as AWS – Certified Cloud Practitioner, Networking Core, Solutions Architect- Associate, AWS Well-Architected Framework Proficiency, Microsoft Azure – Network Engineer- Associate, and most recently, Aviatrix Certified Engineer – Multicloud Network Associate. Highlights of his career included being recognized for the AWS All Builders Welcome Grant 2024 Program and being selected as an Aviatrix Cloud Networking Hero.
Cloud Networking: Past and Present
Ansley described some of the changes he’s seen in cloud networking since he started. “When I first started my internship in 2016, the most common network setup you would typically find in the companies we consulted were a few standalone monolithic desktop PCs connected in a mesh, with a few shared devices like printers, and a File Server and at most a Wi-Fi Access point,” he said. “Throughout the years, with more exposure and the eminent advancement of tech, I was then introduced to virtualization technology, where a single server could host various applications and services. This brought about an exciting aspect of network virtualization, and use of technologies like Virtual Switches and VXLANs.”
After a few years, Ansley was introduced to SD-WAN technology like CISCO-DNA, which came with various advantages, the most dominant being network automation and enhanced monitoring. “If you encapsulate all those together, you have cloud computing, which is both the present and future of computing as we know it,” he said. “Cloud computing came with lots of advantages, including pay-as-you-go models, scalability of resources, and massive economies of scale. The networking aspect of it, also equally brought game-changing capabilities. The ability to deploy and manage a network and its resources, anywhere, anytime from a web console brought about massive flexibility.”
Ansley described what he foresees in the cloud networking industry over the next 10 years:
- The future is multicloud — “Instead of relying on all the services of a singular cloud service provider (CSP), companies can leverage the capabilities of different CSPs to provide a holistically reliable, secure, cost-optimized, highly available, and sustainable cloud ecosystems. Companies must avoid cloud provider lock-in and integrate these different CSPs with their existing on-prem data centers.” He names Aviatrix as an “unprecedented solution” that “seamlessly weaves together all these different CSPs with on-prem data centers to provide a highly available and reliable network service.”
- AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) as invaluable tools — “The decision to either ignore or embrace [AI and ML] will set the difference amongst Network Engineers, both on-premises and cloud. Where I really see AI and ML being most effective is on network outage detection and response…Reducing human intervention on network restoration greatly reduces downtime (RPO and RTO) and achieves High-Availability and Fault Tolerance of resources on the network. Using ML to design and deploy monitoring models that can detect and restore network services, sometimes before engineers detect failure, is where I see the future of cloud networking.”
- Security in the age of AI and ML — “Security remains a relevant question, especially with the emergence of AI and ML. While we are appreciative of leveraging AI and ML to improve our security measures in safeguarding our cloud and on-prem networks and the resources that sit behind them, we must be mindful of and must not overlook the fact that threat actors also leverage the same technologies to improve their threat and attack vectors and tools. Our security measures must be scoped and capable of preventing these intelligent attacks.”
The Network is the Cloud: A Modern-Day Need
When asked to define “the network is the cloud,” Ansley pointed to the connectivity and interdependence of networking and technology.
“The ability to connect, be it two peripheral computing devices, or humans across continents via a messaging app, has grown to be a modern-day need, one I think should be up there amongst Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” he said. “The Internet itself, the largest network, has driven innovation and technological advancements throughout the years, and all these emerging technologies cannot exist exclusive of the other. The success of these technologies is heavily embedded on the strength, security, and agility of the network, hence ‘The Network is the Cloud.”
Outside of Work
Outside of work, Ansley serves as a videography director at his church ministry, where he is responsible for online church services videography, vision mixing, and streaming. He is also an audio engineer in the same media ministry.
Ansley is also an award-winning Snooker/Pool player. He belongs to his company’s Pool club and has won numerous accolades in the Financial Services Pool League over the last three years.
Ansley’s other interests include getting outdoors, trying out new restaurants, attending concerts, and gaming on his Xbox with his favorite games being EA-FC, Far Cry, GTA, Mortal Kombat, and Call of Duty.
Curious about other cloud networking heroes like Ansley?
- We’ll keep highlighting networking professionals on this blog.
- Learn more about the Cloud Networking Heroes program and apply on The Cloud Network Community.