--- title: Rant: Cloudy Snowflakes « ipSpace.net blog | daily.dev description: A pointed critique of the argument that networking complexity makes automation impossible. The author counters that environments with 50%+ customized transport... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/rant-cloudy-snowflakes-ipspace-net-blog-6snx9klsw twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Rant: Cloudy Snowflakes « ipSpace.net blog | daily.dev og:description: A pointed critique of the argument that networking complexity makes automation impossible. The author counters that environments with 50%+ customized transport... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/rant-cloudy-snowflakes-ipspace-net-blog-6snx9klsw og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/6sNX9klSW.png og:image:alt: Rant: Cloudy Snowflakes « ipSpace.net blog og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Rant: Cloudy Snowflakes « ipSpace.net blog **[ipSpace.net Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/ipspace)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A pointed critique of the argument that networking complexity makes automation impossible. The author counters that environments with 50%+ customized transport services aren't private clouds — they're poorly managed virtualization infrastructure. Using the example of a public cloud that manually copy-pasted firewall configs during maintenance windows, the author argues that real cloud infrastructure separates stable transport from tenant overlay networks, enabling automation. Public clouds like AWS succeed by keeping infrastructure stable and pushing all tenant customization into hypervisor-level virtual switches. The same model is achievable privately via VMware NSX or OpenStack, and blaming automation as a concept for failures rooted in organizational dysfunction is misguided. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do public clouds like AWS handle network automation without constant manual tweaking? Public clouds maintain a stable, minimal transport infrastructure and implement overlay networking on top of it using hypervisor virtual switches. All customer-specific configuration — static routes, firewall rules, custom topologies — lives entirely within tenant networks at the hypervisor level and never touches the physical infrastructure. This separation means tenants can self-serve via GUI, API, or IaC tools while the infrastructure team manages only the stable underlay. _Network engineers designing private cloud underlays find the trade-offs discussed on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why cloud migration needs a new approach](https://daily.dev/posts/why-cloud-migration-needs-a-new-approach-8hc45v8fv) · InfoWorld · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [I Learned Traffic Optimization Before I Learned Cloud Computing. It Turns Out the Lessons Were the Same.](https://daily.dev/posts/i-learned-traffic-optimization-before-i-learned-cloud-computing-it-turns-out-the-lessons-were-the-s-jlsucohlx) · DevOps.com · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Multi-Cloud: Challenges and Best Practices for Cloud Flexibility](https://daily.dev/posts/multi-cloud-challenges-and-best-practices-for-cloud-flexibility-vsvh6eokg) · Cast AI · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Hybrid Cloud at Enterprise Scale: Private Kubernetes for Portability and Control](https://daily.dev/posts/hybrid-cloud-at-enterprise-scale-private-kubernetes-for-portability-and-control-j1oyxy6b1) · Cloud Native Now · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#cloud](https://daily.dev/tags/cloud), [#networking](https://daily.dev/tags/networking) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/rant-cloudy-snowflakes-ipspace-net-blog-6snx9klsw) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Rant: Cloudy Snowflakes « ipSpace.net blog","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/rant-cloudy-snowflakes-ipspace-net-blog-6snx9klsw","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/rant-cloudy-snowflakes-ipspace-net-blog-6snx9klsw"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T08:52:33.364Z","dateModified":"2026-08-11T09:01:09.660Z","description":"A pointed critique of the argument that networking complexity makes automation impossible. 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All customer-specific configuration — static routes, firewall rules, custom topologies — lives entirely within tenant networks at the hypervisor level and never touches the physical infrastructure. This separation means tenants can self-serve via GUI, API, or IaC tools while the infrastructure team manages only the stable underlay. Network engineers designing private cloud underlays find the trade-offs discussed on daily.dev."}}]} ```