https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnJuKXhFaQ8

http://www.nasa.gov/content/fermi-gamma-ray-space-telescope

It's called Supply Chain Management and has been happening in the manufacturing industry for decades. A car manufacturer will negotiate SLAs, minimum quality thresholds and delivery deadlines with parts suppliers, freight companies and distributors to ensure that a quality product is produced quickly and cheaply.

It was only a matter of time before Internet companies start doing the same. They either build their own networks (a la Google) or they negotiate exclusive deals with other ISPs. Fast and reliable access to their services is vital to their business and they MUST manage it. They cannot rely on the good graces of ISPs.

One thing I always say during job interviews is that as a system administrator my goal is to automate myself out of the job. By automating the mundane stuff it frees you up to do the interesting stuff.

Thankfully I've never managed to actually succeed at automating myself out of a job. There's always something that needs to be done manually . . . even if it's just maintaining the automation scripts!