What is network automation?
Network Automation uses code to vastly simplify and streamline the deployment of network changes and information gathering.
As networks become larger and more complex, operating and maintaining them in the classic manner becomes more time-consuming, inefficient and generally results in higher risk.
Reliance upon a command-line interface makes determining the network state and implementing necessary changes very difficult and prone to error. Human error becomes a significant factor that can lead to unexpected and unfortunate outcomes.
The controls implemented to reduce the likelihood of these outcomes, for example, requiring detailed review from multiple approvers, significantly increases the time and resource required to implement the change.
Our Tools & Processes
We generally utilise Python and its associated network libraries to automate common network tasks.
However, in order to fully realise the many benefits of network automation, reliance upon scripts created on an ad-hoc basis by individual engineers with limited change control is not sufficient.
We look to utilise technologies such as version control (e.g. Gitlab, Github etc.), and orchestration platforms such as Ansible to develop a framework for automation that will continue to serve and grow as you travel through your automation journey.
Network Automation is developing
Network Automation is often utilised on an ad-hoc basis by individual engineers, with limited change control. This means that deploying it to larger or more complex changes has its challenges.
The next stage of Network Automation is NetDevOps – which applies the DevOps methodology to Network Automation.
DevOps is a software development strategy and culture that bridges the gap between the Development (Dev) and Operational teams (Ops), in order to build, test and release software faster and more reliably, and is widely used in cloud engineering.
The key practices are,
- Use Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC)
- Perform frequent, small updates
- Use CI/CD (Continual Integration/Continuous Delivery)
Benefits of Network Automation
Fundamentals
Primarily, the benefits of network automation are:
– Improved understanding of the network environment.
– Reduced risk and deployment time of network changes.
– Ability to standardise processes
– Eliminate manual tasks
– Quicker analysis and resolution of network issues
Trying to navigate and understand the myriad of options and
limitation of automative approaches and technologies is time consuming and complicated.
Our Capability
We have a rich experience in consulting, architecting, building and deploying network automation platforms for both ourselves and our customers. From an internal standpoint, we offer a managed network automation solution as part of our managed service.
Garnered from our experience, we apply this knowledge to help you choose the right set of tools for your organisation and build the right solution for your business, allowing you to simplify tasks such as:
– Source of Truth and Device Inventory
– Configuration Management and Differentials
– Operational State Verification
How we will help you
Our combined experience in networking and network automation, coupled with our understanding of DevOps, ensures a strong capability in NetDevOps, allowing well-structured & collaborative network automation to be delivered using tools such as:
- CI/CD pipelines
- Strong version control
- Self-documenting code
- Self-healing networks
To let you focus on more important business matters, we can build a solution for you to standardise your device configurations and automatically back them up to a single-source-of-truth platform. This is important because if a device on your network fails, there is a backup configuration on the platform ready to roll out get you back up and running instantly.
