Gain insights into automating network reconnaissance, orchestrating repetitive changes, and transforming network configuration management. Discover CI/CD pipeline migration for full network automation.

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​​Network automation begins with automating network reconnaissance. This is accomplished by gathering important information from network devices while building a library of dynamic on-demand utilities and generating living documentation. Starting small, the course exhibits the simplicity and elegance of network automation.

Next, you will learn how to automate larger changes that require a high number of repetitive steps. These changes will be executed serially in a specific orchestrated order, making them perfect for an automated solution. After gaining comfort with the new tools, you can fully transform network configuration management to an automated, intent-based, self-documenting system.

The final step is learning how to migrate to a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline, thereby fully automating the network.

Automate Your Network

# Achieving full network configuration management 
Ultimately, the goal of network automation is to provide complete
coverage of all network configurations and the required changes to those
configurations. One-time, tactical playbooks are incredibly powerful. However, these playbooks are simply moving the execution of CLI commands
from human input to an automation engine. While network reconnaissance
and executing tactical commands can be performed at scale, full network
configuration management has not yet been achieved. This is because no source of
truth exists. The network is not yet intent-based, since there is no
automated provisioning. The powerful dynamic templating engine has not
been put into use.

Automated documentation and configuration management involves the
abstraction of data from network configurations. Data models are built
around the relevant information a device contains. The actual
configuration commands are then transformed into templates. Variables
are substituted with the information contained in the data models at runtime, making the templates dynamic. Standardized golden templates ensure
configuration consistency derived from intent is applied at scale.

Expand on the utilization of the `ios_config` module to automate
network configuration management. For the most part, code will continue
to be written as YAML files. However, now Jinja2 templating is introduced to
hold the mix of programmatic logic and static commands to build new
templates.

The process can be done in any order, but here are the building blocks
needed to automate network configuration management:

-   Create `group_vars` and `host_vars` variables in the data dictionary. The variables will have a YAML file format.

    -   This allows us to abstract the data (IP addresses, routes, ACLs, VRFs, network constructs, etc.) from the actual Cisco IOS CLI device configuration itself. Extract the important data and abstract it from the running configuration of the device itself.

-   Create small templates in Jinja2 file format that generate configurations. This has several uses such as:

    -   Dynamic templates

    -   Mix of static text, variables, and programmatic logic

    -   Variables replaced with information from `group_vars` and
        `host_vars`

    -   `For` loops to iterate over lists

    -   Basic `if`, `else`, and `end if` comparative Boolean logic

-   Create tasks:

    -   Done in YAML file format

    -   Use Cisco `ios_command` module

    -   Call the templates

    -   Assemble the templates

-   Create playbooks:

    -   Identify scope, and which devices to execute tasks on

    -   Call the tasks

    -   Execute using the `ansible-playbook` command and options


Let's learn about the process of configuration management involved in network automation.

Introduction

What Is Network Automation?

Why Automate the Network?

How to Automate the Network

Where to Start with Network Automation

Repository Structure

Network Reconnaissance

Tactical Playbooks

Data Models and Dynamic Templates

Dynamic Intent-Based Documentation

Configuration Management

Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery

Conclusion

Configuration Management

Achieving full network configuration management