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

# CI development model
Throughout this course, it has been advocated to follow the CI software development model. CI is the
practice of merging all developer working copies to a shared repository several times a day. However, at
this point in the journey, a hybrid approach of automated playbooks executed by human operators has
been used. 

The execution of the playbooks has replaced the previous steps of copy-pasting network
engineers prescribed changes by network operations staff. Now, operators log into a Linux box and
execute `ansible-playbook` commands to generate automated documentation and perform network
configuration management across the enterprise. The next natural step is to automate the execution of the
playbooks themselves. Cron jobs or other Linux scheduling techniques can be used to automate the
scheduled execution of playbooks. However, there is a more elegant solution: integrating the
playbook execution directly into the CI/CD pipeline.

A great candidate for getting started with CI is the `documentation.yml` Ansible playbook. This
playbook generates the configurations and documentation for the network. Automatically running the
`documentation.yml` Ansible playbook every time pull requests merge changes into the master branch
leads to ever-developing, living documentation. Network changes now include all relevant and related documentation
updates without operator intervention.



# Build
A build is a software product in its final, consumable form. In traditional software, this means
executables or compiled code. For network automation, think of a build as a point-in-time collection of all
the components that make up the functional state of a network. 


Let's take a look at the continuous integration process.

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

Continuous Integration

CI development model