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

# Scale
The size and scale of the modern network have grown exponentially to accommodate the needs of organizations. Networks that started out as just a few switches and a router are now large-scale enterprise networks. While logical networks evolve and grow, the tools used to manage physical devices remain stagnant. On the campus, we now see VoIP phones, wireless access points, IoT, security cameras, print fleets, desktop fleets, and meeting room equipment. In the data centers large physical and virtual footprints are not uncommon. Worldwide WANs, with switching and routing in each remote office, are now commonplace. The device is not slowing down. Even more devices are being added to networks every day in the absence of appropriate centralized, and automated management solutions. 

Network management starts with the console cable and a local CLI. Administrators must enable remote access to the CLI over a management IP address. Now, imagine network technicians still needing to go to the physical console of every device to manage it. It sounds unreasonable, but only remote access to the CLI has been centralized. The same methodology of logging into the CLI to manage the device is followed as if the operator is virtually at the console. In fact, these remote connections are known as virtual teletypes, or VTY lines. At the scale of today’s networks, connecting to the CLI of every device to manage the enterprise is simply unachievable. Even with a large, capable network operations team, everyone is going to operate, configure, and manage each device their own way. This leads to configuration drift and a lack of consistency at scale. 

Automated solutions scale with the network as device configurations are templated. Small, feature-specific, and modular templates ensure each device is standardized. When new feature requirements arise, the configuration commands are templated and released at scale, updating the network standards uniformly. Unique, device-specific, and meaningful information is modeled in a data dictionary. This dictionary holds all the variables used to compile a unique configuration for each device. Code can be written modularly to match the topology of the network. By creating playbooks specific to the environment, such as campus, data center, WAN, or cloud, Ansible playbooks ensure code simplicity, readability, and development flexibility. 


Let's take a look at how the scale of the organization's network affects 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

Scale of Networks

Scale