Getting Started

We’ll start with simple questions: “what is network automation”, “why is it so hard” and “how do I get started”. Next you’ll explore the hierarchy of network automation, from operated network to automated remediation… and might get a few ideas that you could already implement in your network.

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In the first session of the January 2017 course I gave attendees some hints on getting simple automation solutions into production. You might want to skip the first part of the video and focus on From here to there, Start small, and Make it as simple as possible sections.

Patrick Ogenstad described his network automation journey, from writing firewall rules in Excel to deploying large-scale network automation solutions. As he progressed through the problems he solved on this journey, he also identified the lessons learned, pitfalls and takeaways.

This section focuses on larger systems and components you need to build them. You might think you don’t need it, but you’ll find it very handy when trying to move from small spot fixes that address the most-immediate pains to bigger solutions.

A must-have overview of open-source network automation tools, including configuration and state management tools, automation frameworks, version control systems, IPAM tools, and logging, monitoring and testing tools.

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Once you've mastered a tool, it's tempting to use it for every job no matter how suitable it is. Alternatively, there are so many tools out there that it's really hard to select the best one… and then there's the usual dilemma of choosing between open-source and commercial offerings. This section will help you get started - it describes typical challenges, differences between fixed-purpose products, platforms and tools, and gives you some selection guidelines. It also includes a few hints on how to study new tools more effectively.

Another very important aspect when designing and building a network automation solution is its security and reliability. The security aspects are not much different than what you'd usually have to deal with when installing a network management system, and the reliability aspects should be familiar to any software developer. However, it's still worth spelling them out.

Git is the source-control tool of choice not only for most open source project, but also for extremely large teams like Facebook or Microsoft Windows development team. It seems a bit convoluted when you start, but you’ll quickly discover its benefits in this Getting started with Git tutorial by Scott Lowe.

If you’re familiar with another version control tool, or want to learn more about Git, I’d highly recommend reading the Pro Git book. I would also suggest you invest more time in understanding Git concepts than trying to remember a few quick recipes and move on.

Building a virtual lab was one of the largest hurdles faced by many course attendees, so we asked Matt Oswalt (the author of NRE Labs) to explain his approach to building virtual labs and the tools he uses to build them.

Building your own lab is the messiest part of the whole course. I provided several blueprints - from running Ansible in a VM and working with physical boxes to running an Arista EOS-based fabric or combining an Ansible VM with Cisco devices running in VIRL.

While using using network automation tools (and thus standardizing services deployments) can drastically increase the security level of an environment, we must also ensure that we only use trusted software to implement automation solutions.

Matthias Luft focused on secure software sourcing aspects of open-source tools used in the course. He covered the security goals in software sourcing, differences in open versus closed/commercial software, known security incidents, and concluded with a proposed modeal that could deal with all those challenges.

If you want to learn more about Git, Vagrant or Python, check the online resources included in this section. We also included several Software Gone Wild podcasts you might find interesting.