Single Source of Truth (SSoT) in Network Automation
blog » series » Single Source of Truth (SSoT) in Network Automation
ChatGPT explaining SSoT
Not too bad for a statistical model that has no idea what it’s talking about, right? Now for the crucial question: how exactly should one reach that holy grail?
- Building the Network Automation Source of Truth
- Building Network Automation Source-of-Truth (Part 2)
- Creating Automation Source-of-Truth from Device Configurations
- Podcast: Network Automation Source(s) of Truth
Implementation Details
Ready for a deep dive into the interesting details? Off we go…
- Text Files or Relational Database?
- Data Deduplication in Network Automation Data Models
- Model Your Network as a Graph not a Set of Boxes
- Read Network Device Information with REST API and Store It Into a Database
- Growing Beyond Ansible host_vars and group_vars
- Data Model Transformations in Network Automation Solutions
- Using YAML Instead of Excel in Network Automation Solutions
- Implementing 'Undo' Functionality in Network Automation
Sample Solutions
Want a few success stories? Here we go:
- Building Automation Device Inventory with Open Source Tools
- Automation Story: Building a Network Inventory Database
- Git as a Source of Truth for Network Automation
You might also enjoy the solutions built by attendees of Building Network Automation Solutions online course:
- Nicky Davey automated large-scale DMVPN rollout
- David Varnum created a solution that deploys VXLAN/EVPN infrastructure, and layer-2 and layer-3 service in Arista EOS fabric
- Valter Milanese and Emanuele Ballarini automated VXLAN/EVPN deployment on Cisco Nexus switches, including pre- and post-deployment validation and error recovery with cleanup and configuration rollback.
- Stephen Harding started with a full-blown data center fabric solution based on minimalistic data model that is expanded on-the-fly with a dynamic inventory script, evolved it into one of the best data center fabric automation solutions I’ve seen, and documented it in a long series of must-read blog posts.
- Adrian Giacommetti migrated Cisco ACI tenant networking into Oracle cloud
Want even more ideas? Check out the solutions showcase.
More Information
You’ll find more details in the Single Source of Truth part of Network Automation Concepts webinar.
Several presenters in the Building Network Automation Solutions online course implicitly described how they built the single source of truth when describing their automation solutions:
- Sander Steffann integrated NetBox, GitLab, and Ansible.
- Kurt Wauters and Wim De Hul presented an automation solution used in the large wholesale carrier.
- Damien Garros explained how to build a network automation framework from the ground up.
- Dirk Feldhaus described how to automate service deployment with Ansible within a network fabric to make the implementation faster, more consistent and less error-prone.
- Mark Prior described how he automated a private cloud infrastructure, and how he uses infrastructure-as-code principles to build reliable data center networking infrastructure.