Category: automation

The featured webinar in September 2017 is the Ansible for Networking Engineers webinar, and in the featured videos you'll learn what Jinja2 is and how you can use it to generate network device configurations with Ansible.

If you already have an trial subscription, log into my.ipspace.net, select the Ansible webinar from the first page, and watch the videos marked with star. To start your trial subscription, register here.

Plenty of new stuff was added to the Ansible for Networking Engineers online course and webinar since the last update.

Fun things first: I needed adjustable check mode behavior and change tracking in some playbooks, and documented these features in two new videos (online course and webinar).

It all started with a realistic response I got to my automation and orchestration blog post (here’s a unicorn-driving-a-DeLorean one in case you missed it):

Maybe you could also add the “intent-based network” which is also not so far from orchestration?

It got me thinking. The way I understand intent-based whatever, it’s an approach where I tell a system what I want it to do, not how to do it.

A network engineer interested in attending the Building Network Automation Solutions online course sent me this question:

Does the course cover only Ansible, or does it also cover other automation tools like Python?

The course focuses on how you’d build a network automation solution. Selecting the best tool for the job is obviously one of the major challenges, and so one of the self-study modules describes various automation tools and where you could use them to build a full-blown solution.

A network architect working for a system integrator sent me a number of questions along the lines of “what would be an interesting alternative to pursuing another CCxE certification?”

He wrote:

One of the use cases we covered in Network Automation Use Cases webinar is a fully-automated data center fabric deployment. Dinesh Dutt (Cumulus Networks) started this section with an overview of challenges you might face in data center fabric deployments.

One of the engineers going through my Ansible for Networking Engineers online course sent me this question:

In the Introduction section, you mention a use case of upgrading software. Do you have an example playbook?

Unfortunately, I don’t. Upgrading software is one of those things that’s almost impossible to simulate in a virtual lab.

Some networking practitioners start their network automation journey with the Python or Ansible dilemma. Engineers and architects usually want to understand the bigger picture first, and figure out the potential showstoppers and roadblocks. One of them left this feedback on the Network Automation 101 webinar:

A must-have overview of fundamental Network Automation concepts. I wouldn't face an automation project without understanding these concepts first.

In mid-July dr. Olivier Bonaventure (one of the unsung networking heroes who’s always trying to address real-life problems instead of inventing unicorn solutions in search of a problem) sent an email to v6ops mailing list describing how they teach networking.

Short summary for differently-attentive:

I’ve added two new case studies to Ansible for Networking Engineers online course:

Create network diagrams from LLDP information playbook focuses on creating a single summary report based on information from numerous devices (and the report just happens to be network diagram in DOT format).

I got several interesting replies to my automation and orchestration blog post. Some of them were so far in the land of alternate definitions that they were literally off the charts. Here’s one of the best I got in that category:

If you’re not old enough to know otherwise, you’d think (based on recent hype) that we discovered network automation a few years ago. Not true. One of my readers sent me a link to excellent Managing IP Networks with Free Software presentation from NANOG26 (October 2002).

I found the presentation awesome, nothing new, and extremely sad… all at the same time.

I got tons of questions about the upcoming Building Network Automation Solutions online course. It always starts with the same one:

Is access to the self-study material granted upon enrollment?

Absolutely. You also get access to everything we did in January, and the new self-paced Ansible for Networking Engineers online course.

Have you ever wondered what the difference between automation and orchestration is?

Wikipedia defines automation as use of various control systems for operating equipment. The definition I prefer (because it’s easier to understand in network automation environment) is elimination of well-defined repeatable manual tasks – the emphasis being on well-defined and repeatable.

Here’s the list of materials (and other changes) I added to the Ansible for Networking Engineers webinar and online course in June 2017.

The first thing you’ll notice is the brand-new user interface with collapsible sections, making it easier to grasp the big picture (the change was badly needed – the webinar is already almost 12 hours long).