Network Automation Made Easy

Practical strategies and techniques for automating network infrastructure

As networks grow ever more complex, network professionals are seeking to automate processes for configuration, management, testing, deployment, and operation. Using automation, they aim to lower expenses, improve productivity, reduce human error, shorten time to market, and improve agility. In this guide, expert practitioner Ivo Pinto presents all the concepts and techniques you’ll need to move your entire physical and virtual infrastructure towards greater automation and maximize the value it delivers.

Writing for experienced professionals, the author reviews today’s leading use cases for automation, compares leading tools, and presents a deep dive into using the open source Ansible engine to automate common tasks. You’ll find everything you need: from practical code snippets to real-world case studies to a complete methodology for planning strategy.

This guide is for everyone seeking to improve network operations and productivity, including system, network, storage, and virtualization administrators, network and security engineers, and many other technical professionals and managers. You can apply its vendor-neutral concepts throughout your entire environment—from servers to the cloud, switches to security.

• Explore modern use cases for network automation, and compare today’s most widely used automation tools
• Capture essential data for use in network automation, using standard formats such as JSON, XML, and YAML
• Get more value from the data your network can provide
• Install Ansible and master its building blocks, including plays, tasks, modules, variables, conditionals, loops, and roles
• Perform common networking tasks with Ansible playbooks: manage files, devices, VMs, cloud constructs, APIs, and more
• See how Ansible can be used to automate even the largest global network architectures
• Discover how NetDevOps can transform your approach to automation–and create a new NetDevOps pipeline, step by step
• Build a network automation strategy from the ground up, reflecting lessons from the world’s largest enterprises

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Types of Network Automation

Chapter 2 Data for Network Automation

Chapter 3 Using Data from Your Network

Chapter 4 Ansible Basics

Chapter 5 Using Ansible for Network Automation

Chapter 6 Network DevOps

Chapter 7 Automation Strategies

Appendix A Answers to Review Questions

About the Author

Ivo Pinto, CCIE No. 57162 (R&S, Security, and Data Center), CISSP, is a Solutions Architect with many years of experience in the fields of multicloud, automation, and enterprise and data center networking. Ivo has worked at Cisco in different roles and different geographies, and he has led the architecture creation and deployment of many automated global-scale solutions for Fortune 50 companies that are in production today. In his latest role, he is responsible for multicloud innovation at the Customer Experience CTO office. Ivo is the founder of IT OnTrack (www.itontrack.com), a provider of services to young professionals who are looking to further their careers in IT. Ivo has authored Cisco white papers and multiple Cisco exam questions.