Irony is a funny, fickle thing sometimes. It never ceases to amaze me the situations it seems to bring nor the way in which it appears. Very recently, this just happened to me as I sat down to write this blog post. No sooner was I into writing the first paragraph when irony came calling in the form of an email. As I noted the contents, it gave me pause for a (admittedly very long) moment to reflect on network automation.
Now I am getting ahead of myself as I tend to do at times, so let me dial this back just a bit and start from the top. I’m assuming if you are reading this blog, chances are that you have seen the announcement of my recent move to Itential. Perhaps you have been on this network automation journey yourself and are curious to know why I have come to Itential or perhaps I’m a new face to you with a looks-harder-than-it-is last name to pronounce. (For the record, it’s spruh-GA-da).
Before getting into all of that, I wanted to build on that reflection from earlier. For myself, it goes back quite a way, all the way back to 2012 to be precise. Back then we had some outlandish ideas about taking systems automation tools such as Puppet and Chef and adapting them to the world of networking by building vendor neutral abstractions. There were some successes along the way, but it just never quite fit right and network automation just always felt like a bolt-on afterthought that required a lot of jumping through hoops to make it work right.
It did, however, bring awareness to a nagging problem for network operators. How could we transition to a world where network operational models could be simplified by software and free up individuals to perform high value networking tasks?
Soon thereafter, the second wave of network automation began to accelerate and network automation was really taking off. There was a swarming effect as networking professionals began to embrace their DevOps alter egos (NetDevOps, if you must). Automation frameworks such as Ansible began to make huge inroads, finally providing a solution that embraced network devices using native interfaces. Open-source communities devoted to network automation began to emerge and we saw the evolution of key tools such as Netmiko, NAPALM, and NetBox begin to solve some of the challenges associated with managing today’s complex network infrastructures.
However, as with everything in technology these days, “the cloud” began to change everything. The move to cloud-based services has created new pressures for operating today’s infrastructures, especially for network teams. New challenges and operational complexities have emerged as infrastructure teams are asked to do more, to learn more, to manage more, and to respond faster than ever. To meet this growing challenge, network automation needs to grow and adapt to these changing requirements, providing a simpler way to connect diverse APIs, data models, network devices, and cloud infrastructures together.
In joining Itential, I have a unique opportunity and distinct pleasure to work with a team that understands the need for a more holistic approach to automating disparate systems. The requirement to automate networks has moved well beyond simply applying configuration to network devices. Organizations can ill afford to constantly be waiting for operational tools to play catch up through abstractions and custom integrations. Teams demand the ability to tie together systems quickly and effortlessly without having to maintain layers and layers of custom code.
Here at Itential, we recognize the dilemma that customers are facing, and we are laser focused on building a platform that network teams can leverage to bring together the myriad of systems support data and production deployments required to effectively manage today’s hybrid network infrastructures.
As the demands for network automation continue to blur the boundaries, I return to that ironic email that showed up as I began drafting this very blog. The email was a system generated email with a very simple, one line message.
The Netdev Cookbook Has Been Depreciated
It was a great reminder of the need for a platform that can meet the challenges of today, setting the foundation that allows companies to focus on building automation instead of managing glued together code. I’m thrilled to be continuing my journey around evolving network infrastructure automation here at Itential and look forward to working closely with our customers, partners, and the networking community to continue to evolve the state of network automation.
I hope you will join us on this journey. I would love to hear your own personal stories and reflections on your journey through network automation. Please do not hesitate to reach out with you story. You can find us on Twitter as @Itential or reach out me personally as @privateip.
Peter Sprygada
Vice President, Product Management ‐ Itential
Peter Sprygada serves as the Vice President, Product Management at Itential after serving as the Chief Technology Officer at Pureport where he was responsible for their multi-cloud network as a service interconnect platform. Prior to Pureport, Sprygada was a Distinguished Engineer for Red Hat, where he played the role of Chief Architect for the Ansible Automation Platform. Sprygada also held senior technical and leadership positions at Arista and Cisco, as well as several networking startups.
