Let’s start with a truth every NetEng pro knows: scripts are awesome — until they’re not. You write one to drop a VLAN. It works. You feel like a rockstar. Then you write 50 more, and suddenly you’re drowning in a mess of dependencies, version mismatches, and operators pinging you while you’re watching the game to ask, “How do I run this thing again?”
More scripts should mean more control, right? Wrong. That’s the automation paradox — and it’s killing your productivity.
I spent 20 years as a network engineer, hammering out CLI commands like show version to keep the lights on. Deadlines ruled my life, and headcount wasn’t growing, but the gear sure was — more boxes, more complexity. So I turned to automation. My first Python script felt like magic. Simple stuff — grab a config, push a change. Easy.
Then I hit reality: sharing it with my team was like running headlong into a brick wall.
“You want to run this on the core router?”
Blank stares.
That’s the trap. Scripts multiply like gremlins. Every builder on your team cranks out their own, stashing them on laptops or random repos. You’ve got Python here, Ansible there, maybe some Terraform if someone’s feeling fancy. It’s organic, sure, and there’s innovation in that chaos — I’ll never argue against a clever hack. But without control, it’s a house of cards. One wrong dependency, one “works on my machine” moment, and you’re back to square one, SSH-ing into boxes while the game’s on.
Chaos Isn’t the Goal. Control Is.
Take a step back. The problem isn’t the scripts — it’s the sprawl. In our last webinar series, I played the builder, churning out code to solve deadlines, only to watch Rich play the operator flailing at the CLI.
“What’s Git? Why’s it breaking?”
Two hours to run a show version script because Fedora didn’t have the right Python version. That’s not innovation — that’s a Saturday ruined. The paradox hits hard: more scripts, less control, and automation isn’t actually saving you time.
Operators feel it worst. Rich nailed it: “I just want to run the thing.”
Network pros don’t sign up to decode pip install errors or chase down Netmiko versions. They’ve got infrastructure to keep alive, special snowflakes or not. And builders? We want our code used, not stuck in a README no one reads. The disconnect’s real, and it’s why ad-hoc automation fails at scale.
The Fix: Simplicity That Scales
Here’s where Itential Automation Service (IAS) flips the script (pun intended). It’s not about stifling your Python-fu or Ansible chops; it’s about making them work without the baggage.
Picture this: I write a script — say, to deploy a VLAN. I commit it to Git, publish it through Automation Gateway, and IAS handles the rest. No “install Git” lectures. No virtual environment wrestling. Rich logs into the IAS UI, clicks a button, fills a form — bam, VLAN’s live in 1.84 seconds. That’s from Webinar 2, and it’s not a fluke.
We cut a two-hour CLI nightmare to under two seconds. Control, not chaos.
How? IAS standardizes execution, not creation. Builders like me pick the tool — Python, Ansible, whatever — and IAS turns the script into a service. It will generate an environment at runtime whenever someone goes to run the service, skipping all the operational bull**** along the way.
Dependencies? Handled. Input validation? Built-in with decorators. Operators don’t need a CS degree; they get a clean UI or a single igctl command. No more “Peter, it broke!” Slack pings mid-game. Webinar 1 showed the pain; Webinar 2 showed the fix. It’s less yak shaving, more doing.
Scale It: APIs Break the Silos
But here’s the kicker: control isn’t just for one team. Automation’s bigger than your terminal. In Webinar 3, we took it further: IAS exposes those services via APIs. I updated an Ansible playbook for a ContainerLab topology, tagged it in GitHub, and a pipeline deployed it — destroy, rebuild, inspect, done. One API call, three services, zero manual logins. Guardrails stayed up — service accounts locked it down — so I’m not sweating an rm -rf / disaster. (Yes, I’ve nuked my home directory once. Long story.)
That’s the ecosystem play. Your builders code. Operators run. DevOps pipelines scale it (GitHub, Jenkins, whatever). IAS ties it together without forcing anyone to rewrite their workflow. More scripts, without the chaos — now they’re controlled, shareable, and scalable. Paradox solved.
Take Back Control
Look, I get it. Scripts feel like freedom. But freedom without structure is just chaos with extra steps.
IAS isn’t here to replace your tools; it’s here to make them work — for you, your team, and your org.
Want proof? Grab the 30-day free trial at itential.com/free-trial. Run a VLAN deploy in under two seconds. Tag a Git commit and watch your pipeline hum. Ditch the paradox and get back to what matters — solving problems, not fighting tools. And on Saturday, time to watch the game in peace.
Peter Sprygada
Chief Architect ‐ Itential
Peter Sprygada serves as the Chief Architect 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.
