A lot of the recent focus on network automation has come from the ground up, as a growing community of network engineers and practitioners has really started to coalesce around some central questions:
- Why isn’t network automation as widespread as it could be?
- What can we do to help accelerate industry evolution?
The peak of this groundswell of automation enthusiasm came at AutoCon0 in Denver last fall, held by the Network Automation Forum (NAF). The event helped to kickstart a new wave of momentum for driving network automation forward.
Below, get an overview of videos and podcast discussions both from and influenced by AutoCon0. Hear what other community voices are saying, identify where the industry might be heading, and start building or refining your network automation strategy with as much information as possible.
Packet Pushers Video Series: 1 Question, 10 Answers
At AutoCon0, the Packet Pushers team filmed a series called 1 Question, 10 Answers, asking network engineers and industry professionals important questions about network automation. These videos help you get a good range of ideas to see how different people in the industry are thinking about automation.
1: What’s Holding Back Industry Progress on Network Automation?
Here, get a zoomed-out perspective from the 10 respondents about some of the top challenges inhibiting progress, from a lack of standards and interoperability to large-scale mindset challenges like fear, hesitance, and limited understanding of overall service lifecycles.
2: What Do Network Engineers Get Wrong on Their First Network Automation Attempt?
This set of answers gets a little closer to the ground, and you’ll hear discussion about specific automation tooling, how to select the right use cases, and the automation best practices engineers should adopt as early as possible.
3. Should Self-Service Be the Long-Term Goal for Network Automation?
Answers are varied, and determining where, when, and how to implement the self-service delivery model brings up a lot of discussion. As a whole, though, the group has a positive outlook on self-service. The prevailing sense is that, if a self-service delivery model can be implemented successfully — in a way that’s practical and low-risk — it can lead to transformative benefits.
Itential @ AutoCon0: Evolving the Network Automation Journey from Python to Platforms
During Itential CTO and Co-Founder Chris Wade’s session at AutoCon0, he focused on the theme of evolution from tools to platforms. The session dove into the ways teams and organizations are maturing and how ideas like programmability, two-way integration, orchestration, and network commoditization contribute to network automation tooling and strategy decisions.
The session covers a lot of ground, plus a Q&A at the end, so there’s a lot to learn here. In brief, these are the topics discussed:
- What worked and what didn’t for past attempts at network automation, standardization, and programmability.
- Commoditization of the network — what it means, plus progress and challenges.
- The importance of integrating CLI and API to build a consistent, unified network automation and orchestration strategy.
- The role of communities like NAF in influencing vendors to support more open environments.
- Why it’s critical to define automation and orchestration as separate concepts:
- Automation: Building automations with tools to execute domain-level tasks like configuration changes.
- Orchestration: Integrating and stitching together individual automations across different tools, systems, and network domains to create an end-to-end service.
Post-AutoCon Virtual Panel: Progressing Network Automation
This recent discussion panel from the Network Automation Forum features Scott Robohn and Chris Grundemann, Co-Founders of NAF and AutoCon, alongside Kris Beevers at NetBox Labs, Andy Taylor at AWS, and Chris Wade at Itential.
The first order of business for the panel is the recently announced partnership between NetDevOps Days (by NetBox Labs) and NAF for future AutoCon events. After AutoCon0, it’s important to make sure we’re always evaluating how we can keep momentum up and support the automation community as well as we can, so this is definitely an exciting move.
The panel also dives into more substantive discussion about network automation. The group generally covers the following concepts and topics:
- Why network automation activity and interest has gone up — traced all the way back to SDN’s rise in 2012.
- Evolving network demands and dynamic apps and workloads driving a need for more automation.
- The evolution from tools to platforms and the difference between automation and orchestration.
- Collaboration, support, and community — how everyone can help the industry evolve.
In addition to this panel, if you want even more insight into why network automation progress has been slow and what can be done to accelerate it, be sure to check out this episode of Kentik’s podcast Telemetry Now with Itential’s Head of Product, Peter Sprygada, and Kentik’s Director of Technical Evangelism, Philip Gervasi.
Future AutoCons are upcoming in 2024, one in Europe and one in the US. Find information as it’s released here.
Looking Ahead: How Network Automation Will Evolve
If there’s one thing to take away after the incredible success of AutoCon0 and the two NetDevOps Days events last year, it’s that interest in network automation is at an all-time high.
As we move forward into 2024, network automation discussions are entwined with other key priorities like network security and zero-trust access, multi-domain orchestration and global service delivery, and platform engineering strategies for internal infrastructure consumption. Individuals, teams, and organizations are looking for new ways to approach automation and orchestration, adopting new platforms and transforming how they think about the network.
So get involved — learn from others in the videos above, by reading analysis and blogs, or just by getting started hands-on. Automation might not be a new topic, but we still have a lot more progress to make. How will you help move things forward?
Kristen H. Rachels
Chief Marketing Officer ‐ Itential
Kristen serves as Chief Marketing Officer for Itential, leading their go-to-market strategy and execution to accelerate the adoption and expansion of the company’s products and services.
