Network infrastructure has in most cases been managed using traditional, manually driven methods. This approach is poorly equipped to handle the widening demands placed upon network infrastructure to deliver connectivity at scale and speed while maintaining security. Network engineering teams who want to get ahead are looking to the robust, mature model of continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), pioneered by application development teams, to improve their processes for network creation and management.
These forward-looking engineers aim to leverage pipelines to manage network code, enhance testing processes, and improve the consistency of their network management process. The adoption of CI/CD process to network engineering varies – some teams have implemented their pipelines, while others are still at an earlier stage of the journey, still looking for a roadmap to guide their implementation efforts.
In this webinar, Morgan Stern, VP of Automation Strategy at Itential, and Joksan Flores, Senior Solutions Engineer at Itential, demonstrate a phased approach to implementing a NetDevOps pipeline using popular CI/CD tools and the Itential Automation Platform. They also share tried-and-true techniques and best practices that have enabled networking pipeline innovators to achieve greater agility, consistency, and scalability in their network management approach.
Demo Notes
(So you can skip ahead, if you want.)
00:00 Introduction & Overview
2:22 CI/CD & Network Infrastructure
7:16 Elements of NetDevOps
12:43 How to Apply a Phased Approach to NetDevOps
20:10 Demo Overview & Architecture
31:41 Generate Configuration Changes & Creating a New Dev Branch
35:15 Deploy Assets to Dev Environment
42:12 Merge Config Change & Bump Version
44:32 Deploy to Production & Verify Network Changes
