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Starting with "Why", a look at the shifts in the networking industry and how they impact professionals with a focus on network automation options, challenges, and how to start the journey ahead
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The Rules ofNetwork Automation… more what you’d call guidelines
than actual rules …
Jeremy Schulman@nwkautomaniac
Automation for Network Operations
Why should you care?How painful is automation today → future?What are your options?Who can we learn from?When will you take action?
Why should you care?
Does your business fail when your network fails?
... knowing you must automate your network operations
● Velocity
● Agility
● Stability
Business Value ⇔ Automation
● Lower Costs
● Reduce Risk
● Improve Service
Velocity
How quickly can you service existing market demands?● Instant gratification
● Customized experience
Agility
How quickly canyou address new and changing market opportunities?
Stability
Can you balance continuous operation while supporting velocity and agility?
Automation ⇔ Make IT or Break ITServer + Cloud is agile and automatedNetwork is the bottleneck
“unicorn” companies
everyone else
How painful is automationtoday → future?
Network Operations is Very PainfulMissions: Deploy Network Services
High Risk ComplexTasks
Low Risk SimpleTasks
Configuration Management
“config”
Situational Awareness
“show”
Isolated(blast radius = 0)
Distributed(blast radius ≥ 1)
Tool Choices Today are PainfulVendor Lock-In Build from Scratch
Operations → More + Painful + Complex
Switching
Routing Load balancer
Firewall
Multi-VendorAPIs
Network Infrastructure
Virtual Networking
Cloud Networking
NetOps Caught in the Chasm
● Not programmers● Frustrated● Disenfranchised
What are your options?
Automation is like Ice Cream
● Everyone wants it
● Everyone wants something different
● No one wants to make it
● No one wants to clean up the mess
Mission: Banana SplitFor kids birthday party
● Buy vs. build
● Customized experience
● Instant gratification
Factors:
Option 1: Vendor ProductIce cream shoppe
● Instant gratification
● “As Is”
● Vendor builds
● Vendor cleans-up
Option 2: Framework ProductSelf service froyo shoppe
● Near instant gratification
● Vendor provides a lot
● Customer builds too
● Customized experience
● Limited by options
● Assembly can get messy
Option 3: Build from ComponentsGrocery store
● Customer “shops” and “builds”
● Delayed gratification
● Good customized experience
● Lot of effort to build
● Lot of clean-up
● Very delayed gratification
● Make exactly what you want
● Best customized experience
● Maximum effort
● Maximum clean-up
Option 4: Build from ScratchDo it yourself
Choice & Control vs Time & Effort
Choice &
Control
Time & Effort
Product
Scratch
Framework
Component
Cooks | Chefs
Must NetOps be Programmers?
People who Eat Food
Home Cooks Professional Chefs
● Cook: career is making food for others
● Passion: cooking
● Formal training: yes
● Cook: they need to eat
● Passion: family, hobbies, ...
● Formal training: no
Home CooksHome Cooks Chefs
Skills and Expertise
focus on family for others too
Can only use a microwave - pizza, chicken nuggets
Competes at national level
Hosts dinner parties w/friends
< 1%
Professional ChefsCooks Professional Chefs
Skills and Expertise
focus on food on business too
< 1%
graduatedchef school owns restaurantexecutive chef Iron Chef
Lessons Learned
● Network Engineering is a craft● Software Engineering is a different craft● Both take years to develop for expertise● People | Process | Environmental factors● Culture change takes a long time
Who can we learn from?
Study the past if you would define the future.
-- Confucius
Code | Culture | Community
● Application developers and server operations ⇒ Tools
● Codify tribal knowledge into collective reuse and sharing
● Empower culture change and build communities (“DevOps”)
Developer + Operations (DevOps)Missions: Deploy Applications
ApplicationLifecycle
Management
ApplicationPerformanceMonitoring
Server Config Management
(Puppet, …)
Server Monitoring Tools
Configuration Management
“config”
Situational Awareness
“show”
Operations(blast radius = 0)
Developers(blast radius ≥ 1)
Lessons Learned
● 25% - DevOps coverage for NetOps● Networking ⇒ distributed, API orchestration● Need better tools for NetOps (inspired by DevOps)
● Need better Vendor-provided components● Culture change takes a long time
When will you take action?
When to Automate Networking?Emerging Technology and Products
committed projects now or very soon
Considerations
● You must plan your automation initiatives● Invest in your team that embrace change● Make automation part of your team’s bonus● Invest in equipment built for automation● Invest in new software tools for your team● Be patient, results take time
Summary
● Start planning network automation now● Review existing manual processes● Apply 80 / 20 rule● Watch for new frameworks and technology
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