Alexis de Talhouët

Alexis de Talhouët is an avid network automation expert always trying to lessen network complexity by getting involved in open source communities; he was mainly involved with OpenDaylight (ODL) and Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP), both hosted by The Linux Foundation, where he held Technical Steering Committee membership.

I initially started my career as a Java developer, with a massive passion for networking. At first, it felt very weird to build systems automating networks without really understanding them. But throughout the years, I learned to be sufficiently proficient in networking to properly build automation platforms around it. Such knowledge can be acquired either by building labs, following workshops, or, for the luckiest ones, spending some time in a network operation center.

Something that struck me the most, and is still true, is how much the path to network automation can be different if you come from a software developer versus...