Automating network operation tasks
This section introduces some common network operation tasks and use cases where you can introduce automation without causing too much friction with the existing tools and processes. We aim to take a series of manual steps normally performed by a human operator and explore how you can convert them into code so that a computer can execute them for you, all while keeping the original inputs and outputs unchanged. We will divide this section into three categories:
- Configuration management
- Network state analysis
- Network audits and reporting
Let’s get started.
Configuration management
This is the most popular area of the network engineering discipline that spans beyond network operations and often includes design and architecture stages. Most people see this as the lowest-hanging fruit to test, or where to start using, network automation. Let’s look at some common use cases that fall under this category.
