Interacting with network devices
Python is a popular choice for network automation because it is easy to learn and can be used to integrate with network devices directly, as well as through NMS. In fact, many vendors, such as Nokia and Cisco, support Python runtimes on their network devices. The option of on-device Python runtimes is useful for automating tasks and activities in the context of a single device. In this section, we will focus on the off-device Python runtime option. This option will give us the flexibility to work with multiple devices at a time.
Important note
For all the code examples provided in this section, we will use a virtual network device from Cisco (IOS XR with release 7.1.2). For integration with the NMS we will use the Nokia NSP system.
Before working with Python so that we can interact with network devices, we will discuss the protocols that are available for communicating with network devices.
