The challenges of the CLI

At the Interop expo in Las Vegas in 2014, BigSwitch Networks' CEO Douglas Murray displayed the following slide to illustrate what had changed in Data Center Networking (DCN) in the 20 years between 1993 to 2013:

Data center networking changes (source: https://www.bigswitch.com/sites/default/files/presentations/murraydouglasstartuphotseatpanel.pdf)

His point was apparent: not much had changed in those 20 years in the way we manage network devices. While he might have been negatively biased toward the incumbent vendors when displaying this slide, his point is well taken. In his opinion, the only thing that had changed about managing routers and switches in 20 years was the protocol changing from the less secure Telnet to the more secure SSH.

 

It was right around the same time in 2014 that we started to see the industry coming to a consensus about the clear need to move away from manual, human-driven CLI toward an automatic, computer-centric automation API. Make no mistake...