March, 2019 | Reading time: 8 min
In March 2019, network teams face growing pressure to manage ever-larger infrastructures while maintaining agility, uptime, and compliance. As networks span across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, the role of automation becomes essential. Network automation moves beyond the convenience of scripting—it becomes a necessity for scale, accuracy, and rapid deployment.
Why Network Automation Now?
Organizations increasingly operate in real-time digital environments. Manual configuration simply cannot keep up with the speed of demand. Network automation addresses this gap by enabling consistency and repeatability, minimizing configuration errors, and accelerating service delivery.
By automating provisioning, monitoring, and compliance, engineers reclaim time and focus on higher-value activities such as design, performance optimization, and strategic planning. This shift is not about eliminating human roles but about empowering teams to work smarter.
Key Use Cases Driving Automation
- Zero-touch provisioning (ZTP): Automatically configures new devices as they come online.
- Configuration management: Ensures all devices adhere to golden configurations and compliance baselines.
- Automated remediation: Responds to events such as link failure, latency, or policy violation in real time.
- Cloud integration: Automates networking components as infrastructure is deployed or scaled in public clouds.
Choosing the Right Tools
The 2019 landscape includes a robust ecosystem of tools designed to support automation across multiple layers. Popular choices include:
- Ansible: Widely used for its agentless design and YAML-based playbooks, ideal for network devices and systems alike.
- SaltStack: Offers high scalability and robust remote execution features.
- Python and Nornir: Offers full programmability for engineers wanting full control with extensibility.
- Vendor-specific platforms: Cisco NSO, Juniper Contrail, and Arista CloudVision provide deep integration with their ecosystems.
Tool choice should align with the environment’s diversity and the team’s expertise. Open-source frameworks offer flexibility and cost savings but may require more ramp-up time.
Integrating with Change Management
Automation must coexist with enterprise change control processes. Integration with ITSM platforms like ServiceNow and ticketing workflows ensures visibility and accountability. Teams should build in automated pre-checks, rollback logic, and post-change validations to support safe deployment practices.
Security Considerations
Automation frameworks often require privileged access. Best practices in 2019 include:
- Using secure credential vaults (e.g., HashiCorp Vault, CyberArk)
- Implementing role-based access control (RBAC) for playbooks and scripts
- Auditing changes made by automation tools
Security must be part of the automation strategy from day one.
Scaling the Automation Journey
Start small. A pilot project—like automated backup configuration or interface description syncing—builds credibility and trust. Document success, gather metrics (e.g., time saved, incidents reduced), and expand gradually. Teams should treat playbooks and scripts as production code, following CI/CD principles and version control (e.g., Git).
Looking Ahead
As we progress through 2019, intent-based networking and closed-loop automation gain traction. These approaches elevate automation to the level of business intent, automatically translating goals into device configurations and behaviors. While early in adoption, they hint at the future: a self-operating, self-healing network.
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