Intro Ansible Network Automation
Intro to Ansible Network Automation#
Network infrastructure is still managed today the same way it was many years ago
- collection of scripts
- node by node
- handcrafted and CLI driven
Why Ansible?#
- It is similar to how network people work already - Same cli and config commands
- Agentless - No need for third party services
- Simplicity
Configuration Automation#
- Multi-vendor networks - ansible abstracts the device specific implementation away
- gathering of facts - discovering devices, operating systems and capabilities of the devices
- Only changes whet needs to be changed
- Don’t have to get bogged down in vendor speak, focus on roles and tasks
Test-driven Deployment#
How do network operators test today?
- CLI commands like
show - Device specific utilities
- Homegrown and one-off scripts
The test driven deployment is essentially a playbook that is verifying certain responses from the cli. It then has a when clause to do certain things when there is a speicfic response.
Continuous Compliance#
Continually monitoring the network configuration network and state
Eliminate configuration drift
- validate that configuration statements are correct
- state is correct
- playbooks can be scheduled to run
- it will find network devices that are out of compliance