Learn the concepts that are required for automating our network.

Fundamentals of DevOps

This module starts with automating network reconnaissance. We'll accomplish this by gathering important information from network devices while building a library of dynamic on-demand utilities and generating living documentation. Starting small, the module exhibits the simplicity and elegance of network automation.
We'll then learn how to automate larger changes that require a high number of repetitive steps. These changes will be executed serially in a specific orchestrated order, making them perfect for an automated solution. After becoming comfortable with these new tools, we’ll be able to fully transform any network configuration management into an automated, intent-based, self-documenting system.
In the end, we'll learn how to migrate to a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline, thereby fully automating the network.

Automate Your Network

## Introduction to network automation 
Network automation, at its core, is the conversion of networks from a collection of independent configurations into a unified application. Applications are written as code in certain programming languages, compiled, and then executed. Application developers around the world use a proven set of methodologies for software development. A key concept and component of network automation is the conversion of network configurations to code. 

Network automation exists in many forms using a wide variety of technologies and it means different things to different people. 


> For this course, network automation is the ability to abstract data from network configurations while using a machine to push commands and templated configurations to network devices securely, agentless, and at any scale, through a CI/CD pipeline. 

Information about the network is often gathered through traditional __Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)__ protocols combined with NMS solutions. SNMP provides a wealth of information about the network but is often limited to the health monitoring of a device on the network. Most of the information about the logical network is gathered using show commands input by network operators or engineers at the CLI. Hence, gathering information from the network is time-consuming. This is because these commands are nearly impossible to configure an NMS that is required in order to execute and gather output, especially at scale. 

## Why use automation?
What if a network engineer wanted to gather all the __Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)__ neighbors on the network to confirm a topology? Or confirm the spanning-tree information from each device to build a layer 2 topology of the network? What about gathering routing table information to build a layer 3 topology? What if the system could gather all the __Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)__ neighbors? What if the current IOS version of every device on the network could be collected without an NMS? Gathering this information takes a lot of manual effort using traditional network management solutions. Utilizing network automation, network administrators craft Ansible playbooks to perform these tasks by building an on-demand library of utilities.

## The power of automation
Here’s a demonstration of the power of network automation. The following widget displays basic information about a host on a network using a simple Ansible playbook.



# Introduction to network automation 
Network automation, at its core, is the conversion of networks from a collection of independent configurations into a unified application. Applications are written as code in certain programming languages, compiled, and then executed. Application developers around the world use a proven set of methodologies for software development. A key concept and component of network automation is the conversion of network configurations to code. 

Network automation exists in many forms using a wide variety of technologies and it means different things to different people. 


> For this course, network automation is the ability to abstract data from network configurations while using a machine to push commands and templated configurations to network devices securely, agentless, and at any scale, through a CI/CD pipeline. 

Information about the network is often gathered through traditional __Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)__ protocols combined with NMS solutions. SNMP provides a wealth of information about the network but is often limited to the health monitoring of a device on the network. Most of the information about the logical network is gathered using show commands input by network operators or engineers at the CLI. Hence, gathering information from the network is time-consuming. This is because these commands are nearly impossible to configure an NMS that is required in order to execute and gather output, especially at scale. 

# Why use automation?
What if a network engineer wanted to gather all the __Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)__ neighbors on the network to confirm a topology? Or confirm the spanning-tree information from each device to build a layer 2 topology of the network? What about gathering routing table information to build a layer 3 topology? What if the system could gather all the __Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)__ neighbors? What if the current IOS version of every device on the network could be collected without an NMS? Gathering this information takes a lot of manual effort using traditional network management solutions. Utilizing network automation, network administrators craft Ansible playbooks to perform these tasks by building an on-demand library of utilities.

# The power of automation
Here’s a demonstration of the power of network automation. The following widget displays basic information about a host on a network using a simple Ansible playbook.



Let's take a look at what network automation is and why you should use it.

What Is Network Automation?

Why Automate the Network?

How to Automate the Network

Where to Start with Network Automation

Repository Structure

Network Reconnaissance

Tactical Playbooks

Data Models and Dynamic Templates

Dynamic Intent-Based Documentation

Configuration Management

Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery

Conclusion

Network Automation

Introduction to network automation