Gearing Up for NANOG 87: What’s Coming for Networking

As I get ready to represent Itential at the North American Network Operators’ Group’s (NANOG’s) 87^th gathering of network pros, my mind is on the big changes we’ve seen over the years and the bigger changes still to come in the networking world. NANOG is a space for network engineers and architects to get together and connect, share knowledge, and discuss their approach to network operations today and tomorrow – this time around, I know we’ll have lots to talk about.

More and more, I’m hearing about ideas like NetDevOps, infrastructure as code, network orchestration, and hybrid cloud environments from people outside of networking – the important role of the network in the shifting tech infrastructure landscape is becoming clearer to those on the outside. As a result, network teams are provided a big chance to step up and take ownership of the new infrastructure.

To get a handle on the increasing demands placed upon network infrastructure, teams are looking to a variety of solutions and approaches. But different teams are at different levels of maturity in these areas. Events like NANOG 87 are a good time to learn from your industry peers, find out what’s working and what isn’t, and compare it to your own team’s processes. You might be really advanced when it comes to automating discrete networking activity, for example, if your team has some talented Python coders or Ansible Playbook writers. But this same team might be struggling when it comes to something more broad and process-oriented like implementing a network infrastructure as code approach or learning how to work with the cloud team to manage a hybrid environment.

What’s Ahead for Network Pros

For network engineers, architects, and leaders looking to step into the next era of networking, priorities will include adopting NetDevOps practices, defining a strategy around cloud as a network domain, exploring the benefits of automation and orchestration, and looking at key areas for learning like APIs and markup formats.

We continue to see the practices pioneered in DevOps coming into other areas, and the NetDevOps approach will enable teams to treat infrastructure as code and speed the time involved in making network changes. Automation is a big one too – most teams automate at the task level with scripts and playbooks, but end-to-end automation across an entire network change process delivers much more efficiency, and orchestration is becoming more important for managing automation across a disparate network infrastructure. And as cloud and networking collide and automation becomes increasingly important, the overachievers will explore APIs and markup formats like JSON and YAML to be ready for the demands of complex hybrid ecosystems that rely on tools from multiple vendors.

How Itential Can Help Take on What’s Ahead

I’m excited to attend NANOG 87 to share the cool ways our network automation and orchestration technology can enable your team to advance your network management practices to better enable you take on what’s ahead. Itential’s focus on integration and orchestration means it fits perfectly into the rapidly evolving network infrastructure environments we’re just going to keep seeing.

Here are just some of the ways our patented technology provides the tools for networking teams to upgrade their approach:

• Onboarding and decorating existing automations: Teams who have already invested time and effort into building Python, Ansible, or other automations for specific networking tasks don’t need to worry when they hear about a third-party vendor automation solution. Itential provides the ability to bring those automations into end-to-end workflows, and even gives you the power to enhance them with a JSON schema that allows you to expose the automations to other users with key guardrails like input validation.
• Integration with network, cloud, and ITSM systems: With our library of over 300 Pre-Built Adapters and Integrations, coupled with our powerful and easy-to-use Adapter Builder, you can be sure Itential’s automation and orchestration solutions will work seamlessly with all the varied tools and platforms that make up your infrastructure.
• Simplifying configuration management: With Itential’s configuration management capabilities and the ability to create Golden Configurations for any type of network device or element across your architecture, configuration management is both sped up and enhanced by our platform.

For a comprehensive overview of what your network automation journey could look like and how Itential enables customers to progress along that journey, check out this talk Itential did at NANOG 70 (which was all the way back in 2017, and yet the high-level look at how customers can approach network automation remains as relevant as ever):

Attending NANOG 87? Stop by and chat with me during the Beer n Gear social on Tuesday night. I’d love to discuss how Itential’s unique automation and orchestration solutions can enable your team to step forward and take on your changing network with confidence.

If you won’t be at NANOG, you can watch this demo session I did for the guys at the Art of Engineering Podcast on how the Itential Automation Platform helps network engineers take on the next era of network management.