The Network Automation Forum’s debut event AutoCon0 was built around bringing the community together to progress and evolve network automation. In this AutoCon0 session, Itential CTO & Co-Founder Chris Wade discusses network automation and how to think about its evolution.
Top priority is understanding the difference between automation and orchestration to gain clarity in network transformation initiatives and tooling decisions. Chris also lays out new ways to understand the ecosystem of tools and how we can reconcile the inherent complexity of networking with effective automation and orchestration.
You’ll hear about:
- Commoditization of the network — progress and challenges.
- What worked and what didn’t for past attempts at network automation, standardization, and programmability.
- The importance of integrating CLI and API to build a consistent, unified network automation and orchestration strategy.
- The role of communities like NAF in influencing vendors to support more open environments.
- And most importantly, why it’s critical to define automation and orchestration as separate concepts: automation being domain-level tasks, and orchestration being a layer above, integrating and stitching together individual automations.
Video Notes
(So you can skip ahead, if you want.)
00:59 Introduction: Frameworks to Understand Automation Progress
02:28 Reconciling Network Complexity with Commoditization
02:55 Why Is Networking Stuck?
03:19 Previous Attempts: What’s Worked & What Hasn’t
06:12 Breaking Automation & Orchestration Into 2 Definitions
06:36 Automation Domains
08:11 Orchestration: Python to Platforms
09:03 The Role of NAF: Supporting Network Programmability & Standards
10:05 How Itential Supports NAF & Network Evolution
11:18 Question: How Do We Influence Vendors to Support Open Collaboration?
