0%

Book Description

Get More from your Network with Automation tools to increase its effectiveness.

About This Book

  • Get started with network automation (and different automation tasks) with relevant use cases
  • Apply software design principles such as Continuous Integration and DevOps to your network toolkit
  • Guides you through some best practices in automation

Who This Book Is For

If you are a network engineer looking for an extensive guide to help you automate and manage your network efficiently, then this book is for you.

What You Will Learn

  • Get the detailed analysis of Network automation
  • Trigger automations through available data factors
  • Improve data center robustness and security through specific access and data digging
  • Get an Access to APIs from Excel for dynamic reporting
  • Set up a communication with SSH-based devices using netmiko
  • Make full use of practical use cases and best practices to get accustomed with the various aspects of network automation

In Detail

Network automation is the use of IT controls to supervise and carry out every-day network management functions. It plays a key role in network virtualization technologies and network functions.

The book starts by providing an introduction to network automation, SDN, and its applications, which include integrating DevOps tools to automate the network efficiently. It then guides you through different network automation tasks and covers various data digging and reporting methodologies such as IPv6 migration, DC relocations, and interface parsing, all the while retaining security and improving data center robustness. The book then moves on to the use of Python and the management of SSH keys for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, all followed by practical use cases. The book also covers the importance of Ansible for network automation including best practices in automation, ways to test automated networks using different tools, and other important techniques.

By the end of the book, you will be well acquainted with the various aspects of network automation.

Style and approach

A clear, concise, and straightforward book that will enable you to automate networks and improve performance.

Table of Contents

  1. Preface
    1. What this book covers
    2. What you need for this book
    3. Who this book is for
    4. Conventions
    5. Reader feedback
    6. Customer support
      1. Downloading the example code
      2. Downloading the color images of this book
      3. Errata
      4. Piracy
      5. Questions
  2. Fundamental Concepts
    1. Network automation
    2. DevOps
    3. Software-defined networking
    4. OpenFlow
    5. Program concepts
      1. Variables
      2. Data types
      3. Decision makers
      4. Loops
      5. Arrays
      6. Functions
      7. Best practices
        1. Readability of a program
        2. Support information
        3. Indentation
        4. Sample best practice example
    6. Language choices (Python/PowerShell)
      1. Writing your first program
        1. PowerShell IDE
        2. Python IDE
    7. Representational State Transfer (REST) framework
    8. Summary
  3. Python for Network Engineers
    1. Python interpreter and data types
    2. Conditions and loops
      1. Nested and multiple conditions
      2. Loops
        1. For next loop
        2. While loop
    3. Writing Python scripts
    4. Functions
      1. Passing arguments from the command line
    5. Python modules and packages
    6. Multithreading for parallel processing
    7. Using Netmiko for SSH and network device interaction
    8. Network automation use case
    9. Summary
  4. Accessing and Mining Data from Network
    1. Device configurations
    2. Multi-vendor environments
    3. IP configs/interface parsing
    4. Device OS upgrades
    5. IPv4 to IPv6 conversion
    6. Site rollouts
    7. Office/DC relocations
    8. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) configs for switches
    9. Summary
  5. Web Framework for Automation Triggers
    1. Why create web-based scripts/frameworks?
    2. Understanding and configuring IIS for web framework
      1. Understanding IIS
      2. Configuring IIS for Python script support
    3. Creating web-specific scripts
    4. Accessing a script from dynamic HTML
    5. Creating the backend API in C#
    6. Consuming the API in Python
    7. Sample summary task
    8. Summary
  6. Ansible for Network Automation
    1. Ansible overview and terminology
      1. Basic requirements of Ansible
      2. Installation of Ansible
      3. Introduction to ad hoc commands
      4. Ansible playbooks
        1. Working with Ansible facts
        2. Ansible conditions
        3. Ansible loops
        4. Python API with Ansible
      5. Creating network configuration templates
    2. Summary
  7. Continuous Integration for Network Engineers
    1. Interaction with Splunk
    2. Automation examples on various technology domains
      1. BGP and routing table
      2. Configuring Cisco switchport for access point
      3. Configuring Cisco switchport for IP Phone
      4. Wireless LAN (WLAN)
      5. Access of IP Address Management (IPAM)
    3. Example and use case
      1. Create a web-based pre and post check tool for validations
        1. Step 1 – Create the main HTML file
        2. Step 2 – Create the backend Python code
        3. Step 3 – Create web server based files for the tool
        4. Step 4 – Create server based files for pre and post files comparison
    4. Summary
  8. SDN Concepts in Network Automation
    1. Managing cloud platforms
    2. Programmable network devices
    3. Controller-based network fabric
    4. Network automation tools
    5. Summary
18.118.227.69