Network automation book shares recipes for success

A cookbook preserves not only recipes, but memories, guidelines and a proven way to achieve success in a certain activity. A network automation cookbook can do the same.

With various programming languages, such as Python and Ansible, network automation frameworks have many distributed and inconsistent best practices, according to author Karim Okasha. That's why Okasha decided to write a network automation book: to create a single source of network automation fundamentals for network engineers to develop essential automation skills. His book, Network Automation Cookbook, is available now from Packt Publishing.

Below is an excerpt from the book: Chapter 6, "Administering a Multivendor Network with NAPALM and Ansible." While the network automation book as a whole explores several Ansible best practices, this chapter delves into how network engineers with skills in both Ansible and NAPALM can enhance multivendor network environments and simplify their daily lives.

Karim Okasha

One common theme Okasha emphasizes throughout this network automation book is how automation skills enable network engineers to automate repetitive responsibilities, including several command-line interface tasks. Network engineers also won't need to understand topics such as the theories behind Border Gateway Protocol or Open Shortest Path First commands in the future, Okasha said, because engineers can automate these tasks once they develop basic network automation skills.

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To fully benefit from this network automation book, network engineers should develop fundamental data analysis capabilities to interpret data from network devices. This can enhance overall network management and monitoring, Okasha said, and enable network teams to spend more time developing network automation frameworks for their organizations.

This network automation book also aims to provide network engineers with the skills to choose among available network automation tools, including Ansible, which offers a steppingstone into the growing world of network automation. With Ansible, Okasha said, engineers can ease into network automation and see how they can simplify their lives with automation capabilities.