The Network Automation Journey

Mar 20 2025 35 ep. 8 mins 20
The Network Automation Journey Podcast artwork

This is a (probably) limited series where Tony Bourke, a networking instructor (Arista, Cisco, etc.) talks in a vendor-neutral way about the process of network automation, the basic concepts, and where everything falls into place.

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Too Many New Things At Once

Mar 20 2025 5 mins  
In this episode I talk about the pitfall of throwing too many new things at once to someone who's just learning network automation. Keeping it simple and using a layered approach is what I've found to be the best way to introduce network automation to new people.

Test Driven Deployment

Feb 06 2025 11 mins  
In the software development world, they have a concept called "test driven development", whereby code is tested (unit tests, integration tests) before committing to the main branch and before deployment. We can take that concept and use it in the networking world, and to some extent we are, but there's more to go. The tools haven't quite caught up with the conce

AI, Machine Learning, or Nah?

Jan 20 2025 8 mins  
What place does AI or Machine Learning have in network automation today, or even network operations in general? Writing Python scripts, playbooks, etc. Not much more. At least for now.

CI/CD and Network Automation

Dec 19 2024 20 mins  
In this episode, I talk about what CI/CD is for networking automation as well as the general idea for what is in the developer world. And more importantly, I talk about how most organizations probably don't need full CI/CD, they can get a lot of benefits from network automation by adopting three practices (that are part of CI/CD, but alone aren't CI/CD): Configuration generatio

What's In A Name?

Nov 23 2024 8 mins  
There's marketing terms, and then there's words that accurately describe a new way of doing things. Cloud computing was one of these terms, and now "Network as Code", "Network Automation", or the older "Software Defined Networking", while they can be used a marketing fluff, they do represent a different way of doing things.

REST API or RPC?

Aug 25 2024 6 mins  
In this episode I talk about the two main categories of APIs you're likely to run into as a network administrator: REST APIs and RPCs (XML-RPC, JSON-RPC, gRPC, etc.) and why a device might have one or another.

The Network Automation "Hump"

Apr 16 2024 9 mins  
How is network automation and packing parachute similar? They're both intimidating, and they both involve a learning curve. On the other side of the learning curve/hump, it's pretty nice.

Network Controller Concepts and Evolution

Mar 01 2024 6 mins  
In this episode, I share my thoughts on what constitutes a network controller. Back in the early 2010s, it was thought to be the way devices had their forwarding tables configured. Now it's how a devices configuration state is configured.

Automation in the Past

Feb 28 2024 6 mins  
What was automation like in the past? Well, it was mostly non-existent in most of the networking world. But we did do automation in the server world, but it was quite different than it is today.

Skillsets

Jan 01 2024 5 mins  
In this episode I talk about skillsets that I've picked up outside of the networking world that have really helped me out.