More and more, clients ask me about Community as Code and Cisco Providers as Code.
Whereas community automation is much more important within the AI period, there’s additionally loads of fable, confusion, and a recurring query: “We’ve already been automating community operations with Scripts, APIs, Controller GUIs, Terraform suppliers, and Ansible playbooks… what’s new and totally different about Community as Code (NaC)?”
Let’s discover these questions, ranging from the fundamentals: what’s Community as Code?
Community as Code is a strategy that applies DevOps ideas to community administration, via declarative information fashions, permitting groups to automate and handle community configurations via YAML recordsdata.
However, how did we get right here and why is that this the popular methodology for community automation?
The Evolution of Community Automation
In case you’ve ever wrestled with a notepad filled with change configs or discovered your self knee-deep in Python scripts at midnight, you’ll admire simply how far we’ve come.
Wave 1: The Nostalgia Period (Handbook CLI & Primary Templating)
Within the early days, community configuration was all concerning the command-line interface (CLI). Every part was written in clear, human-readable textual content, which meant you may all the time see precisely what was happening-provided you may preserve your eyes open after hours of scrolling.
Templates have been usually managed utilizing Notepad or one other fundamental textual content editor, and for those who have been actually organized, you had a centralized folder someplace – in all probability named “final-final-configs” – for reuse.
Whereas this strategy was easy and easy, it relied closely on handbook effort and was vulnerable to errors.
Wave 2: The Scripting Renaissance (Programmatic CLI)
As networks grew extra complicated, engineers began leveraging scripting languages like Python (with libraries comparable to Netmiko and Paramiko), and templating engines (Jinga) to automate repetitive CLI duties.
This marked the period when community engineers grew to become part-time coderswriting scripts to save lots of time and scale back errors.
It was an enormous leap ahead, but it surely additionally meant you wanted to maintain your coding expertise sharp – and keep in mind which script did what, and the place you left the most recent model.
Wave 3: The API-Pushed Period (Controllers & SDKs)
Then got here the controllers, ushering in a brand new period the place handbook CLI instructions may very well be changed with intuitive interfaces and centralized administration. The complexity of direct CLI configurations started to fade, changed by programmable interfaces comparable to REST APIs, NETCONF and more and more gRPC, that are broadly adopted for his or her effectivity and suppleness in managing and automating programs. Software program improvement kits (SDKs) made programmability simpler, serving to community groups keep away from the fatigue of countless API calls.
This wave targeted on abstracting direct machine interplay, permitting for centralized administration and extra refined programmatic management. Whereas the problem of CLI configuration is eradicated, the duplication of funding and snowflakes have been unavoidable.
Wave 4: Infrastructure as Code (IaC) & Cloud-Native Networking
This wave noticed the broader adoption of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) ideas, pushed considerably by the rise of cloud computing. Instruments like Terraform and Ansible (for infrastructure provisioning) have been used to outline and handle community infrastructure alongside compute and storage, notably in cloud environments.
The main focus shifted to declaring the desired state of the complete infrastructure, with model management and automatic deployment changing into commonplace. This wasn’t nearly community gadgets, however the community as a part of a bigger, codified infrastructure.
Wave 5: Declarative Community as Code (NaC) and Intent-Primarily based Operations
That is the present and evolving wave, representing the maturity and specialization of declarative ideas for the community area. It strikes past generic IaC to give attention to high-level community intent, leveraging simplified information fashions (in YAML) and a library of modular, expertly crafted parts. This wave emphasizes abstracting complicated orchestration particulars, permitting engineers to outline the specified state of their community infrastructure, relatively than the step-by-step instructions. There’s now not a requirement for each administrator to be a programmer; As an alternative, area SMEs merely render variables into these modules to automate duties. Consistency, effectivity, and high quality are baked in by design. This wave sees GitOps ideas turn into central for managing community configurations, guaranteeing a single supply of fact and enabling sturdy CI/CD. Moreover, seamless integration with IT Service Administration (ITSM) programs turns into a regular apply for change administration. This strategy brings consistency, effectivity, and high quality by design, empowering groups to handle their networks with the identical rigor and agility as software program improvement. Even these with minimal programming background can obtain spectacular automation outcomes, that means the Community architects can focus extra on core Community design and ideas.
Community as Code
The times of each group constructing their very own ‘snowflake’ automation are over. Community as Code (NaC) represents the maturity of declarative ideas for community administration, permitting engineers to outline the specified state of their community infrastructure relatively than specializing in intricate particulars like dependencies, references, or looping logic. With an easy-to-use, opinionated information mannequin and a library of examined, maintained modules, you possibly can spin up whole community materials in minutes, just by describing their meant configuration in simple textual content, while not having deep API or object mannequin information.
Central to NaC is the adoption of GitOps ideas. This implies community configurations are version-controlled in a Git repository, serving as the one supply of fact. Adjustments are proposed by way of pull requests, reviewed, after which robotically deployed and synchronized with the stay community, enabling sturdy CI/CD pipelines. This ensures that the community’s precise state persistently matches the declared state in Git. Moreover, NaC facilitates seamless integration with IT Service Administration (ITSM) programs. This ensures that each one community adjustments are tracked, authorized, and managed inside present operational workflows, enhancing governance, compliance, and auditability. This holistic strategy brings consistency, effectivity, and high quality by design, empowering groups to handle their networks with the identical rigor and agility as software program improvement.
Whereas NaC is an open-source methodology that permits for Do It Your self(DIY) automation, implementing its full framework and methodologies may be complicated. That is the place Cisco steps in to speed up your journey.
Going past with Providers as Code
Cisco Providers as Code is out there via Cisco Skilled Providers, providing a complete answer that encompasses the complete lifecycle of community service supply. This consists of readiness assessments, folks/course of enablement, answer setup, brownfield import, steady integration and deployment (CI/CD), automated testing, validation, launch administration, and 24×7 help. It integrates DevSecOps practices and offers a framework to handle community infrastructure adjustments with excessive accuracy, scalability, and operational effectivity.
A important differentiator of Cisco Providers as Code is its sturdy, built-in Check and Validation framework. In contrast to ad-hoc testing usually present in DIY automation or market options, our service offers a scientific and complete strategy to make sure community adjustments are totally verified earlier than and after deployment. This consists of automated syntax checks for configuration correctness, semantic validation and assessments each configured object towards the meant configuration. This complete, steady validation, built-in all through the CI/CD pipeline, considerably reduces the danger of errors, minimizes community downtime, and ensures that adjustments persistently meet operational and compliance requirements. It’s this assurance of high quality, reliability, and safety, baked into the service, that actually units Cisco Providers as Code aside, offering peace of thoughts and operational excellence that goes past merely automating configurations.
Moreover, we just lately launched the mixing of Cisco AI Assistant with Providers as Codeadditional simplifying infrastructure administration with pure language inputs.
So there you might have it; Community as Code and Providers as Code defined – and hopefully demystified. Tell us within the feedback what high of thoughts questions you need us to cowl subsequent.
And right here’s my ‘additional studying’ suggestions on the subject, written by our Precept Architects and Distinguished Engineers.
