What is Network Automation?
By Saumya Sinha
Network automation is the process of automating the configuration, management, testing,
deployment, and operations of physical and virtual devices within a network. Every day network
tasks and functions are performed automatically. Using a combination of hardware and software-based
solutions, large organizations, service providers, and enterprises can implement network automation
to control and manage repetitive processes and improve network service availability.
Today, networks are fully capable of undertaking the following tasks:
• Discovering topologies
• Managing bandwidth and finding fast reroutes to implement the best computing paths
• Performing root cause analysis
• Updating and installing routes
• Setting performance benchmarks
• Updating software
• Implementing security and compliance
Working together, automation and orchestration simplify network operations involving
complex configurations and devices' management while providing business agility to adapt to
an ever-changing environment. You can think of automation as accomplishing repeatable tasks
without human intervention, and orchestration as the process of stringing together a series
of these tasks to accomplish a process or workflow.
Driving network automation is the rapid expansion of network infrastructure required to
support the exponential growth of network traffic generated by video, social media, data, and
applications' usage. Additionally, as computing power continues to decline in cost and virtual
computing continues to grow, network automation becomes more available to many businesses.
Various types of network automation can apply to local area networks, virtualized environments,
data centers, and public and private clouds.
Automation Benefits
For many organizations, the lack of agility to adopt to network changes has become a bottleneck,
preventing those companies from deploying a robust and highly responsive data center infrastructure.
For service providers, automation is the cornerstone strategy to focus on to
increase network agility and reliability while controlling operational expenditures (OpEx)
and capital expenditures (CapEx).
To improve operational efficiency, margins, and customer satisfaction, service providers can
automate routine and complex tasks that may be time-consuming, repetitive, or error-prone. The
openness and interoperability of automation support APIs, standards-based protocols, and open-source
automation frameworks (such as Ansible, Saltstack, Puppet, and Chef).
Service providers and enterprises can leverage those automation frameworks to expedite their
network automation migration. By automating networking features and implementing software products
that offer automation, organizations benefit from the following:
Lower costs - Because automation reduces the complexities of your underlying infrastructure,
dramatically fewer person-hours are required for configuring, provisioning, and managing services
and the network. By simplifying operations, consolidating network services, reducing floor
space, and cycling underutilized devices off, you need fewer staff to troubleshoot and repair,
and reap power savings.
Improve business continuity - By removing the chance for human errors, companies
can offer and deliver a higher level of services with more consistency across branches and
geographies. For example, Juniper Networks' Service Now is a remote, automated troubleshooting
client that enables Juniper to detect quickly and proactively any problems in a customer's
network before they become aware of them.
Increase strategic workforce - By automating repetitive tasks subject to human
error, companies increase productivity, which helps drive business improvements and innovation.
As a result, new job opportunities arise for the existing workforce.
Greater insight and network control - Automation helps make IT operations more
responsive to change through analytics. You gain more visibility into the network and understand
precisely what is happening in your network with the ability to control and adapt as needed.
Increase business agility - Automation enables companies to develop operational
models that improve time-to-market. You can add new services, test new applications, and fix
problems. Time to realize improvements is reduced, resulting in greater competitiveness and
elasticity, and ultimately, more profits added to the corporate bottom line.
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