How Can You Begin Your Network Automation Adventure?

Overview

Hello everyone, I'm delighted you've finally considered taking your current networking abilities to a whole new level. Welcome to the brand-new blog about why and how to begin your adventure with network automation from a completely different angle.

It's not too late to begin your Network Automation adventure, even if it has been more than two years since Cisco introduced their new DevNet Certifications, which are only focused on "Network Automation." Furthermore, you've already hit the jackpot if you already possess a fundamental to intermediate level of Routing & Switching (Enterprise) administration and configuration knowledge! Additionally, enrolling in a network automation course can be the best method to build on that foundation and formally enter the next big thing in networking if you want to accelerate your study.

To offer you a good idea of how to begin your network automation journey, we will divide this blog into several sections.

Network automation: what is it?

The employment of software to carry out network administration duties automatically is known as network automation. It takes care of things that used to require manual labor, such configuring devices and keeping an eye on network traffic. This increases productivity, scalability, and dependability while lowering human error.

Why Study Network Automation?

The majority of users and network engineers struggle to decide whether or not to upgrade to network automation.

However, once they learn about the advantages of network automation, they will undoubtedly be impressed. When technologies like SDN (Software-Defined Networking) began to gain traction in the early 2020s, automating networks became popular. Then, businesses that control a significant portion of the hardware used to create the Internet today, such as Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, Huawei, Ciena, etc., began to launch SDN-based solutions.

Since SDN used the strategy of:

Centralizing your end device's control plane
Give centralized nodes management capabilities so network engineers can configure, verify, and troubleshoot the network from a single point of view.

However, because the market for smartphones, tablets, and notebooks was changing and the decade was beginning to highlight the unparalleled significance of mobile and web applications, every company began to develop their own programs that were kept in data centers.

Because of this, network engineers had to maintain the applications' constant availability and accessibility. As a result, there was a communication gap between network engineers and developers/coders. Additionally, the Internet's complexity began to rise sharply in tandem with the quickly growing demand for application-centric businesses.

Since this isn't how traditional networks have been run for nearly 30 years, that is where network operations were lacking.

Businesses such as Cisco began to take the lead.
They declared that network equipment could be programmed so that automated scripts and codes could be used to configure, manage, and troubleshoot routers, switches, and firewalls.

In order to eliminate the requirement for a human hand to manually install, maintain, and check every device, the change provided network engineers enormous exposure to halt repetitious device configurations and verifications and begin scripting their responsibilities.

This skill has created and continues to create fantastic opportunities in network operations and makes the daily tasks that a network engineer must perform easier!

Boost your knowledge of programming

So far, the fruit appeared to be quite sweet, but the main issue facing businesses was who would take on this task of network automation. Will they be network engineers who are adept at networking or developers who are already very skilled at coding?

And Network Engineers proved to be the solution. Nonetheless, learning to code from scratch continues to be difficult for the majority of network engineers. After all, healthy and nutritious fruits can occasionally be a little bitter and sour, and this fruit of automation was going to be good for the health and nutrition of our Internet.

The constraints of conventional networks are well known to network engineers. The greatest option for a network engineer to study automation and begin their network automation journey was to learn scripting and coding since they are aware of the duties, jobs, and operations that need to be automated.

As a result, Python—which has previously been deemed the greatest programming language available—became the ideal choice for learning automation.

If you want to work as a network engineer—or, more accurately, a network automation engineer—you will need to put in some effort to learn Python programming from the ground up. And trust us when we say that the more time you devote to Coding Practices, the more proficient you get at network automation!

Therefore, we strongly advise you to choose training that covers and prepares you for programming fundamentals as well when you pick up your study materials or sign up for training that focuses on Network Automation or Cisco's recently launched DevNet Certifications, which focuses on automation!

Utilize virtual labs and simulations appropriately.

Last but not least, because you will be automating the Internet, your work has a significant potential to either optimize and raise your network's performance to an entirely new peak on the graph or bring it to a complete standstill.

Therefore, it is essential to engage in practical lab exercises while honing your coding and automation skills. You may use virtualized devices with a plethora of tools and simulation software, such as:

switches, firewalls, routers, etc.

You can develop industry-based scenarios and test the scripts and codes you'll be working with on these devices, which will assist you advance your network.

That's exactly what we're going to emphasize in this blog so you can decide wisely when to begin your career as a network automation engineer!

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