Day Two Cloud 210: Can Network Automation Catch Up To The Cloud?

Network automation is a mess. Networks are full of dependencies, the risk of unintended consequences is high, processes are immature or non-existent, there’s a learning curve on tools, and lots of networking teams struggle to get beyond a handful of tried-and-true scripts. While cloud automation isn’t a technological utopia, it’s in a much better state than its counterpart. Can network automation catch up? On today’s Day Two Cloud we discuss the state of  network automation and whether and how it can improve. Our guests are Chris Grundemann and Scott Robohn, co-founders of the Network Automation Forum (NAF). The NAF aims to serve as a gathering place, both online and in the real world, for network engineers, developers, and vendors to advance the state of the art by sharing informaiton and best practices, developing business cases to drive automation, and researching tools and trends. We discuss: * A definition of network automation * Defining boundaries with other parts of the infrastructure stack * How network automation got into this state * The impact of cloud and cloud networking on network automation * How AI and ML might affect network automation * More Sponsor: Drata Automate your security framework compliance with Drata. Drata streamlines your SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, FIEC, NIST Standards, CMMC and other compliance frameworks and provides 24-hour continuous control monitoring so you focus on scaling securely. Drata integrates with your tech stack through applications such as AWS, Azure, Github, Okta and Cloudflare. Say goodbye to manual evidence collection and hello to automated compliance by visiting drata.com/partner/daytwocloud. Show Notes: Network Automation Forum SuziQ Heavy Networking 658: Using Batfish To Model And Test Your Network – Packet Pushers AutoCon 0 Chris Grundemann on LinkedIn Chris Grundemann’s Blog @ChrisGrundemann – Chris Grundemann on Twitter Scott Robohn on LinkedIn Transcript Transcripts are provided best effort by an automated service. Ethan Banks (00:00:00) – Automate your security framework compliance with sponsor Drata. Drata delivers continuous compliance no matter how fast your company is growing. Find out more at drata.com/partner/daytwocloud. That’s d r a t a dot com slash partner slash day two cloud. Ned Bellavance (00:00:19) – Welcome to day two Cloud. Today’s topic is network automation, and we have two network automation experts who have thought hard about the problem as guests. We’ve got Chris Grundemann and Scott Robohn and they are part of the Network Automation Forum. What is the Network Automation Forum, Ethan? Ethan Banks (00:00:36) – It is a group that is tr...