What are the most useful tools and frameworks for network automation using REST API?

REST API (Representational State Transfer Application Program Interface) is an architectural style that allows software to communicate with other software over a network or on the same device. Most commonly, developers use REST APIs to build web services.

REST APIs follow a set of design principles that ensure uniformity and consistency in the way applications and devices connect and communicate with each other. These principles include: All API requests for the same resource should look the same, no matter where the request comes from. The REST API should ensure that the same piece of data, such as the name or email address of a user, belongs to only one uniform resource identifier (URI). Resources shouldn’t be too large but should contain every piece of information that the client might need. In REST API design, client and server applications must be completely independent of each other. REST APIs are stateless, meaning that each request needs to include all the information.

Postman: Purpose: A widely used API testing tool that allows you to create, share, and test API requests. It's valuable for exploring REST APIs, validating responses, and automating API workflows. cURL: Purpose: A command-line tool for making HTTP requests. cURL is versatile and can be used to interact with REST APIs directly from the command line, making it a handy tool for scripting and automation. Requests (Python Library): Purpose: A popular Python library for making HTTP requests. It simplifies the process of sending HTTP requests and handling responses, making it a preferred choice for network automation scripts in Python.

APIs—application programming interfaces—are everywhere: Amazon Web Services, Facebook, and home automation devices such as thermostats, refrigerators and personal wireless lighting systems. A good API makes it easier for users to develop software for the device or application by providing all the necessary building blocks.

When building a programmable network, it's critical to keep two key considerations in mind: Programmability for automating networking gear should be backward-compatible so an organization does not have to throw away all their existing automation scripts, but can migrate to programmable automation at their own pace. APIs are flexible. APIs offer a choice of language and many levels of granularity and abstraction. This depth and flexibility enables network operators to more easily define their automation architectures.

API Pagination API pagination serves as a method to protect API servers from overload due to large data retrieval requests. An API may limit return results, commonly rows or records, to a specific count. For example, the DNA Center REST API v2.1.2.x limits device results to 500 records at a time. To poll inventory beyond that, you would use pagination: GET /dna/intent/api/v1/network-device/{index}/{count}

REST APIs are a popular way to automate network tasks. Here are some examples of network automation using REST API: BMC Network Automation: BMC Network Automation provides a REST API that allows you to automate network tasks such as device configuration, compliance management, and more. You can use the REST API clients developed using different programming tools and languages to automate these tasks. Cisco NSO: Cisco NSO provides a REST API that allows you to automate network tasks such as device configuration, service orchestration, and more. You can use the REST API clients developed using different programming tools and languages to automate these tasks.

Ansible:Purpose: A powerful automation tool that includes modules for interacting with REST APIs. Ansible simplifies the process of automating network configurations and operations through its playbooks. NAPALM (Network Automation and Programmability Abstraction Layer with Multivendor support):Purpose: A Python library that provides a unified API to interact with different networking devices. NAPALM supports various network platforms & vendors, allowing for consistent automation across diverse environments. Netmiko:Purpose: A multi-vendor library for managing network devices using SSH. While not directly for REST API, Netmiko is valuable for network automation, especially when interacting with devices that don't support REST APIs natively.

RESTful APIs (or representational state transfer APIs) use Web/HTTP services for read and modification functions. This stateless protocol has several predefined operations, as seen in Table 10-5. Because it’s a stateless protocol, the server does not maintain the state of a request. The client’s request must contain all information needed to complete a request, such as session state.

API Authentication Authentication to a RESTful API can take any number of forms: basic authentication, API key, bearer token, OAuth, or digest authentication, to name a few. Basic authentication is common, where the username is concatenated with a colon and the user’s password. The combined string is then Base64-encoded. You can easily generate the authentication string on macOS or other Linux derivatives using the built-in openssl utility. Windows platforms can achieve the same result by installing OpenSSL or obtaining a Base64-encoding utility.

Postman: Postman is an API platform for building and using APIs. Postman simplifies each step of the API lifecycle and streamlines collaboration so you can create better APIs faster. The Postman platform includes a comprehensive set of tools that help accelerate the API lifecycle from design, testing, documentation, and mocking to the sharing and discoverability of your APIs.

Jupyter notebooks, particularly when running in Pycharms, helps write engineering journaling of Rest API tests, perform configuration audits via loading data into Pandas dataframes, various graphics libraries are available, integrates with Netmiko, can utilize TextFSM, helps prepare playbooks, I find it to be the most invaluable tool.

Swagger/OpenAPI: Purpose: Tools like Swagger and OpenAPI provide a standardized way to document REST APIs. They help developers understand and interact with APIs efficiently, making them essential for network automation projects. Terraform: Purpose: A widely used infrastructure as code (IaC) tool that supports the use of provider plugins to interact with various APIs, including REST APIs. Terraform is beneficial for managing infrastructure in a declarative manner. Jenkins: Purpose: A popular automation server that supports building, deploying, and automating any project, including network automation. Jenkins can be configured to trigger automation scripts, including those interacting with REST APIs.

There are many tools and frameworks available to help automate network tasks using REST API. Some of the popular API automation testing tools include: Postman: A simple and powerful REST-based API monitor used by over 10 million developers. It is available in both a browser and desktop version, and it may be used to test API services. In addition, it permits the user to share their knowledge with the rest of the team effortlessly. AppDynamics: Utilizes node-based network mapping to provide live API statuses and enterprise-level reporting. API Science: Uses a full-featured REST API and boasts a very quick onboarding time. In addition, there are many frameworks available for building RESTful APIs.

Some of the key tools and frameworks that support network automation via REST APIs: -Postman -Ansible -Cisco Ansible Modules (Integration with Cisco DNA Center, ACI, and other platforms like Cisco network device configurations, collecting telemetry, and managing policies.) -Python Requests Library -Netmiko -Paramiko -Juniper’s Junos PyEZ -Terraform -Nornir -SaltStack -Puppet -Cisco pyATS/Genie (use for automated testing, network validation, and integrating REST APIs for fetching real-time network data) These tools and frameworks provide a variety of options for network automation using REST APIs.

Git: Purpose: Version control is crucial for managing network automation scripts. Git, along with platforms like GitHub or GitLab, allows you to track changes, collaborate, and roll back to previous versions if needed. Puppet and Chef: Purpose: Configuration management tools like Puppet and Chef can be extended to interact with REST APIs, enabling automated configuration and management of network devices. YANG (Yet Another Next Generation) and NETCONF (Network Configuration Protocol): Purpose: YANG models, coupled with the NETCONF protocol, provide a standardized way to model and interact with network devices. Tools supporting YANG and NETCONF can simplify network automation tasks.

REST APIs typically use HTTP methods to retrieve or send information between applications. We use the same HTTP methods when we use a web browser to visit a website, but now we use them to interact with an application. HTTP has multiple methods, but these four are the most common ones: GET: A read-only method to retrieve a specified resource. POST: Submits data to the specified resource to process. The POST method can also create new resources. PUT: Updates the specified resource by replacing the existing data. DELETE: Deletes the specified resource.