Automation, Orchestration, & Integration: Evolving From Python to Platforms @ NAF AutoCon0

Defining automation and orchestration as separate concepts is not strictly a new idea, but slower than expected automation adoption within networking has prompted re-examination.?

Networking offers unique challenges to automation that other areas of IT don’t — there is more complexity across varied network domains, and different tooling is required to automate different network changes across those domains.?

Clarifying our definitions can help clarify which tools or platforms are best suited to different automation goals and/or needs, enabling teams and organizations to see progress quicker and begin to evolve from tools to platforms.?

Last month, the Network Automation Forum held their first network automation focused event, AutoCon0, to bring the community together and find ways to accelerate adoption. If you missed the event, all of the awesome sessions are now available on-demand.

During the event, Itential’s CTO Chris Wade took the stage to lay out new ways of understanding the ecosystem of tools and how we can reconcile the inherent complexity of networking with effective automation and orchestration.

Topics discussed include:

• The key differences between automation and orchestration to gain more clarity in technology decisions and overall evolution strategy.
• Examining past attempts at network automation, programmability, and standardization to find what works and what doesn’t.
• Embracing the inherent complexity of networking across multi-domain, multi-vendor environments — and building an automation strategy that suits it.
• The role of everyone — the networking community, industry leaders, and vendors alike — in supporting more open environments and accelerating progress.

See all On-Demand Sessions >

Defining Automation

Automation happens at the domain level. Tasks like configuration changes can be automated using tools like Python, Ansible, or vendor-specific tooling. Different network domains tend to have different automation needs, so in most environments, multiple tools are used across different teams to automate individual network changes across those domains.

Defining Orchestration

Orchestration is the process of integrating these disparate automations and building end-to-end workflows, where each step of a change process is automated with its own specific tooling, but there is no manual swivel-chairing between these different domain automations. While automation is usually done with specific tooling, IT organizations tend to rely on platforms when implementing orchestration.

Understanding the difference between automation and orchestration provides clarity for teams, individuals, and organizations to choose technologies for different automation and orchestration use cases and build a cohesive strategy to progress their network automation efforts.?

What does your network automation and orchestration strategy look like? Priorities, challenges, expectations? Let us know.

More Network Automation Resources from Itential?

• Observations from NAF AutoCon0: The Need to Differentiate Automation & Orchestration
• Packet Pushers: Evolving from Python to Platforms for Network Automation
• Telemetry Now: Why the Network Industry Is Struggling to Fully Adopt Network Automation
• Progressing Network Automation & Why AutoCon0 Matters
• Watch All AutoCon0 Sessions On-Demand