Network Automation & Programmability: Python, Ansible & APIs

Explore how large networks amplify staff needs, multi-OS expertise, and bulk configuration tasks, and how automation mitigates these traditional management challenges.

Automate network tasks across devices to reduce manual configuration, enable automatic device deployment and operating system upgrades, standardize procedures, and update documentation and diagrams for improved availability.

Discover the types of network automation across local area networks, data centers, cloud networks, and wireless networks, using software defined access and api-driven tools to automate provisioning and policies.

Automate plug-and-play provisioning and initial device deployment via a centralized gateway that pushes configurations and images, while applying dynamic quality of service and security policies alongside static policies.

Learn how network automation enables centralized, scheduled software deployments, automatic topology visualization, and up-to-date documentation. Discover automated troubleshooting, verification, and AI/ML-assisted tasks that scale with growing networks.

Leverage network automation to reduce operational costs and accelerate device deployment, configurations, and troubleshooting. Gain consistent configurations, centralized control from a single controller, and improved network visibility with elastic scaling.

Explore automation origin points from on-box scripting and event manager automation to centralized software-defined networking with Gen controllers, enabling policy-driven, AI-assisted troubleshooting and network control.

Explore how software defined networking centralizes control in a controller to dynamically program network devices, enabling automated policy, quality of service, and security decisions for scalable network automation.

Explore sdn controllers as the centralized brain of modern networks, available as physical appliances, software, or cloud deployments, automating forwarding decisions and security and qos policy enforcement.

Compare traditional box-by-box network management with SDN controllers, enabling plug-and-play provisioning, automated policy updates, and centralized control from a single pane of glass.

Identify network device planes—the control, management, and data planes—and how routing tables and protocols forward traffic between networks, while switches handle layer 2 and firewalls enforce security policies.

Explore how the data plane forwards traffic using routing tables, MAC and IP checks, and interface decisions, including encapsulation, ACL filtering, trunk tagging, and VPN encryption.

the control plane builds a forwarding database by learning routes via routing protocols and mac address and multicast information, which the data plane uses to forward traffic.

Explore the management plane by configuring devices, running command-line tasks, and monitoring interfaces and routing tables; collect statistics with net flow, enable time synchronization, and generate logs for troubleshooting.

Discover how the SDN-based management plane shifts control to a controller, enabling automated command execution and scheduling across devices, while Netcom and Yang offer alternative config mechanisms with varying support.

sdn centralizes the control plane in a controller that programs data plane devices to forward traffic from anywhere reachable, based on centralized routing decisions.

Examine the imperative SDN model, where the controller handles the control plane, programs routing and forwarding, while data plane devices simply forward traffic, e.g., OpenFlow.

Explore the SDN declarative model where the controller learns application requirements and guides devices to adjust forwarding, routing, and QoS while devices act autonomously.

Explore SDN network design requirements by selecting interoperable hardware and controllers, deploying redundant clusters with multiple paths to enable automatic provisioning and dynamic quality of service and security policies.

Explore underlay vs overlay architectures and fabric concepts, separating the control plane from forwarding devices, and design an all-L3 underlay with reachable endpoints using routing protocols like ISIS or OSPF.

Overlay networks create a network on top of the underlying network, controlled by a controller that uses policies to select forwarding paths across L2/L3 links, enabling QoS and VPN-like isolation.

Learn about the SDN fabric, a programmable gen fabric governed by a controller-driven architecture, with edge and intermediate devices, protocols, languages, and full-mesh multipath connections for load balancing.

Define the api as code that lets two applications talk and exchange information, illustrated by the waiter in a restaurant and airline databases mediating requests.

Identify two api types: local system api for inter-application communication within one device, and remote api for interactions between different applications over a network.

Explore how APIs enable sdn networks by connecting applications to controllers and controllers to devices, enabling configuration push, network discovery, and policy-driven quality of service and security.

Understand northbound APIs in SDN networks, comparing REST API usage for application–controller communication and data requests about topology, device state, and capabilities.

Explore southbound APIs that let a controller program network devices for traffic forwarding, status, and configuration, using openflow, netconf, and cisco-style APIs.

Discover how Cisco DevNet enables developers and IT pros to build, automate, and integrate Cisco networks using APIs, DNA automation, sandboxes, and community resources.

DevNet certifications span data, enterprise, security, and cloud tracks, focusing on Python, APIs, and software-driven automation to build network apps and automation tools.

Access on-demand, remote Cisco sandboxes through DevNet to test and develop automation across DNA, data center, and wireless technologies with free training videos and docs.

Explore Cisco DevNet sandbox labs to log in, browse networking, open source, data center automation, and security labs, compare instant access sandboxes with reserved, admin-access options.

Master Cisco DNA Center’s centralized graphical interface to manage, configure, and monitor network devices from a single pane of glass, using site maps, templates, and automated policies.

Explore DNA Center appliance deployment options, including stand-alone and cluster modes, with preloaded software, high availability, and model choices for small to large networks.

Explore DNA Center capabilities for device discovery, inventory management, and topology visualization, including image management and golden images, to automate provisioning across sites and devices.

Explore how DNA Center designs network hierarchy, imports topologies, and provisions policies across devices. Learn to run diagnostic commands, deploy template-based configurations, monitor with telemetry, and troubleshoot with assurance tools.

explore how web service APIs enable communication between controllers and networking devices using web-based requests, URIs, and data formats to retrieve and modify device information.

Explore commonly used web service APIs, including SOAP (simple object access protocol), XML-based encoding, and REST API, and how netconf enables communication between controllers and network devices for automation.

Learn how REST API enables application and controller communication through resource-based requests using GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE, defining data formats and operations in a web-based architecture.

Explore network automation and configuration management tools, including Chef, Puppet, and SaltStack. Understand master and agents, push and pull models, and controller vs software architectures for provisioning and upgrades.

Learn how config management and automation tools centralize configurations, push scripted changes to multiple devices, schedule updates, and accelerate provisioning while reducing human errors.

Identify the common similarities across configuration management tools, including CLI and UI interfaces, scripting languages (Python, Ruby), and templated config files used to automate network tasks.

Explore the master–agent model for network automation, where a master pushes configurations from a server to agents on devices, with puppet or ship variants enabling centralized control and agent-based management.

Compare agent based and agentless management tools, explaining how the master installs software and pushes configurations to nodes, with puppet and salts as agent-based examples and proxies for agentless operation.

Compare push and pull configuration models in network automation, where a master pushes configurations or agents pull them, including agentless and agent-based options used by Puppet, Chef, and SaltStack.

Learn how to create and deploy configuration files for network devices using master server, templates, and tool-specific formats like YAML, Ruby, and manifest-based recipes, applied to IP addresses and interfaces.