Network Automation

Manual methods of documenting and managing increasingly complex networks are time-consuming and liable to human error.

Enterprises should instead look towards an approach that automates and visualizes all network domain knowledge in order to continuously discover, verify and document their large-scale enterprise networks within minutes.

Automated verifications combined with the comparative Network History mean you have a fast access to insightful data and compliance reporting.

Having this solid baseline frees up your team to focus on the strategy and intent behind your network – no need for time-consuming and expensive audit and remediation activities when your reporting is completed daily!

Network automation efforts require a reference source of intended network state (sometimes referred to as a Source of Truth). This is considered by many as the key element of a network automation project.

IP Fabric helps validate that intended state data on an ongoing basis. It retrieves existing state and config in a snapshot, then compares it to the stated intent through automated verification checks and simulated path lookups, checking that paths are as you expect them to be.

Using IP Fabric in conjunction with a SoT, you can ensure that your intended state database is populated with accurate state data, and then you can measure operational compliance with intent. And if your network doesn't measure up, IP Fabric can trigger automation systems through webhooks to act upon snapshot data and rectify any drifts.

Complex networks bring an inevitable sprawl of operational tooling – monitoring, configuration and policy management, inventory, ticketing, automation, and more.

Whether you have vendor-specific tools that only cover part of your network estate, or vendor-agnostic tools with limited capability, your ecosystem will leave plenty of questions unanswered.

IP Fabric fills the gaps in your tooling.

Can’t be certain you’re monitoring your whole network? Want to be sure the security policy you’re pushing out will actually be enforced? Have to process a support renewal and need to validate that your network inventory is complete and accurate?

The data in IP Fabric has a multitude of uses for teams operating inside and outside of the network technology space. Providing access to it by sharing it with other systems using REST API integration, or by incorporating it into ChatOps, for example, enhances collaboration across your operational teams.

An IP Fabric snapshot contains all the inventory, configuration, topology and state data from your network of networks, across all vendors and domains. Access this data using simple REST API calls – no need to retrieve it yourself, no need to parse it and no need to model it.

Once you have access to that data, it can be used in automation workflows. You can, for example:

IP Fabric can also be used as a trigger to start automation processes in other systems using its webhook capability – ensuring that the ecosystem is synchronised each time an ad hoc change is made, and on a regularly scheduled basis.

The ability to generate up-to-date knowledge of one’s network infrastructure with one click is not a luxury, but a core component of a network engineer’s toolbox; as more vendors are introduced into your network, and as systems become more advanced and sophisticated, the tools required to keep up with these advancements must be just as dynamic.