Expand automation across

your multivendor network

 Table of contents
Introduction

Why network automation and why now? 3

Chapter 1

Set your automation strategy 4

Benefits of a single automation platform 6
Chapter 2

Get to know Red Hat Ansible 7

Automation Platform
Look at automation differently 8

Plan automation for today and tomorrow 9

Speak a unified language 9

What is a Certified Content Collection? 10

Ready for reference architecture 10

Chapter 3

Assess your network automation maturity 11

Start small 11

Think big 11
Chapter 4

Manage across the network 12

technology stack and across processes

Chapter 5

Automate your network technology stack 13

A single source of truth in IT Service Management 14 Chapter 6

Top network automation use cases 15

Configuration management use case 16

Infrastructure awareness use case 17

Network validation use case 18

Infrastructure as code 19

Policy as code 19

Automating infrastructure as code and policy as code 19

A GitOps approach to automating NetOps 20

Chapter 7

Services to advance your journey 21

Build an automation-first mindset 21
Chapter 8

Advancing with edge automation and 22

event-driven architectures
Extend automation to the edge 23

Get started 24 Moving to event-driven automation 23

 Introduction

Why network automation

and why now?

It wasn’t long ago that an organization’s network was thought of

as an always-on resource to provide connectivity for the rest
of IT infrastructure and systems.

And although vital, the network but often implemented with a wide
was rarely viewed as a strategic assortment of automation tools, each
EMA research found that
investment as long as everything with a singular management function.
continued to run smoothly. Even 86%
as underlying technologies have Enterprises and communications of organizations will increase
evolved, network management service providers are investing their budget for datacenter
has remained largely the same for heavily in network automation to network automation solutions
decades. Networks are typically ensure their networks can support over the next two years.1
built, operated, and maintained by the demands of modern digital
hand—but that’s all changing. infrastructure. Modern networks
need remediation more rapidly than
To remain relevant in a hybrid cloud can be manually applied, regardless
world, organizations know they of the size of your organization.
must modernize. Traditional, manual
approaches to network configuration This guide provides network
and updates are too slow and error- managers, architects and operators
prone to effectively support the with some best practices for an
needs of rapidly shifting workload operational framework that supports
requirements. Not to mention, there next-generation network operations,
is added pressure that these tasks managing network infrastructure-
place on the people responsible for as-code, and connecting teams
maintaining your network. Network across your IT organization, including
automation is growing in popularity network and cloud experts.

1
McGillicuddy, Shamus. “The Future of Data Center Network Automation.” EMA, sponsored by Red Hat, Feb. 2022. 3
 Chapter 1

Set your automation strategy

In the age of digital business and hybrid cloud, more

organizations are investing in network automation to gain
network resilience and reliability to remain competitive.

Despite this trend toward network automation, nearly 77% of technology

professionals see room for improvement in areas such as datacenter network
automation strategies.1

The absence of an organization-wide automation strategy has less to do with a

lack of planning or vision, and is more the result of rapidly changing industry and
global conditions. Many of these conditions are unavoidable, including:

• The lasting impacts of the global pandemic.

• A remote workforce that is here to stay, often bringing multiple devices and
72% needing connectivity from just about anywhere.
of organizations require
their tools to orchestrate • A sudden need for digital experiences to get and stay connected to
network automation across customers, suppliers, partners, and teams.
multiple, geographically
dispersed datacenters.1 • The growing shift toward edge and internet of things (IoT) devices that
require a managed and secure network.

• A rise in hybrid cloud applications.

• The importance of reliability, which is essential for the network and more.

1
McGillicuddy, Shamus. “The Future of Data Center Network Automation.” EMA, sponsored by Red Hat, Feb. 2022. 4
In addition to shifting global conditions, the structure and practices of network
operations teams had simply not changed over a long period of time, exposing
inefficiencies in many organizations, including:

• NetOps teams being specialized in isolated domains and platforms.

• Network vendors that often focus on individual product capabilities,

rather than overall operational improvements.

• Disparate, cross-departmental teams that were not set up to

collaborate effectively.

• Legacy, paper-based operational practices that were difficult to update

and change.

• Reliance on network device command-line interfaces (CLIs) which are slow

and impede automation.

• Existing monolithic, proprietary platforms that either lack automation

capabilities or offer singular function and vendor specific network automation.

• Organizational momentum, which makes it difficult to adapt to changing

customer needs.

Together these factors have increased the importance of the corporate network
as well as its scope, scale, and complexity. But in the race to meet these shifting
conditions in recent years, many organizations and service providers have
addressed each factor individually, on an as-needed-basis. This resulted in islands
of automation driven by narrowly focused management tools from a variety of
network solutions vendors. In fact in a recent study, EMA found that more than
48% of participants use two tools to automate various aspects of their network
and 34% use three.1

Setting an effective network automation strategy starts with a single platform.

With a solid foundation for automation, you can unify within and across networking
domains, and within and across all the IT functions of your organization.

1
McGillicuddy, Shamus. “The Future of Data Center Network Automation.” 5
EMA, sponsored by Red Hat, Feb. 2022.
Benefits of a single automation platform

As hybrid cloud environments integration such as ServiceNow® No matter where your organization
expand in purpose and complexity, service ticketing and configuration is in its automation journey, a single
it’s neither sustainable nor feasible management information can platform can help open up unlimited
to find a different solution for every help set up systems that define, possibilities. So, what should your
automation challenge that comes manage, automate, and structure organization automate? What does
along. This is where the benefits of services, while providing an easily your NetOps team need to succeed?
a single automation platform can maintained “single source of truth.” And where do you need to run
move your organization beyond your automation to be successful?
ad-hoc incremental efficiencies, • Boost security and risk Red Hat® Ansible® Automation
and truly accelerate business management. Give network Platform is a great place to start.
outcomes across your organization. operations (NetOps) teams
the ability to quickly respond
A single automation platform to dynamic needs for capacity,
can provide many benefits that application security, load balancing,
multiple, disconnected tools and multicloud integrations.
cannot, which help you:
• Embrace a culture of automation.
• Manage growing complexity. Break down barriers between
A single platform can help teams and standalone automation
maintain consistency as you tools and initiatives in your
incorporate new technologies organization, to adopt a culture
such as edge devices into your of automation with a single
Setting an effective network
network environment and mitigate platform as the foundation.
automation strategy starts with
configuration drift with automated
a single platform. With a solid
configuration and maintenance. • Focus on network reliability.
foundation for automation,
Gain consistent ways to change
you can unify within and across
• Enhance communication across the network that help with
networking domains.
teams. Bring teams together under governance and control—all
one view of automation with a at a time when the network is
single platform deployed across essential to hybrid cloud, remote
your organization. IT process workforces, and digital business.

Learn how to modernize network management

using automation.
Download The future of datacenter network automation

6
 Chapter 2

Get to know Red Hat Ansible

Automation Platform

The key to successful As networks expand and become (RBAC), identity and access

automation is to deliver more complex, you need a foundation management integrations,

for building and operating automation audit and insights capabilities
a consistent experience
across your entire organization. and more. This is covered in
across your entire network,
more depth in Chapter 6.
everywhere that automation It provides an enterprise framework
is running. for building and operating IT • Hybrid cloud-based services.
automation at scale, from hybrid Gain the flexibility to scale your
cloud to the network to the edge. business wherever it is. Whether on-
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform premise, within a regional footprint,
combines a universal automation across a global enterprise network,
language with management services or to your farthest edge nodes,
and trusted, certified content for use Red Hat Ansible Automation
automating, deploying, and operating Platform on Azure and other
applications, infrastructure and cloud providers to automate the
services securely at enterprise scale. management of IT resources.
It is important to note: use a
single platform to automate Red Hat Ansible Automation • Certified Content Collections.
across multiple network Platform provides: This automation content is certified
domains and functions, by Red Hat and supported by Red
such as the WAN, campus • Ansible automation. A scalable Hat partners to help you start
network, wireless, and edge, implementation for describing, new automation projects more
in addition to integration building, and managing many quickly for many technologies
with solutions such as aspects of IT including a growing across environments.
firewalls, load-balancers, network, infrastructure, cloud,
information technology enterprise IT applications,
service management (ITSM) security-focused needs, edge
solutions and more. devices and much more across
Need to get up to
diverse enterprise architectures.
speed quickly?
• Enterprise grade capabilities. Read The beginner’s
These include WebUI, API guide to Red Hat Ansible
access, ITSM integrations such Automation Platform
as ServiceNow, role based access

7
Look at automation differently

Automation is the ideal approach to Because networks are relied on

free teams from rote tasks repeated to do more and connect virtually
many times so that they can focus every aspect or your business, it’s
on higher value network engineering important to look at automation in a
needs. Automation can help teams new way. Consider how automation
sleep better, as it can help to handle can unify your extended team,
network tasks and checks that are improve communication, and boost
often done overnight. 451 Research collaboration to help you:
found that network IT teams end up
taking responsibility for every aspect • Provide a high level of service
of connectivity and network service, to users.
including 51% of network performance
monitoring and management needs.2 • Deliver resources to application
development and IT operations
teams on demand.

• Enforce adherence to
configurations and standards
for governance including GitOps
“single source of truth” processes.

• Understand and manage

inventory effectively.

• Maintain configuration
standards across disparate
network platforms.

• Build a more proactive and

self-sufficient NetOps team.

• Rapidly and accurately implement

patches when needed, across
hundreds or thousands of devices.

• Drive automation from

ServiceNow tickets and build
toward event-driven automation.

2
A commissioned study conducted by 451 Research on behalf of Red Hat. 8
“Using Network Automation to Power Modern Applications,” 2021.
Plan automation for today and tomorrow

Automation is the key to next generation networking. Figure 1 can help you
visualize how automation can help your network for today and into the future.

Networking is everything in a digital world

Why automate?

Today Tomorrow
Accelerate digital transformation Next-gen digital transformation

• Provisioning and delivery speed • Growing Edge containers and IoT devices
• Security and resilience • More compute outside datacenter
• Remote workforce connectivity • Event-driven automation approaches
• Connectivity across the hybrid cloud • AI/Machine learning data-intensive,
connected applications

Automate for consistency Automate across Automate to ensure security,

and repeatability complex environments compliance and resilience

Figure 1. How automation can advance your network today and tomorrow.

Speak a unified language

Using a common, human readable language, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Want to see Ansible
makes everyday tasks repeatable and scalable using YAML-based playbooks and
in action?
roles. Its flexible framework lets you choose where you automate first, so you can
Watch Five great use
embrace incremental change helping you to start small and expand over time.
cases for Ansible
Network Automation Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform workflows let you create simple, effective
automation sequences using a visual user interface. No special programming
skills are required, so NetOps engineers can use their networking expertise
and start implementing Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform immediately.
9
What is a Certified Content Collection?

Ansible Certified Content Collections are certified by Red Hat and supported by
Red Hat and Red Hat’s partners to make it easier for Red Hat Ansible Automation
Platform users to get up and running with precomposed content. This helps you
jumpstart new automation projects with trusted content so your organization can
gain the benefits of automation more quickly.

Ansible Content Collections are a distribution format for Red Hat Ansible
Automation Platform content that can include playbooks, roles, modules, and
plug-ins around specific solutions or topic areas. This type of content is not
certified or supported.

Ready to learn more?

Take the free Basics of Ansible training course

Ready for reference architecture

To help you get the most value out of your automation the latest reference
architecture is available to subscribers. It incorporates key building blocks to
optimize your Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform environments, including:

• Centralized logging across multiple Red Hat Ansible Automation

Platform environments.

• Protecting installation inventory passwords using Ansible-vault.

• Using a combination of GitOps practices (configuration as code

capabilities) and Git webhooks to streamline the automation and
delivery of configurations to multiple Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
sites automatically, immediately and consistently.

10
 Chapter 3

Assess your network automation maturity

While every organization may As you assess where your organization Start small
be at a different stage in their is on its path to NetOps, it’s helpful to
think of that journey as a spectrum. Where to start is a common question
network automation journey,
with IT automation. Red Hat suggests
the desire to manage the At one end of the spectrum are taking a “start small, think big”
network more efficiently and traditional network operating systems approach. The key to getting up
effectively is common to all. that often don’t have the ability to and running quickly with automation
install software, so they cannot run is to start with processes that are
an automation agent that may be most repetitive and time consuming
required by some automation tools. to manage.
At the other end is a fully automated
NetOps design. No matter if you Starting small with something like
are just starting out or running fully configuration backup and restore,
automated NetOps, Red Hat Ansible dynamic documentation and scoped
Automation Platform can help. configuration management, can
build confidence in using automation
One of the most powerful and and begin steps toward more
unique features of Red Hat Ansible complex projects.
Automation Platform is that it’s
agentless, so you don’t need to install
an agent on any of the devices in your Think big
network. This feature makes Red Hat
Ansible Automation Platform ideally After a few smaller victories with
suited for network automation and it automation, you will be ready to think
is also extremely scalable to help you bigger, institutionalizing automation
rapidly manage broad, global network across your organization. With greater
implementations simultaneously. confidence in automation you might
tackle network compliance, operation
state validation or automated
NetOps. In chapter 6, we take a closer
Learn how to use
look at these automation use cases
Red Hat Ansible
to illustrate the start small, think big
Automation Platform. approach in action.
Experience Ansible Network
Automation self-paced labs

11
 Chapter 4

Manage across the network technology

stack and across processes

Your network ecosystem is Tools that automate within an area Access Red Hat’s extensive

varied and as it grows with help at the task level but can increase ecosystem of trusted partners to
security vulnerabilities. help you:
new technologies that need
to be hosted and managed on However, automation can help • Manage multi-vendor network
your network, complexity can at a broader level across these solutions with a single
escalate quickly. domains to improve communication, automation tool.
collaboration, and make processes
consistent and repeatable—boosting • Set up and run IP address and
your security efforts. Certified identity management.
Content Collections are trusted
to help jumpstart new automation • Authenticate, authorize,

projects across a range of vendors, and integrate with solutions

while helping you to align to including domain name service

compliance needs. management.

• Manage application security risks

and load balancing.

• Administer datacenter and

campus networks.

• Control, update and manage

security risks on Edge devices.

12
 Chapter 5

Automate your network technology stack

A robust ecosystem of technology partners contribute to the Red Hat Ansible Automation
Platform Certified Content Collections, to help you to get up and running as we have described
and to help you manage across your multivendor network environment with a single platform.

This pre-composed content is

supported, trusted, and validated for
Ansible network ecosystem
use with Red Hat Ansible Automation
Platform and consists of bundles
of modules, plug-ins, roles, and
documentation that you can use all
from a single place or collection.

Get to know the complete

list of Red Hat Ansible
Automation Platform
Certified Content Collections

Figure 2. A robust ecosystem of technology partners

are contributors to Red Hat Ansible Certified Content
Collections and help you automate across multivendor
network environments.

13
A single source of truth in IT Service Management

Creating a single source of truth from service chains, while enabling a

ensures you are operating based on closed loop process that automatically
standardized, relevant data across updates your ServiceNow workflows
your organization. You can improve without manual intervention. This
the value of your service chain using helps you to:
ServiceNow as the single source
of truth for information about • Work across incidents, problems,
your IT assets, while using Red Hat and change requests to make
Ansible Automation Platform to remediations easier.
programmatically open, close and
update service requests, incidents, • Create playbooks to automate

problems and change requests. common service request

actions, such as resetting a
This helps you create faster, more network router.
efficient IT service management
using the Red Hat Ansible Certified • Automatically establish a digital

Content Collection for ServiceNow trail for audit purposes.

that integrates Red Hat Ansible

• Automate the retrieval of
Automation Platform and
configurations, eliminating
ServiceNow solutions.
manual steps.

The combination of these solutions

• Simplify with modules and
provides many benefits, including:
plug-ins for managing incident

• Faster service delivery for tickets, interacting with problem

improved customer and tickets, handling change requests,

stakeholder satisfaction. and managing the configuration

management database in
• Faster time-to-resolution. ServiceNow.

• Improved productivity across With a Red Hat Ansible Automation

IT teams. Platform subscription, you also have
access to Automation hub where you
Using Certified Content Collection, can browse and download solutions,
you can dramatically increase value and curate your preferred solutions
into a private collection.

Ready to try it step by step?

Read the network automation instructional e-book

14
 Chapter 6

Top network automation use cases

Network operators are in a challenging position as they expand

capabilities on the path to next generation networking.

The growing shift to hybrid cloud environments and the business opportunity
of new applications, data-intensive computing, and new technologies such as
edge, and IoT devices and cloud networking provide the perfect opportunity for
automation across three key use cases as depicted in Figure 3.

These three use cases can be mapped to three broad stages of your automation
journey. Let’s take a look at each individually to help you assess and implement
automation across your network.

Network use cases

Start small, think big, accelerate maturity

Configuration Infrastructure Network

management awareness validation

Configuration backup Dynamic documentation Operational state

and restore validation

Scooped configuration Automated NetOps Network compliance

management

Figure 3. Network automation use cases.

15
Configuration management
use case

At this stage in the journey ask, “How

can we simplify a task or set of tasks
using automation?”

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

makes it easy to get started with
automation, see how Ansible works,
and try features without having to go
The eight lines of code depicted in Figure 4 can back up hundreds if not
all-in with automation. At this stage
you are not affecting production, you thousands of devices
are automating read-only tasks that at the same time, saving network operators time without the need to
network operators would have to do learn a programming language like Python or having to write, explain and
anyway using playbooks as illustrated maintain their own custom scripts.
in Figure 4.

Red Hat Automation Platform takes

this one step further. When two or
more people are using the same
--- automation jobs, these can be added to
- name: network backup the Automation Controller component
hosts: all of this platform, allowing push-button
gather_facts: false IT and network management. This
tasks: means automation can easily be put

- name: multi platform backup into action via a web user interface.

include_role: Automation Controller also has an API

so you can initiate your automation jobs
name: network.toolkit.backup
in another tool such as ServiceNow and
bring it into Automation Controller.

Figure 4. Example of a playbook based in YAML.

16
Infrastructure awareness
use case

As you become familiar with using

automation, the next question
to ask is “How do we centralize
our processes?”

Infrastructure awareness is another

great use case as your organization
ramps up to full network automation Network native configuration
because it involves read-only tasks,
which do not affect production.
Instead, the goal is to run operational
tasks to get information from
your network, generate dynamic
documentation and improve network
visibility and performance.

Dynamic documentation is about

gathering information from your Convert to structured data
network, converting it into a usual
format or structured data, and then
using that information to standardize
and enforce best-practices.

Structured data is much easier to

work with and lets you plug your data
into your choice of tools, including “ansible_facts”: {
websites, reports, database, or a “ansible_net_iostype”: “IOS-XE”,
solution such as Infoblox so you “ansible_net_version”: “16.09.02”,
can glean insights into network “ansible_net_serialnum”: “9L8KQ482JFZ”,
performance, devices running on “ansible_net_model”: “CSR1000V”,
the network, and other workloads.

<<rest of output removed for brevity>>

Figure 5. Red Hat Ansible automation converts network information into usable
structured data.

17
Network validation use case

This use case focuses on the connectivity and protocols and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
question, “How do we orchestrate enhance operational workflows to help workflows also allow rollbacks which
our processes?” measure network intent. help make configuration changes
simple. For example, if you made
In this example, we’re doing more than The first step is to decide which show a configuration change such as
rebooting or backing up a switch. The commands you want to parse. Figure changing a VLAN, then you checked
goal is to look at the operation state, 6 demonstrates how, using Red Hat connectivity across your network and
meaning we want to look at show Ansible Automation Platform, you realize it’s down, execute a rollback
commands, put them into a structured can deploy parsing automation, action and create another job template
data scheme as we did in Figure 5 and understand your operational state and based on the previous template using
work with that data to examine the make changes across your network. the information about what worked
operational state to check network and what didn’t.

What should I parse?

Quick automation victories for operational state

Interface LLDP OSPF BGP

state neighbors neighbors neighbors

Network deploy

operator parsing automation

Red Hat Ansible

Automation Platform

Figure 6. Deploying parsing automation using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

18
Infrastructure as code By codifying and documenting your Automating infrastructure
configuration specifications, IaC as code and policy as code
Provisioning infrastructure has aids configuration management and
historically been a time consuming helps you to avoid undocumented, Automating infrastructure
and costly manual process. As ad-hoc configuration changes. provisioning with IaC means that
infrastructure management has developers don’t need to manually
predominantly moved away from provision and manage servers,
physical hardware in datacenters Policy as code operating systems, storage, and other
to virtualization, containers, and infrastructure components each time
It’s also important to make sure
cloud computing, the number of they develop or deploy an application.
that your IaC implementation is in
infrastructure components has Codifying your infrastructure
compliance with your organization’s
also grown. More applications gives you a template to follow for
standards and policies. While the
are being released to production provisioning, and although this can
code may work, it will likely also need
on a daily basis, which means still be accomplished manually, an
to conform to specific company
infrastructure needs to be able automation tool, such as Red Hat
naming conventions, labels, and
to be spun up, scaled, and taken Ansible Automation Platform, can
security requirements–a process
down more frequently. help save time and resources.
that can be time consuming

Infrastructure as code (IaC) practices for infrastructure teams. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
help organizations manage IT works with IaC solutions and includes
Policy as code aligns technical
infrastructure needs while also all the tools needed to implement
environments, processes, and
improving consistency and reducing enterprise-wide automation, including
resources to agreed standards.
errors and manual configurations. With playbooks, a visual dashboard,
For example, checking to make
IaC, configuration files are created and analytics.
sure that none of your computing
that contain your infrastructure
resources have a direct route to
specifications, which makes it easier
the Internet (potentially violating
to edit and distribute configurations.
security policy), or limiting the service
It also ensures that you provision
ports to just HTTPS and SSH.
the same environment every time.

19
 A GitOps approach to automating NetOps

Stay up to date with Another way to implement NetOps or infrastructure as code is using GitOps.
This more prescriptive approach uses Git as a single source of truth instead of a
the latest tips and
configuration management database such as ServiceNow.
technical knowledge.
Read the Red Hat Network Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform provides great support for a GitOps
Automation blog approach by providing native integration with GitHub and GitLab via webhooks.
It also makes it easy to get started with brownfield projects, so automation
deployments don’t need to be an all-or-nothing approach. This helps you
take incremental steps toward automation and helps teams work in unison on
automation projects throughout the entire process.

Automated NetOps
Tying everything together

2 Pull request 3 Webhook

Examples:
4 Continuous
Github, GitLab
---
integration
and delivery
name: example
key: value Development
declarative: data 1 Modify declarative
data model

Production
Network 5 Approve for Red Hat Ansible
operator production Automation
Platform 6 Continuous
deployment

Figure 7. Automated NetOps using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

20
 Chapter 7

Services to advance your journey

Both Red Hat Consulting and Red Hat partners offer a range of
services to help get you started with network automation and
advance along your network automation journey.

This assistance can include: can take time and careful

planning. Consider the following
• Designing architectures. tips to move your organization’s
mindset toward automation:
• Optimizing processes
and workflows before • Identify a champion or
automating them for the best executives to talk about
automation experiences. the value of automation,
including staying competitive
• Building skills across IT teams. and innovating quickly.

• Creating automation content • Share results and successes as a

designed for your automation way to build trust and legitimacy.
use cases.
• Highlight and reuse trusted
• Helping to establish communities content to save time.
of practice for automation.
• Find the best teams for
• Assisting with what to automate automation opportunities and
next–from network functions work with them to create content
to use cases such as cloud and implement automation.
or edge automation.
• Show, rather than tell, by
offering demos and use
For more ideas, tips, best Build an automation- cases teams can relate to.
practices for extending first mindset
automation across your • Once the community of practice
Successful end-to-end automation
organization, read The has momentum, develop
is not just a technology change,
automation architect’s standards boards and policies.
but also a change in mindset
handbook. across your organization, which

21
 Chapter 8

Advancing with edge automation

and event-driven architectures

Edge computing has extended hybrid cloud infrastructures for

many organizations. They need to connect data from remote
sources back to the datacenter to support business decisions.

As an organization expands, devices • Reduce downtime and complexity.

are added, and data volumes grow, Simplify network management
automation at the edge can simplify across multi-vendor and multi-
complexity and help organizations purpose devices, reduce network
gain measurable benefits. failure, and boost your bottom line.

Red Hat Ansible Automation can help • Improve efficiency. Increase

your organization: performance and reduce human
error with automated analysis,
• Focus on security and efficiency. monitoring, and alerting.
Run updates, patches, and required
maintenance automatically without,
in some cases, the need to send a
technician to the site.

• Increase scalability. Apply

configurations consistently across
your infrastructure and scale edge
devices more quickly.

• Boost agility. Adapt to changing

customer demands using edge
resources only as needed.

22
 Extend automation to the edge

As your organization progresses through automation maturity, you may be

interested in automating certain tasks without human intervention. For example
perhaps you want to reset a network switch without user intervention, or you want
to gather facts about that switch to aid in issue resolution.

Automation helps improve response times, security, and control over the
infrastructure that supports data generation at the edge of the network. Across
every industry, edge and automation can place a business at the epicenter of
opportunity to help produce tangible business results.

Moving to event-driven automation

Event-driven automation can be used to go from an “event” that is identified by

one or more solutions to automated actions that are based on these events. At
this advanced stage of automation, you can employ automation in many ways. For
example, if a network device ticket arrives indicating too much latency, a playbook
can be automatically kicked off to collect configuration information from that
device to help expedite resolution of that ticket.

Event-driven automation is the next step in advanced in automation that offers

big benefits when simple repeatable tasks are done. This can help you retain talent
by eliminating mundane tasks, especially those that must be done outside of work
hours. It also helps improve resilience by expediting resolution.

Learn more about event-driven architectures.

Read the blog, Achieving speed and accuracy
through event-driven automation

23
Get started

Ready to take the next step in

your automation journey?

Extend the power of Red Hat

Ansible Automation Platform to
you entire network.

network automation workshop

Take a self-paced lab

network automation workshop

Start your trial

Once up and running, improve your

teams’ knowledge with a network
automation workshop. Talk to your
sales team to set one up.

network automation workshop

Join a workshop

24
 About Red Hat
Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using
a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud,
container, and Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat helps customers develop cloud-native
applications, integrate existing and new IT applications, and automate and manage complex
environments. A trusted adviser to the Fortune 500, Red Hat provides award-winning
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