What’s the impact of Network Automation on your career with Rich Martin – ZNDP 084

ZNDP 084: What’s the impact of Network Automation on your career with Rich Martin

Zig Zsiga: What’s the impact of Network Automation on your career with Rich Martin - ZNDP 084

Zig Zsiga: How do we get network engineers… how do we get you to adopt Network Automation? I am joined by Rich Martin this week to discuss why you should adopt Network Automation today! What’s the value in it for you? What’s the impact on your career if you do not adopt automation? Thats what this show is all about. Let’s go!

Zig Zsiga: Welcome back My Friends, Nerds, Geeks, and Ziglets out there. We have another episode of the Zigbits Network Design Podcast (ZNDP), where Zigabytes are faster than Gigabytes. We strive to provide real-world context around technology!

Zig Zsiga: What's up everybody? I hope everyone is doing great. Zig Zsiga here and welcome to episode 84 of the Zigbits Network Design Podcast. My Name is Zig Zsiga, I’m here to help you with Network Engineering, Network Design, and Network Architecture, and today we are going to explain why you need to adopt Network Automation and whats the impact if you do not do so. Joining me today is my friend Rich Martin, and he is going to help me, help you, understand the impact of automation on your career!

Zig Zsiga: Before we jump right in, let’s hear from today’s sponsor…. Its me!! All of these shows are brought to you by Zigbits. 99% of the content we create is free to everyone in this community. We have podcast episodes, YouTube Videos, Webinars, and a Discord Community, once again all free to you. Head on over to Zigbits.tech to check out all of this free content.

Zig Zsiga: We are literally about to open the doors on our Network Design Course. Literally any day. This past week I ask the Ziglets in the Zigbits Discord community, you can join the community by going to Zigbits Discord Community. The question I ask was if they would like me to launch my Network Design Course with 6 stages complete, or wait until the rest of the stages were completed? I had an overwhelming amount of responses like;

Zig Zsiga: “Why not be Agile!”

Zig Zsiga: “Why not open it up, you could change someone’s life with what you have already published.”

Zig Zsiga: “Someone could literally get a new job because of what you have.”

Zig Zsiga: Well the Zigbits Community, the Ziglets in our Discord server, “Have Spoken”. I finished Stage 4 and Stage 5 last week and as soon as Stage 6 is completed, I will be officially launching this course. If you want to hear more about it, feel free to join the waitlist/email list at Zigbits Network Design Course Waitlist.

Zig Zsiga: Our Guest today is my friend Rich Martin. Rich is a Senior Technical Marketing Engineer at Itential. Previously, Rich has worked with several networking vendors as both a Pre-Sales Systems Engineer and Systems Engineering Manager. Rich started his career with a background in software development and Linux. He has a passion for automation in the networking domain. At Itential Rich helps networking teams to get started quickly and move forward successfully on their network automation journey.

Zig Zsiga: Hey Rich, thanks for joining today! How are you doing bud?

Rich Martin: [5:25] I'm doing great Zig thanks for having me on the podcast I really appreciate it.

Zig Zsiga: [5:29] Yeah man hey you know I think it'll be really interesting today we're going to talk about some Automation and network engineers and kind of merging the two

um so I think it's gonna be a really great show great conversation real quick hey can you give us a kind of introduction and who you are what you do maybe a couple minutes overview of Who You Are.

Rich Martin: [5:46] Yeah certainly named Rich Martin currently I'm the senior technical marketing engineer at a company called I tential its ite ntia L it's.

Constantly people are using different names for it but I tential and don't let the name marketing and you know marketing get in the way of technical engineer I'm a networking person.

For a long time now I got into networking through computers I have a programming background writing like serial communication apps I want to.

Zig Zsiga: [6:16] Your data yourself man.

Rich Martin: [6:17] I feel like yeah you know but but got started in the mid 90s starting my own ISP so the old dial-up yeah yeah yeah.

And so bringing a lot of that programming experience that I started with it got me in the technology into networking and I kind of shifted my.

Career in the networking and so this whole idea of like how do we automate Network stuff has been like

nagging me for decades now like literally for decades now and so you know I started an ISP worked in a lot of ice be cable companies

managing building architecting you know their networks and then I went you know over to somebody said the dark side to the vendor.

[6:57] Please tells engineer and really it's the same idea like what had I learned you know having,

these networks and then how can I help people using the right technology.

To continue to build you know stable scalable networks where they could sleep at night because I still remember like you know I want to sleep at night as a,

engineer write a good night sleep is something we all deserve and so having worked there but again like the whole idea of how do we get networking,

and automation together because it needs to be there and now we're getting to a point where we have to have it right the network is the whole concept of what a network has is has changed quite a bit

write an accelerated and so so that's where I'm at it with a tential is I tried to advocate for the network engineer the

petitioner in this new world of you know what is the network look like what is it comprised of and all of the tools and things of that nature to help people get into the automation game,

that are specifically Network Engineers or maybe not

practitioners that have a programming background and and I tential fortunately shares that same view that same philosophy We Believe automate all automation is good

and getting Network the network engineer into this world is like it's inevitable it's a we must have this.

Zig Zsiga: [8:18] Yeah hey I appreciate that van so a couple things right so I also have a computer science programming background

I remember like years and years ago when I was first getting in a networking and I'm not going to date myself I was going to say that I was trying to automate like logging into devices and saving the configurations with vbscript so this is back before we had all these automation tools and honestly the vbscript is like sendkeys like I don't know if you remember like the sendkeys commands and like if you messed up what window was in focus on your computer like it ruined the

it ruined the script like it just it wouldn't work because you're using sendkeys and that was really really bad but um

but yeah I remember like going through and changing IP addresses and saving configs and changing like SNMP strings and what not and doing it to like 300 400 devices so this was years and years ago to so it's interesting to see how this is evolve right the network is evolved and then what we do with the network has evolved over the last 20 and 30 years.

Rich Martin: [9:16] Yeah absolutely I could share an experience to live with expect Scripts.

Probably expect came out and and and it was it was playing roulette right I mean it was great because it was great in the sense that.

You could basically batch up a bunch of commands,

but if an error popped in like you were saying well you know in the case of an expect script you know if I was doing this over an out-of-band serial interface,

and there was some sort of line noise that popped up and it just Jam the expect script because it's looking for a prompt to continue there's no deterministic way to tell hey did this IP address change actually work.

You know there's no way to really test that and so it was like this half mode of automation where you still had a human looking over everything over seeing it and the day,

you know it was only a slight bit forward you know and once you hit like a catastrophic failure so it's one thing to do it over one device.

Iterate that over like you said 300 devices and so there's a trust and confidence that has to be built up not only in the tools and the skill set.

And unfortunately once you hit like the catastrophic automation problem with those really low quality tools your confidence and trust is a rodents like yeah can't do that anymore am I.

Why does a winding this mess is worse than just doing it.

Zig Zsiga: [10:34] Why you can break these two if you're not careful right like I remember there was sin Keys like that VBS stuff

right if I change something incorrectly there's no validation that right makes that change and if if I mess up the routing or something now that device is offline I mean there could have been a lot of issues back then if I had known so so we kind of dived in right so the whole point of today's show

is how to get network Engineers to adopt Network automation so I like to kind of start this this idea with why does this matter

what do you write in your words Rich why does this matter.

Rich Martin: [11:09] Yeah it matters well for a lot of reasons we talked about a few of them that there are monumental.

Amounts of devices out there that need to change at hundreds

thousands in some cases depending on the organization we're talking about configuration changes we're talking about like you know network software upgrades we're talking about even things like you know,

massively changing IP addresses for ntp servers or SNMP strings you know there's all these changes that need to be made and as the network has scaled and I'm just talking about

you know the network the physical network network that's built on physical devices you know as that as we scale the amount of devices in the network.

[11:55] Making a simple change on one or two

like that's not even on the table we got to change hundreds or thousands and so automating that part of it is certainly important at scale we want our companies we work.

Thor work for to succeed we want that means the Network's going to grow and if the network grows and expands we need to.

Use automation as basically table Stakes as a tool that we have as networks grow and not just like I just said we have networks that were built,

primarily on physical devices but now we have virtual devices virtual networking components and even Cloud native stuff which is a whole different world on its own and so how do we not only automate what we have,

what we what we're now getting into and in the future.

All of this is done in the second thing is you know automation for our bosses and our bosses bosses all the way up the chain you know in our organizations they understand automation like.

Look at AWS you can spin up a you know I can click a few buttons and I can spin up a web server.

[12:54] That's not all that spinning up it's spinning up all kinds of networking stuff at the same time and so everybody understands this now that it should be easy to automate Network stuff and that's not.

Necessarily the case and it hasn't been the case for a while but the there's now this conditioning that everybody's like well hey.

It's possible I see it done every every day why can't we do it and so now there's an expectation like we have to be able to do this and if you look at like

Enterprises and their digital transformation plans and how they can drive more you know data to their customers and self-service and be more responsive to customers what's it what's at the heart of all that that sometimes is overlooked networking.

Networking is the key to all this.

Zig Zsiga: [13:35] Yes so I've been saying for a while now that the networks and unstated.

That like years and years ago it wasn't a thing right it was like oh yes have let's have the internet sure we'll take it why not we don't need it but we'll have it now it's like,

well I didn't say I needed it but yeah I need it like it's an unstated requirement I need the internet I need redundancy reliability availability and I'll yeah I needed to scale and automate and all these other things to make it really

awesome for my applications and my services that I'm building right again a business nowadays that's what they need they need that and again they don't say it is just don't say it,

which is quite interesting to me.

Rich Martin: [14:14] Yeah it is it is and I think like the other thing that we that Network engineers and this is part of what I'm trying to help network engineering World At Large understand is that

we kind of get this idea that maybe we've already got some Automation in place and that's true so if you look at how the progression of you know the network has been we're starting to see.

More like controllers orchestrators or directors you know managing a set or a network domain

you know good examples are like Wireless you know there's a wireless controller of some sort that's managing all the aps out in the field or SD Wan's another good example there's a controller or director or whatever they want to call it as the,

covers providing the solution and it manages configurations and

even routing policies and things like that for all the remote offices and so there is a there is definitely a you know more tools to automate and those things arguably do automate for those domains which used to be you know think about

managing all of your APS you know by CLI you know manually right so there are some automation taking place there but from a networking perspective I believe that

first of all lately I mean let me be straight with you we should be we as network engineer should be leading the whole automation.

You know strategy because for two reasons number one.

We have a very unique position in an organization.

[15:38] We touch all of the other Technologies we transport all of those other Technologies and so our unique position is,

you know understanding what goes over that that technology and a smart network engineer and a driven network engineer will learn to understand the technology is that our

writing over his Network and I think the second thing is history proves the capability in the resiliency of a network a network practitioner to learn new things.

You know and and I will think about it like voice over IP right where did that start that started with,

with transitioning and Legacy PBX or Voice network on to ethernet and then the tools and the features started you know getting baked into the to all the network devices and then what are the network engineer have to do he had to learn this new voice stuff.

You know maybe not a perfect expert in everything but ultimately were the voice teams now like where are they.

Zig Zsiga: [16:34] Rate that's a great analogy right that's a great example that like Network Engineers always have to learn every day and something else comes out right and so why is it it's pretty fitting for Network Engineers to learn automation.

And some of the skill sets but so let's let's ask this question right and it's totally we did not script any of this as always right.

[16:56] Do we have to be full-time programmers like do I have to go know how to write like a really really in-depth program that's going to be leverage somewhere else.

Rich Martin: [17:05] The answer the answer is no and the reason why is you know.

There are so many tools and Frameworks and you know we'll talk about that a little bit later.

Bitter but the answer is no now you know maybe in the earlier days where Network you know lack of network controllers the lack of you know Python and all these different libraries and Frameworks and ansible you know

maybe you did have to know a lot more about writing code right and that was a big that was a big barrier to entry that's a huge barrier to entry.

Zig Zsiga: [17:41] Yeah so what we're talking about there is like what like functions and variables and methods and and all those things.

Rich Martin: [17:48] Yeah you're writing it from scratch basic,

you know and and that's it that was a big barrier to entry but over time there have been more and more tools that require less and less programming know how but at the same time and I do like in this to like the whole voice over IP shift is that.

You don't have to be a.

You know hardcore programmer but you do have to understand some programming Concepts in order to be to work in that environment now what I think is will be interesting is I think that over time I think Network Engineers will enjoy.

The ability to write code not all of them but some of them will because there is a great amount of flexibility and creativity that that exist for the writing code.

Um that I think people will once they get okay I can do stuff without spending a year and a half learning all these new,

you know tools and writing code and and all this other stuff that once they start to see the value of how these how these tools and how these things can help them right.

Automation on the network.

That gets them involved into understanding of learning more and I think that's one of the biggest barriers to entry is that people historically they said I don't we don't have the tools in order to do this I've got to learn,

basically another job I don't have time to do that job right because the network is growing and there's always this backlog of stuff going on.

Zig Zsiga: [19:08] That time right there off.

Rich Martin: [19:09] Yeah there's a lack of time and and I can't do it like when I go home I'm exhausted yeah.

Zig Zsiga: [19:16] Come on oh so let's let's I did a study I did a little study of not a long study just a little study I don't know what it was it might have been last year sometime where I said okay here's what we have to do from a network engineer perspective we have to one person

has to go and update this this config template on a hundred devices.

[19:36] Let's say 25 devices or something like that right I did the math I don't know exactly what the math was I think I averaged it took five minutes to log in ssh in make the changes on each device I think I averaged like five minutes saying that's how long it's going to take to do it on one device

if that Engineers doing it all day long how many can they do in a day right and then how many how many can they do and you know.

A week and I did the math out right and then I was like okay now let's let's induct ornate automation.

[20:04] And if we leveraged automation you know that return on investment and I think it's this is critical I think this is a critical benefit I'm being long-winded but that's the point here is that.

For that and networking team but also the business there's a there's a threshold and I think there's thresholds about.

An hour or like it might be four hours there's a threshold where automation gives you back time after that period of time right so it's what that means is that.

You could have a thousand devices you could have 10,000 devices and that Engineers going to take a lot longer to complete going to every single one of those devices logging and doing its changes validating those changes and then go into the next device whereas automation is going to do it

synchronized that makes sense if that's the right word I don't know what that is but like all those devices are going to get.

Done at the same time it's like you just say so much time I think I did the math and it was like literally you could complete it in 8 hours what you what it takes someone to complete in like

a month it was crazy and so if you put that into perspective of what else can you focus on

as a network engineer what other business

efforts can you actually dedicate your time to business projects building in new revenues new money coming into that organization oh it's amazing what the impact of automation can truly do for a business.

Rich Martin: [21:26] Absolutely you hit on so many,

solid points in one of the things that I also try to never forget is like how do we make the quality of life for a network engineer better.

And part of that is part of that is and like here's here's what's always swept under you know,

the rug you know like I really need to fix this sentence section or this part of my network and I and it's been like this for months maybe years.

And I don't have the time to do it it's working like how many times have we deployed something just ad hoc

right and just said okay it's working because there's an emergency or something and the intention was always I will definitely get back to it I don't like the way that we put that in there maybe we're lacking some redundancy we need some other routing protocols running across this,

you know but I'm going to go back and fix it and then the time to fix it just never shows up because there's so much other stuff going on and that to me is one of the key benefits is

improving the quality of life for the network engineer because it's I remember like we talked about like going home and I'm exhausted but by the way if something breaks while you're at home.

Zig Zsiga: [22:31] Your comeback in coming back in.

Rich Martin: [22:32] Back in so there's always this this sword hanging over their head and yes and there's a hole that's been dug that they have to get out of and so it takes time.

But the time is well worth it and that's what you've Illustrated and when we help our customers build these automations.

It gets kind of ridiculous the amount of time that it's saved in fact sometimes we feel like.

Wow if we publish these numbers and they're accurate because the customer has given them back to us and saying that this is actually how much time we're saving now people are like I don't believe it.

But you've seen it yourself in your own test it's a it's a noxious lie large amount of time that gets saved.

Zig Zsiga: [23:12] Yeah I mean it comes down to when you start adding more devices right it does scalability Factor there the X it's exponentially like,

crazy especially if it's one single change or a workflow of those changes right and there's you add you inject variables for the different devices but like

you know once you have those variables identified,

I mean the automation just takes it and goes and then all guess what it adds validation of the changes and if it runs into an issue it rolls back like it just says nope we're not doing anything like hey we hit an issue on this device we're old everything back.

[23:44] And it tells you like it tells you because back in the day when I was doing those VB

no he be scripts there's no validation like I mean I didn't realize how potential of an issue I would have caused and I was working in a network that you didn't want to bring down and so it we don't want to burn any network down

so go there.

The impact it's such a huge impact right but now you have the ability to like do this with full validation and then a foul,

failure State like a failure state that still going to be good and you don't I mean that's that's critical right um so here's here's a question right.

So we're talking about how good how great automation is I think everyone that's listening is going to know this right there by now they know the hay automation I need to only to spin up on automation right I need to get

I need to get over that hump I need to figure out automation so my question to you would be like what's the ramp up.

To be able to do something like this right is that three months six months a year is it two weeks like what's the ramp up if I know nothing about automation today,

and I want to be able to do some simple tasks and we'll get into use cases in a minute but just think of a simple task right I want to automate that tasks on a thousand devices or 500 devices,

what's the starting time period to be able to do that in a production Network do you think.

Rich Martin: [25:03] Um yeah let's break that up a little bit so a lot of it is going to depend on if you've got some experience here's what's interesting to me you know.

Network Engineers know a lot more that they're given credit for.

Write a lot of them no no like you know Linux systems really well they operate well and Linux systems like maybe there's some analogy there CLI versus CLI right that's the world that they've come from so they're very experienced in that so building,

you know a set of tools or getting a set of tools is as easy like an Olympic system is you know is apt-get you know python you know.

Using get using like pep using all the tools they may already be familiar with at least pull in the languages of the Frameworks of the applications like ansible what is really cool today is that are so many it pre-existing.

You know assets for automation so if you have some experience or in Python and you want to go into the python side of you know automation,

there are not only Frameworks to help build but then the scripts that are like hey here's how to make a modification on a port something simple right in the end.

It's already built for you and so so learning is not necessarily starting from scratch but it's modification and during the modification of those assets you are learning.

Right because one of the most frustrating things were network engineer is I know what I want to do I know exactly the technical detail of what I want to do how do I do it.

[26:26] And so so like that's what they'll have to overcome it's a different kind of ways to do it so look at like where is your skill set lied you have some programming background okay maybe maybe you go to python or is that something that.

You're interested in like what is your interest level but you do have to be intentional and make the dedicated effort knowing that what we what we're telling you is.

The time is well spent as an investment for not just your organization which is ultimately,

you know whether you're all working for a paycheck to help the organization succeed but even for your own quality of life and so you have to make the investment but you could get started you know I would always say

go to a lab build trust and confidence you know in your automations and you know have things set up and then start small you know how long does it take.

I mean dare I say a week I don't know don't be a cowboy don't be a cowboy.

Zig Zsiga: [27:20] I mean I haven't really touched automation yet let's be real late so I'm studying for the Cisco Dev net associate exam but again I haven't really done much I do have a programming background right but I don't really know python

I know ansible a little I used it a couple times not much,

but that's really it right like honestly like I haven't programmed since my degree I haven't done any VB script since you know Wendy be pretty much died I don't know if it's still dead or not I think it is probably but everything's doing Powershell nowadays anyway

um

so like for me like like if I wanted to set up a lab real quick I have a whole bunch of labbing resources I could jump into Eve and G and throw in some routers and switches but if I want to automate if I truly want to automate I mean what are the tools right I'm sure there's a ton of tools

what are the tools that would get me kind of up and running as quick as possible.

Rich Martin: [28:10] Yeah so it with a programming background maybe you take a look at python right so you do an install of python leather windows or Linux you pull down some libraries that.

[28:20] That do the communication layer to a network device,

you know via SSH maybe maybe it's CLI driven its API driven

you know maybe there's some other libraries and tools that you use within python but you'll start learning the initial like okay what is a python script look like what is a you know how do I include these libraries and modules and things like that and then

what are the calls so that you know that like with a programming background you probably have a good

feel for what language a programming language looks like and you have a foundation from which to compare python if you don't have that programming.

Background maybe you start with an ansible which hits point it's point of view is you shouldn't have to learn programming to do Automation and so it uses you know configuration file called yamo.

[29:07] Jama late a markup language I think is what it stands for is recursive name but.

You know and it defines in a very strict and structured way you know here is your inventory of devices here is your you know here's your grouping of devices and then here you know there's all kinds of modules that,

like to network elements and not just Network elements and symbols used for system by System administrators you can connect to things in the cloud with it,

but it comes with all this kind of pre packaged into 700 plus modules that you can Leverage

and so there's all these Play books and scripts that already exist to do basic things and now once you get the environment set up pull down the script do something very simple

like I said Port change IP address change and then start to understand okay if I make a change here.

[29:57] You know does that make a change in the configuration and start to build that reference framework between okay is this when I change the configuration right where do I add things in the inventory I'm making a change to one thing here's my inventory file now if I add all you know

all ten of these network devices into their net change can get propagated to all of them if I run the script once and learn how to troubleshoot in debug in those environments yeah that that that's it's as easy as that nowadays versus you know

years ago where basically you were on your own you know even to the point of like how do I connect to a network device.

You know like those those Primitives and fundamentals have already been solved in these tools and now it's just a matter of I know what I want to do.

How do I go and do it using the the predefined libraries and methods and calls that you know that particular framework or solution uses so it's a lot better nowadays but again it does require the intention to learn and maybe picking up some.

It's in development skills you know at least being understood understanding like file formats and not being scared off by weird acronyms like Json or API.

Zig Zsiga: [31:03] Yes yes.

[31:05] They're scary you know I mean yeah mold Json API oh my.

Rich Martin: [31:09] Yeah that's right that's right but you know what network Engineers we are the kings of acronyms come on.

Zig Zsiga: [31:14] Yes yes we are every routing protocol and every every every technical protocol out there has a knack.

Rich Martin: [31:20] Like we get tested more on acronyms than anybody in the industry I think.

Zig Zsiga: [31:24] Wow that is a true statement right there I think okay cool so I like that thank you so let's go into some use cases what are some,

valid use cases that you've seen both from like a basic use case all the way to maybe some sort of workflow use cases.

Rich Martin: [31:39] Yeah yeah that's a great question and it constantly comes up.

Let me step back for a minute when I talk to colleagues or potential customers you know they asked us about the use cases and I like to just take a moment and say.

[31:55] You think about your day as a network engineer you're probably in the morning already working on some high priority thing.

You know that has to get done because it's related to a you know you know maybe a customer and customer or your internal customer you know that has to get done and if that's something that now you're repeating over and over and over like.

These changing IP addresses you know on 500 devices is not intellectually stimulating right it's very

it's very mind-numbing right and so yeah it's very boring and so these are the things like that immediately start to pop up

in people's heads when they start thinking in this like what does my day look like as an Eric Jerry I hate doing these pork changes or I hate getting this this list of things that I have to do and it's like the most repetitive thing over and over and over again and that's typically,

we're Network Engineers start you know they think okay if I could just get this off my plate then I could do more higher order.

Dare I say more fun stuff to do in the network you know versus this repetitive thing and by the way sometimes I'm the only one that knows how to do it.

And so it always lands on my and I don't even have time to teach somebody else that this task because I'm the guy that they're pulling it I'm the guy that understands it and it has to get done in such a critical time frame.

I just need to get it done and off the plate but it still takes hours.

Zig Zsiga: [33:13] You got to drop what you're doing and do it right you're the only person that can do it and you got to get it done you got to get done today yep hold it.

Rich Martin: [33:20] So some of those things that pop up like we have a list of like a top-10 right and it's so it's so interesting when we sit down in front of network Engineers it's almost like they're ordering off a menu and they're really hungry it's like,

oh yeah number one so I would really love to be able to get all of my network devices on this on the you know.

The latest or at least the most stable you know software version Network OS version Right For That device like I would love to do that,

configuration management and compliance and checking like yes my parts of my network are not in compliance you know.

Maybe small things are very important things I would really love to do that and in fact if I could do that then maybe I could do some of these other things that are on your list you know any kind of changes repetitive changes to like

load balancers that maybe you know as part of a customer service that's you know being brought up right down modified change whatever.

You know if you had a Data Center and you're doing like a bunch of VLAN changes or adding vlans to trunk ports you know like all of these things do you know even things like device on board.

Hello if it's one or two devices that's no big deal but what if it's hundreds of devices not even hundreds what if it's like 30 device.

Yeah you know like even a small amount of devices for a small team can can can take up lots and lots of time and so as we go through these.

Zig Zsiga: [34:40] I want to jump on something so you said something about adding the landsat trunks right none of us have ever added vlans that Trunks and not you know hit the add Command right like that's I'm thinking Cisco here so I'm sorry but like.

If you're out there and you've ever used a trunk and you've added vlans to a trunk before I can guarantee there's been a chance or a time where you added the VLAN but you forgot to use the keyword ad and you pretty much destroyed your truck

right so so this this that's a great use case right there I mean that's something that's that I think

will resonate most people probably done that or know someone that's done it so here we could automate that and then you don't ever have that user error and that's another issue here user errors are removed right like.

Rich Martin: [35:24] That's absolutely true and that's part of consistent you know confidence and Trust in your automation is the whatever you write can't be just the change.

It has to be the process that a network engineer would go and even before the change happens like a you know a freaking pre-check so to speak to say hey I need to make sure these things are in place before I do any of this,

right and then make the change and then

you need to validate that the change was made correctly you know so maybe you're looking at the configuration but you're also looking at the state of the network can I ping this is can typing all these devices because like you said if you've just replaced 10 vlans with a single VLAN.

You know a bunch of devices are just going to drop off the network and you know you've got to know that and I think the other piece of that is you know.

A lot of times when we Network Engineers do these repetitive tasks are very good at doing it but.

You're multiplying the ability for human error to creep in as well and you know that that is a part of building an automation it's not just doing the work it's making sure the process is followed it's not a shortcut.

In that sense you still want to make sure that process that you as a network engineer that's in your mind that's basically you know it's subconscious at this

you know exactly what you're looking for you know how the Nick make the change and know you need to validate that the change was made correctly and everything the state of everything is exactly as it ought to be and then transferring that into your automation.

Zig Zsiga: [36:51] So I want to I want to unpack something you said right I think this is actually critical so you mentioned something I'm going to not going to paraphrase or have it the wordings going to be wrong I'm sure but the process you should follow to create a valid automation were quote for a network engineer and one of the things I want to,

open up that process in your head like I want to actually write down what that process is in your own words so what's the first thing you would do.

Rich Martin: [37:14] Well yeah so the first thing that I think a network engineer would gravitate towards is how do I solve the backlog problem my most pressing backlog problem right

and so we named quite a few of these things so you know for doing VLAN changes if that's my most pressing back you know backlog problem.

You do want to solve the problem itself of making the change but at the same time you want to also I would take a step back and say along with that most pressing problem.

[37:45] Analyze some of the other most pressing you know backlog.

Problems that you can solve with automation because you really want to weigh the benefits of many of these because it might be worth you personally fixing this issue but.

But if there's a bigger issue that could be automated that brings more value in a shorter amount of time maybe that's the one you focus on,

right so how about bigger view of the automation needs that are going on in your in your network right in and maybe it's a different team you know and and collaborate.

And I think this is another big piece of network engineers and network Engineers adopting automation is the collaboration piece that they need to.

To make with their existing you know team members because you'll be surprised at little pockets of automation are already happening and nobody knows about it.

You know some guy over here has got his ansible script and he's not telling anybody that he's using it and it would be so powerful and valuable if he did and could share that not only the script but how to modify right so but I would say.

Find out where your automation needs are figure out which benefit most beneficial work on that problem for sure how do I solve it how do I do that in ansible but then make sure that you take the time and this is this is critical because Network Engineers think so quickly,

in their day-to-day.

[39:02] Document the process of what is a pre-check look like before I make this change what are the metrics that I'm looking at what is the state of the network that I need to look at before I make this change.

They make then you actually make the change and then you say okay now what.

What should which what net new things so that now you're doing a post check what net new things should have been you know manifested through this change.

And do I have connectivity to all the other things that need that that should should not have changed right and so always doing a pre-check validation.

Doing the work and doing a post check validation and that's how you can because.

Automation is about trust and confidence to like you and I both share experience about we don't really trust these automations that we first started,

right because it was no validation or deterministic way to understand if this actually worked and so you want to build trust and confidence in these automations and that's how you do it you have to have those bookends to the automation itself

and here's what's critical about that too.

Now when those automations kind of mature and you've built them out with the proper preach ex-post checks even you know reverting if there is a catastrophic failure reverting something that you you know you weren't.

[40:18] Expecting but it does tend to happen sometimes the nice thing about that is now you feel.

You have to trust and confidence in the automations to share them not only with your own team.

But ultimately can we publish these automations out through maybe through it through an API of some sort so that other teams can leverage them and I'll share a story with you.

I was at I was at one of the networking events and somebody was.

Contacted me about talking about Automation and he had been in a couple of sessions where they were really python Centric like really like you need to learn to code you need to be a python expert to leverage these things and he said you know what I.

[40:56] That's too much for me I'm a one guy you know shop with you know I have an IT team what I really want is for the IT team when they have to do something like reset a port because of or find a MAC address in the network.

You know or reset a pork because a customer is you know their desktops Frozen I just want them to be able to do that themselves.

Like I don't want them to call me for those little tasks because again they become they create backlog and he goes I would love to be able to build this.

You know and he's he'll get there it was very complicated because he starting with.

That nothing on programming experience because but what if I could build this I would build really basic stuff and then I would want to.

Trust it so that I could I could publish it so that the IT team could go oh that's a support reset,

click this button it's all self-service boom it finds the MAC address that that part was on wherever it is in the network resets the port because that's the solution for the for that particular problem and off to go and he said if I could do that.

That simple thing and publish that out and trust that that would free up so much more time for me and so.

Zig Zsiga: [42:01] This case right there that's a cute that's a really cool workflow use case though because it's not just

you're not just creating a VLAN right you're actually going to multiple devices potentially and so you're going to have to give that information back to your automation,

component whatever it is right it was python or ansible whatever you're using for all your automation tool or framework but literally you're going to get a MAC address and maybe an IP address I don't know and you have to figure out where that.

Device is connected in your physical Network

to be able to shot and no shot the poor or to change the VLAN or whatever right like that's a huge because you could be anywhere in the network and you literally got to go find it and you had to have some sort of iterative process until you actually find a device that owns that Mac address.

And then you find the poor and then you shut the port down right so there's a lot of methods you could do functions I mean that's awesome that's a great workflow use case in my opinion.

Rich Martin: [42:51] Yeah and think about this and so that's that's what we're trying to get network Engineers to understand is it starts with maybe a small thing like how to make a how to change how to how to reset a port shut shut no shot.

Honest on a switch or a router right that's the that's the small like thing they're just trying to solve right but then you build the bookends

look into it and now it becomes a reusable task that can be used in something bigger

you know and so this like okay now we have to find a MAC address we have to iterate this you know this across a network and then we can we can launch this script that will reset that particular Port that once we identify it and so now you see how building a library.

Of even small things can be used together and this is again this is like.

[43:35] All net new territory for Network Engineers but programmers have been doing this for a long time right they program module early they share libraries they do all these things and so this is the mentality that Network Engineers are will start to pick up they will.

The tools are there the tools are getting better.

They just need the initiative to go and then the other part that we expose them to and I tend to Liz okay now think about your thinking purely in the process of the world of network.

Now step outside of that once you solve those problems when you before you make a change on the network don't you have to open up an IT service ticket somewhere or update one.

Right and before that you know there's an approval process perhaps depending on the complexity or where you're making changes in the network right and then after.

Yeah exactly right and then and then is there an eye Pam system is there a you know is there a source of Truth where you're pulling IP addresses are host names or something from you know or some sort of inventory and now you're you start to look at all this and so you make the change.

[44:33] And you know now you're updating tickets maybe you're sending emails out maybe you're doing slack notifications as part of this whole process and so now where you started from as you kind of,

widen broaden

The View out of the whole process now you start to see more things you can automate into this and and honestly this is where you get the most effective benefit of automation.

You know I you get a lot of benefit from automating the task but now as you start to build out automation across these different it systems.

[45:06] You you're starting to see a lot more,

a lot more benefit and time and money and the ability to onboard a new customer or bring an application up and it's going across multiple domains and multiple systems and ultimately that's kind of the end state right with automation is being able to take.

Every single group and domain within an IT organization and build automations across them.

[45:29] So that you can as quickly as possible build new applications new Services bring up customers whatever it may be.

Zig Zsiga: [45:35] Now that's great I got a couple things right I don't like to interrupt so um you mentioned something earlier about and it's totally a little bit late because I should have said it right the beginning right you mentioned something earlier about you know those those Network Engineers are doing their own on automation

the background and no one knows about it right you know how we have the word Shadow it well now we got Shadow automation like this is like like that's that I'm gonna highlight that

because that's what it is like you're hiding the fact that you're doing automation you do anyone knowing your Shadow automation like that that's pretty cool so um but then.

[46:09] So I want to I want to dive in here too and the example you use real quick just to paint a little bit of a picture again I've never done this I do know programming but my idea here is like let that work for you mentioned about

you know finding a MAC address finding the poor shuttin you know shut the port right so the first step is you would write some sort of you know

automation script of some so I don't know if it's called The Script let's say it's a script and all it is is it except say probably a device IP.

Credentials I'm sure and then,

a port number of some sort of Port you know variable and then hey we're going to go shut no shut that board right.

And that seems pretty simple right and that that'd be like maybe one script I don't know I don't know would be a method or a function so you can correct me if I'm wrong and then you have another.

Rich Martin: [46:54] Could be.

Zig Zsiga: [46:56] It could be all the above right and then and then you'd have another script.

The find your Mac address right so it maybe it accepts an IP address and and accepts the device to log into and then you search for the MAC address or whatever something like on those lines think about how you look up our Mac address today

and all the commands you would need to use to find that Mac address right you maybe show IP Arbonne and show Mac address table all those things right and I'd be another script or whatever right function method,

see those two functions that you just create right those are individual things easy fairly easy and then you create like this other higher level,

automation script that cause both of those but it does like some trouble looping function.

Where it says hey I need to find this Mac address but I don't know where it is here's where my network is and then return back.

What the next hop is what the next address is right so literally that's that's the process at a high level the I'm thinking that you could do simple with automation to make a,

easy to just go and say yep I'm going to go find this Mac address and shut and no shut that.

Rich Martin: [48:02] Yeah you so you're really just thinking through as a network engineer of your manual process and then it's just a matter of Translating that into whatever

tools or programming language

that you choose to you know to express it in and that's that's it and as simple as you can you know different different tools and systems will make it easier to pending on your your

you know your background

you know we do a drag and drop low code canvas where we expose a lot of these functions where you can just drop them in and then build you know a proper

a flow with you know you know on success of this particular task then do this and so it's very much along the lines of a simple way to do it but if you're going to you know on a canvas but if you're going to do it in programming then you would look up the you know The Primitives of what you just said

and then and then build those together ideally in a single script but then you but you see the idea of modularization.

And modularization of different scripts can take different forms right but this is that's the whole principle and now I can share these little libraries these little modules we have little Scripps all of the above with my team.

[49:08] You know and they can start to leverage them and even if they're not directly applicable like for instance maybe you don't do a no oh you know a shot no shot on a on a,

and an AP but there is the there is the same idea of having to reset something and so now I can take your logic

and start building that out as a framework and so this is a beautiful thing about sharing this work that Network Engineers really need to do so we need to pull those guys out of the Shadow who are doing automation,

and say got hey teach us yo teach us what you're using teach us how you're using it and you know everybody come to the table and share,

you know their background in their automation because ultimately this is the way it needs to be done like automation cannot

place and Pockets you know even within the networking domain all the you know the sdn guys they know how to do automation but the data center guys they have they don't do any of it it's all manual they're like no we need automation across all of it why because your SD Wham,

your customer at the end of the SD Lan connection is accessing things in your data center,

right or in the cloud and all these other places where infrastructure exists that you are responsible for as a team.

And so you have to have automation across all of it otherwise one of you guys is going to be a bottleneck and you know what I'm tired of network Engineers being the bottleneck.

Get blamed for everything.

Zig Zsiga: [50:26] Well we get blamed for everything but then it's always like we have to come back and say yeah see me three months before we can do that right it's going to be three months before we can

Implement that new application or service and this is why people go to Cloud this is why people go are

businesses go to cloud and this is why businesses are adopting automation right if it's going to take three months to get a new application up and running that's a problem for businesses today

so you either have to adopt Automation and like a proper public or private cloud or something and then you got to change your work clothes I mean I have I have customers that are.

They're changing that 3030 gay or three-month time window down to like seconds like 25 50 seconds and it's critical it's awesome it's huge

return on time right and let's be let's be honest and Frank right time is the greatest resource we talked about no money and then also Technical Resources like memory and CPU and bandwidth but like.

Time we can do more if we are able to automate things and that's truly amazing.

[51:25] So yeah those Shadow automation Engineers got to get him out of the Shadows right come out of the dark the dark cubicle corners or whatever and come hang out right come teach us stuff

um let's have some fun let's automate things let's learn some python I'm real quick I do want to highlight,

the process that you highlighted right I want to re highlight it because I think it's extremely important I think that's one of the best takeaways - my shuttle automation reference but that's pretty cool

so so so you know for everyone I'm going to paraphrase and then and then Rich can tell me if I'm holding really wrong and they said you got it wrong and you can correct me so the first thing is if you have an idea right you have some sort of thing you're going to automate you're going to complete a pre-check

in your code right you want to complete some validation that hey before I make a change is this actually something I need to do type of thing that's my logic in my head right in the words that you use

it was like treat it like you're doing yourself treat it like you're actually going to go make that change so

I would go in if I'm going to make a routing change I'm going to make a port change or something like that I'd go in I'd do a show command of some sort some sort of not just show run,

but probably some sort of a show on that protocol and validate hey yes that is correctly configured today that's what I want to change.

And then once I validate that then I moved down to making the change.

[52:40] That's step two or Phase 2 or you know of the process make the change and then after I made the change there's a complete a post check right going to put that post check now that post check could have multiple outcomes but one of the outcomes is what was changed what should have been changed right

let's have a validation I plan to change these things did those those things change yes or no and then what shouldn't have changed.

You want to have a kind of a validation of hey these things should never have changed and if they did there's a problem and if there's a problem the last part of that is to revert if there's a problem,

now there's not a problem on everything is good everything is green let's say then we report back saying everything was successful and we have that output as everything was good to go.

Rich Martin: [53:24] Yeah that's that's that's very well done very well done.

And you know and we want to take these Concepts you know very simple at first but then I want I want Network Engineers to also understand that,

to expand that out so with the power of automation

you can do a lot of validation like on the on the system you're making a change right so if I'm making a change like you said if I'm making a change I can look at the routing protocols I can look at the state of an interface and but we both know that you know routing is a two-way street.

So just because I have a route that says I can get to this place maybe there's not a route on the other side so so now my automation can actually access another system,

right and do validation the other way so you can expand that out maybe your first layer of validation is.

What do I check on the system right PreCheck post check and then maybe you go hey you know would be great.

Sometimes it's a it's a process where you iterate right because sometimes we miss things like it happens I know Network Engineers are perfect.

Zig Zsiga: [54:24] We never miss anything we never.

Rich Martin: [54:26] It's like next time yeah next time I should ping it from this or next time I should make sure the route exists in this router right because all of a sudden something happens and I didn't foresee that.

And you know ironically.

A lot of this process I say it's subconscious because it truly is subconscious in the network Engineers - especially if it's like they do it all the time but ironically.

You know for years we're supposed to be writing these things down and operations manuals.

Zig Zsiga: [54:53] Yeah right come on I mean documentation is like the most important thing and none of us do.

Rich Martin: [54:58] I know yeah of course of course like here's another dirty little networking secret right let's just shove this one under the under the rug but that's kind of what we're doing,

but we're doing it in a way that brings value not just to you when you run the script but to everybody who now runs the script you're now being able to culminate all of this important intelligence

through through being wise enough to avoid a mistake or having made the mistake right,

building that back into these routines in this Automation and that's where we build trust and confidence it's like okay I'm not only do I have ziggs,

like ideas of what is what these pre checks and post checks look like but Rich who makes ten times more mistakes on the network,

now his built in his and now we've got some Ironclad preach X and post checks and that's where I where you can feel confident about the Automation and then not only shared out with your team but share it out with people outside of your team,

right because what I see it is as we're encapsulating the combined knowledge and it's you know of network Engineers over time.

You know and all the things that they've run into we put it in an Automation and I look at that and go yep I trust that because I know the people who built that and I know what they know.

Zig Zsiga: [56:11] That's awesome that is great alright so we have a process for everyone

right now it's a pretty good process I mean will reserve the right to make changes as things change right as we get more information or maybe we want someone will say hey you forgot this but that's the whole point here that's the same thing with building a script automation.

You're going to have other people that have other problems or issues and now you can inject those checks or validations whatever you want to call them into that process too so I think that's great.

Right you know do you have any other comments to kind of talk about I think we hit every kind of note that we wanted to hit today any other thoughts comments concerns questions.

Rich Martin: [56:50] Yeah no I think that I think we hit the biggest pieces which is you know Network engineers.

They have a valuable role to play in Automation and I like I said I would stand up and argue in front of a jury that they have the most critical role based off of not only where they exist in an Enterprise Network or service provider Network.

They touch everything there they're a part of everything I would encourage Network engineers

to never stop learning like we're all in technology think about all the network stuff that you have to learn

like 10 years ago although the new technologies the new acronyms the new protocols the new networks you know overlays underlays all those things you know we constantly learn

let's not shut down when somebody says,

hey do you know how to write code right like I'm telling you you don't need to know how to write code the way they do but you do need to learn something about it in history proves it out.

I know myself I learned a lot of storage because.

[57:52] Storage and networking iSCSI and different types of Naz Technologies right if you're trying to troubleshoot these for some people it's more than just packets over the port.

Right sometimes you actually have to look at the protocols and see how they work and it and it makes you a better engineer.

Network engineer to know these things and so I think it's the same thing we have the capability of learning these things we it's been very difficult in the past we haven't had the right tools you know we've got so much more going on in the network now that it doesn't provide the time that it did,

in the past where we could learn new things,

and so but the reality is I mean look at the expansion of the network like the network is kind of exploded now in ways that maybe we really are kind of scared of where is your you know where is your user today.

[58:38] Is not he yeah he's everywhere that person is not just like you know at my campus Network or on a branch it's at home it's in a public Wi-Fi at a coffee shop in the park.

You know that that users every where's my application nowadays it's everywhere could be anywhere right which Cloud multiple and so.

[58:59] Yeah exactly and what we're seeing also is that like Network Engineers are constantly having to learn new things so how much more Cloud stuff our network engineer is going to get engaged involved with.

And you know multi-cloud because what we've seen is.

If you're going to deploy things that you like just a few things and say AWS networking is simple but and now you've got dozens or hundreds of epcs how do you connect those together.

How do you use something called Transit Gateway will really what is that.

Well that's just bgp under the hood you know and in AWS is Implement range Alice in Wonderland implementation of how they do it and now gets so complicated who do they have to pull in.

That understands me GP the.

[59:42] Yeah exactly and that's not CLI driven that's API driven that's dashboard.

Right and so and so now and we're talking about one Cloud platform.

We've got Azure we've got Google Cloud we've got all these Niche Cloud platforms that enterprises are pushing applications and Sass and all this to all these different platforms Network guy string all this together and make it work.

Zig Zsiga: [1:00:05] Yep you're on it right you have to make it all work.

Rich Martin: [1:00:07] That's right and so so it like we have to continue to evolve and learn these things and if one thing we know is anything in the cloud involves automation that's like table Stakes right.

And so if we're if we're going to build Upon Our infrastructure on cloud stuff we have to learn automation to a higher level including things like apis and and how to how to how to.

Maybe not necessarily like.

We need to take the same Concepts that were used to with like individual Network elements and and figure out ways to kind of apply them to now this new Cloud infrastructure so that we know how to manage them we know how to automate a cross.

Zig Zsiga: [1:00:45] So I was going to say like I was going to add just a kind of terman ization hear that.

We have to automate for the entire Enterprise and Enterprises not like

a customer like a specific customer environment like Enterprise means whatever that environment is and it's not it could be service provider I could be customer a commercial could be whatever from a market standpoint I'm talking like

as a network engineer you need to be able to be part of the entire businesses automation because again like like.

If we can automate things on the network we can also automate things within the application we can tie that automation together right and that gets into a whole different world instead of just like being the the underlying,

infrastructure for the applications and services well now you can tie the automation together

do workflow automations build up build down scale up scale down as the applications and as the business needs I mean this is this is a whole different world in my opinion than what it was 15 and 20 years ago and honestly we can embrace it and we can be critical in that

that shift in that evolution.

Rich Martin: [1:01:54] I agree completely I think there's really no it's really an exciting time yeah and I will date myself,

started an ISP in the 90s and I struggled with this I absolutely struggled with this even in a smaller scale thinking I should be able to do this coming from a programming background and now.

[1:02:11] There are so many ways to do this with not a whole lot of investment into becoming like you know.

Super programmer guy like you don't have to do that nowadays and I think you know the barrier is time the barrier is this mental barrier that says I,

that's the way I have to do it as learn all this programming stuff and breaking those barriers down right so first of all is you don't have to invest a year-and-a-half to become a programmer you can start doing things pretty quickly based off of existing.

Tools assets were you know playbooks and ansible things like that based off of your skill set and what you're interested in and then and then.

You know it's critical for everybody's organization like this this is the future it absolutely isn't and so we need to bring our brothers and sisters and networking along this journey and get them up to speed and I know they can do it I know they can do it

we've seen it in the past I they are probably the most capable group of people.

Out there for picking up technology and I don't want them to be like the camaraderie curmudgeon e all you know

the guy that's been there for decades it's like no I don't want to learn anything like you're not the Mainframe programmer you're the network engineer your life is invested in learning you stop and you can do this.

Zig Zsiga: [1:03:27] Yeah I think that's it going out going around theme is that if you're in network engineering you are learning every day

like there is something new that you have to learn and there's something that just got released and so this makes sense like here's just something else you have to learn right let me think of it like new network Engineers just starting out today there are already learning automation

30 learning programmability day 1 whereas you know someone like me I

I went I had to program a degree but now I have to go back through and learn some of the other things I didn't learn right like I know C and C++ and

and Java but those aren't used really anymore right so got to Learn Python and on ansible and excited we've said all these tools before so

we have to embrace it right we had to embrace it and it's not going to we're not going to become programmers like that's we're not going to be programming all day that's not what we're doing we're automating,

we're automating the network we're automating the business permit you know an IT perspective across the board.

Rich I appreciate buddy thanks for joining me today I think it's been a great show one last question for you so where can all the listeners find you on the interwebs and keep the conversation going.

Rich Martin: [1:04:34] Well takes a big I appreciate it thank you for your time it was definitely an enjoyable time with you I look forward to perhaps more because there's more to unpacked for sure but yeah you can I post quite a bit on our website different blogs and. White papers and things like that I tential.com that's ite ntia elle.com you can email their at info at attention like calm and if you want to contact me directly, just say hey I need to talk to Rich but if you're a you can also follow us on Twitter at at attention. And yeah we appreciate it and check you know if you guys are really interested like we always. Believe that automation all automation is good especially in the networking world we where we desperately need it well you got a lot of free tools and services and our Mantra is helping that network engineer get to that point do automation as quickly as possible using whatever controllers whatever you know Frameworks program scripts let's leverage it all, and let's bring them along this journey.

Zig Zsiga: [1:05:36] Man I appreciate it a everyone I will have those links in the show notes so you can get ahold of rich and the company he works for and get into all that automation stuff,

that we talked about today.

Zig Zsiga: Hey Friends, Nerds, Geeks, and Ziglets thats going to close out today's episode of the Zigbits Network Design Podcast where we discussed the impact of Network Automation on your career. What happens to you and your career if you do not adopt Network Automation as a Network Engineer, Network Designer, and Network Architect. Today’s show notes will be Here.

Zig Zsiga: Make sure you follow our guest expert today, Rich Martin and @itential! All of his contact information will be in the show notes!

Zig Zsiga: We have a new giveaway! This month, March 2021, we have a joint giveaway with Du’An Lightwood (@LabEveryDay) and Erica Cooper (@TechLayDee). We are giving away 5 copies of the Network Warrior by Gary Donahue! Thats right, you heard it. We are going to have 5 different winners this month. Check out the hashtag #ZigbitsMarch2021Giveaway to join the real time conversations on twitter! Get into the giveaway right now. All of the details are at Zigbits Giveaway.

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Zig Zsiga: As always I appreciate and thank you for listening!

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Zig Zsiga: Until next time, Bye for now.