Seven Deadly Deceptions of Network Automation

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The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions. - Leonardo da Vinci

“Network automation does not an automated network make.” Those same words started my formative piece on DevNetOps. It reasoned that we must elevate DevOps culture, processes and principles above technology, end random acts of network automation, and instead pursue holistically automated network engineering and operations. The professional that implements this—from code to production—is the network reliability engineer (NRE). The NRE implements DevNetOps for network infrastructure just as the SRE implements DevOps for apps and platforms.

It’s been a journey discovering DevNetOps and network reliability engineering. With help from peers and NRE friends, I’ve faced debate and dogma forged in the fiery cynicism of the networking I&O silo. To share these lessons, let’s overturn some anti-patterns and deceptions, starting with the opposite of the NRE: those who say automation is “not for me.”

1. It’s not for me

You used to hear people say, “We’re not Google. We don’t have those problems or need those solutions.” Today everyone is mad for #GIFEE and racing for the same outcomes as the unicorns. If you think you’re a thoroughbred horse in a different race, you’re utterly deceiving yourself, and your business is heading to the glue factory.

Before we can change our minds, we must open our minds. Life is an inside job.

If you're a network admin, the rationale to retitle yourself as an NRE is right in front of you. Look forward. You’ll see a future less doldrum, more creative, and one where you have more control over your own destiny and that of your organization. And more pay and job opportunities too. Yes, NRE is already an actual job title.

With retitling comes reform. You used to rely on vendors for all network engineering, but this relegated operations people to technicians instead of technologists. As an NRE, you don’t need to hop over the proverbial dev-ops wall, to engineer boxes and SDN systems. You just need to lower the wall and pick up where vendors leave off. Their day of product delivery to market and to you, is your day zero where you automate, not only integration workflows, but outcomes like accuracy, reliability, scale, efficiency and ops speed.

2. It’s all about automation and technology

Rod Michael said, “If you automate a mess, you get an automated mess.” Automation must follow architecture and accuracy.

It’s common for builders to want to build, but you cannot be so swift as to forget the blueprints. There’s a balance to strike between build and design. To be sure, a DevOps mindset promotes build iteration, as did Mark Twain when he said, “Progressive improvement beats delayed perfection.”

Of course it’s not all planning processes or forging culture, but technocrats tend to obsess over technology too much. Network reliability engineering and DevNetOps is not only about technology, just as racing is not only about cars.

3. It’s only about open source

I’m a proponent of open source and believe it aligns with human nature. From GitHub to the growth of the CNCF and so many other projects, the open-source watershed has hit.

However, especially in networking, there is plenty of closed source. Fortunately, open APIs make integration and automation possible even for closed systems. Today, open APIs are increasingly commonplace because they’re not a nicety—they’re a necessity.

Moreover, the as-code, gitOps, and CI/CD movements shine the automation spotlight onto pre-production pipelines and processes. These trends are supported by and apply equally to open- and closed-source software, so don’t let closed source deter your DevNetOps desires.

4. It’s incompatible with ITIL, InfoSec, I&O or hardware

You might believe there’s no need for infrastructure rapid iteration, agility and experimentation. But just because you don’t need all the benefits of a DevOps culture, doesn’t mean you don’t need any.

You may also deceive yourself, thinking networking is different. But just because network hardware is more foundational than application software and less flexible today, doesn’t make DevNetOps ideas impossible. It’s precisely because networking is foundational that having it automated is crucial and will add simplicity and flexibility.

First of all, there is a large software side to networking—SDN, NFV and network management—where we can more easily apply DevNetOps behaviors. Translating some behaviors like CI/CD and chaos engineering to network devices, however, isn't straightforward. In a past article on TheNewStack, I examined the difficulties aligning Agile to today’s architectures in network operating systems, boxes and topologies. In re-architecting networking for DevNetOps, we ought to draw inspiration from microservices—a catalyst for the traditional DevOps transformation—because smaller architectural units allow for smaller, safer, and speedier steps of change.

Finally, many DevOps practitioners have overcome organizational policy “barriers” like ITIL and InfoSec. As well established in the DevOps handbook, success lies not in rallying anarchy; rather the DevOps principles automate in security, compliance and consistency.

5. It’s not obvious where to start

The territory is now increasingly marked with maps: training and didactic case studies. But don't mistake studying for starting. Complement your wonder with some wander. Try playing with git. Sharpen up your programming fingers. Give that tool a whirl.

There are many paths to success. Even if your journey is serpentine, even if you lose true north, you may pick up useful tools and lessons in unexpected places.

Like building any new habit, it’s useful to have a buddy, or better yet a two-pizza team. You'll progress quickest in green fields. Choose a team project with no technical debt when you’re just starting out and take small wins and small risks. When you allow for failure and iteration, you record lessons into processes and automated systems, and you grow people.

The easiest place to start is at the beginning of the project stream, where it is small, not down in the ocean. Start at day-0 and flow from pre-production to production. Build as simple an automated pipeline as possible to integrate artifacts, secrets and configuration as code. As you mature, expand the middle: pipeline orchestration, building, testing, integration, more testing, immutable deliveries, and finally orchestrated deployments into staging and then production. Eventually beyond network and SDN automated deployments, you will have other in-production automation extensions for systems integration and event handling that can follow the same pipeline.

6. It’s all about speed

I wanna go fast! - Ricky Bobby

Keeping up with the pace of technology is ever harder. And so goes the saying, “the future belongs to the fast.” But when it comes to automation, the NRE title tells us something very important: we must focus on reliability.

Speed alone will never win a race, and speed without reliability is a glorious way to crash and burn, just ask rocket scientists. If you were a racecar driver—one smarter than Ricky Bobby—you would say that to finish first, you must first finish.

A twin burden today, equally as confronting as the need for speed, is complexity. You know if Dijkstra, a networking hero for his SPF algorithm, were alive today, he would be a champion of network reliability engineering simplicity (a coincidental portmanteau-ing of NRE and the Juniper anthem) because of his famous quote, “Simplicity is prerequisite to reliability.”

In summary, we need speed, and we need smart. We must be consistent with simplicity, effectiveness, efficiency and reliability (...smart) while employing the economies of velocity, agility, scale and reach (...speed). We all love going fast, but it's not how fast you drive, it's how you drive fast.

7. It’s all about DevNetOps & NRE

The hype of DevOps and SRE is probably warranted if you seriously put it to work. I believe the same is true for DevNetOps and NRE.

However, these are just signposts. Like the Buddhist lesson that the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon itself. If you miss the moon for the finger, you’ve missed the glory.

The real truth in technology is that transformation is the only timeless topic. Digital transformation has been around for three decades, and the digital intelligence transformation is on its way next.

To manage transformation: in technology, equip for an evolvable architecture; in process, incorporate continuous improvement; and in people, embrace continuous learning.

I’ll leave you with a final quote, I often use when speaking on these topics.

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. - Charles Darwin

Waving the NRE Flag, Live at Open Networking Summit

Next Wednesday at 11:15, Matt Oswalt and I will be speaking on NRE and DevNetOps at the Open Networking Summit. We’ll be joined by Doug Lardo from Riot Games who will share lessons from the front lines. If you happen to be there, please join us. If not, take to Twitter (jk, mo) or comment below on how you see the evolution of the #NRE.

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#SimpleAF Networking in 2018

Last week at its flagship customer event, NXTWORK, Juniper Networks set a valiant vision for its role in the future of networking: “Engineering. Simplicity.” Next week as we take respite from engineering and set some 2018 goals, simplicity sounds good. Here are some of my ideas inspired by engineering for simplicity and Juniper’s new #simpleAF tag. Simple as fishsticks…of course.

Da Vinci called simplicity: ultimate sophistication. It would come more easily to those solving more primitive challenges, but maybe you, like Juniper, audaciously tackle cloud-grade problems, and in such domains and at such scale, simplicity is anything but simple to achieve.

The thing about creating #simpleAF simplicity is that it’s not just about tools or products. If you’re a  network operator, another tool won’t make a revolutionary nor lasting impact toward simplifying your life any more than the momentary joy of a holiday gift. Big impacts and life changes start inside out. They don’t happen have-do-be, rather they are be-do-have. Juniper is doing its own work to put simplicity at its company’s core being, but this article, besides some gratuitous predictions, is about transforming your network operations, putting simplicity at your core for a happier prosperous 2018.

Be… the NetOps Change

To be the engineer of network simplicity, it’s time to lose the title of network admin, operator or architect and embrace a new identity as a:

Network Reliability Engineer

Just like sysadmins have graduated from technicians to technologists as SREs, the NRE title is a declaration of a new culture and serves as the zenith for all that we do and have as engineers of network invincibility. And where could invincibility be more important than at the base of the infrastructure that connects everything.

Start with this bold title, and fake it until you make it who you truly are.

Do… It Like They Do on the DevOps Channel

Just like SREs describe their practices as DevOps, network reliability engineering embraces DevNetOps.

While Dev and (app) Ops are working closely together atop cloud-native infrastructures like Kubernetes, the cluster SRE is the crucial ops role that creates operational simplicity by design of separation of concerns. Similarly, the NRE can design simplicity by offering up an API contract to the network for its consumers—probably the IaaS and cluster SREs in fact.

The lesson here is that boundaries are healthy. Separate concerns by APIs and SLA contracts to deliver simplicity to yourself as well as up the chain, whether that is to another overlay network or another kind of orchestration system.

It’s important that your foundational network layers achieve simplicity and elegance too. Trying to put an abstraction layer around and over top of a hot mess is a gift to no one, least of all yourself if it’s your mess.

So how do we clean up the painful mess that is the job of operating networks today? I’ve examined borrowing the good habits of SREs and DevOps pros before, in the shape of DevNetOps blogs and slideshares. Here is a quick recap of good behaviors to move you from the naughty to the nice list, along with my predictions for 2018.

1.     Start with Networks as Code
Prediction: When people say the network CLI is  dead, they jump straight to thinking about GUIs. Well for provisioning changes, you ought to start thinking about Eclipse Che or an IDE instead of product GUIs, and start thinking about GUIs more for observability and management by metrics. Networks as code start with good coding logistics. This coming year, I think we’ll see DevNetOpserati practice this simple truth and realize the harder one that networks as code is better on top of automated networking systems themselves. In other words, networking and config as code belong on top of SDN “intent-driven” systems, not box-by-box configurations in your github repo; nevertheless, that may be a good step depending on where you’re at in your journey.

2.     Orchestrate Your Timeline as a Pipeline
Prediction: It follows from coding habits that you follow a review and testing process for continuous integration (CI). While vendors dabble in testing automation services and simulation tools, I predict that we will see more of a focus on these in 2018 and opinionated tools that orchestrate the process workflow of CI and eventually continuous delivery/deployment (CD). This is whitespace for vendor offerings right now, and the task is ripe for truly upleveling operator simplicity with process innovation. While the industry talks about automation systems like event-driven infrastructure (EDI) and continuous response, mature DevOps tooling is ready and waiting for DevNetOps CI process pipeline automation. Furthermore, it’s more accessible in terms of codifying or programming with a higher reliability ROI.

3.     Micro and Immutable Architecture
Prediction: 2017 was the year everyone went koo koo for Kubernetes and containers. It has mainstream adoption for many kinds of applications, but networking systems from OSs to SDNs to VNFs are all lagging on the curve of refactoring into containers. I’ve reported on how finer-grained architectures are the most felicitous for DevOps, DevNetOps, and the software and hardware transformation that networking needs in order to achieve the agility of CD. We must properly architect before we automate. We’ve started to see containers hit some SDN systems in 2017, but I predict 2018 will be the year we start to see VNF waypoints as containers with multi-interface support in CNI and a maturation of higher-order networking in the ruling orchestrator, Kubernetes.

4.     Orchestrated CD from Your Pipeline
Prediction: I’m doubtful that we’ll hit this mark in 2018 in the area of DevNetOps, mostly because of some of the above prerequisites. On the flip side, it’s obvious that in 2018 we are going to see the network play a big role in micro- services CD thanks to the rise of service meshes that do a much better job of canary and blue-green deployments. CD for actual networking systems is likely experimental in 2018 or bleeding edge for some SDN systems.
 

5.     Resiliency Design and Drills
Prediction: This is the fun practice of chaos engineering, designing and automating around failures to stave off black-swan catastrophes. This design is already showing up in preference for more smaller boxes instead of fewer larger boxes. Most enterprises are also getting around to SD-WAN to use simultaneous hybrid WAN connectivity options. There is more to do here in terms of tooling and testing drills in CI pipelines, as well as embracing the “sadistic” side of the NRE culture that kills things for fun to measure and plan for invincibility or automatic recovery. In 2018, I think this will continue to focus on evolving availability designs until we make more progress in areas 2 and 3 above.
 

6.     Continuous Measurement
Prediction: The SRE and NRE culture is one of management by metrics; thus, analytics are imperative. There is always progress happening in the area of telemetry and analytics, and I know at Juniper we continue to push forward OpenNTI, JTI and AppFormix. 2018 beckons with the opportunity to do more with collection systems like Prometheus and AppFormix, employing narrow-AI deep learning for the first time to raise new insights beyond normal human observation.

7.     Continuous Response
Prediction: With the 2017 rage around intent-based or -driven networking, there is sure to be progress in 2018. While the past few years have focused on EDI, I think the most useful EDI actions are largely poised to get subsumed into SDN systems with controllers in them, similar to how Kubernetes’ controllers implement the continuous observation and correction to the declared state. There is however a tribe of NREs that look to automate across networking systems and other IT systems like incident management, ticketing and ChatOps tools. As I wrote about in May, I think the maturing serverless or FaaS space will eventually win as the right platform for these custom EDI actions.

Have… a Happier Holiday

As an NRE, it’s not just about doing DevNetOps behaviors or processes nor is it about having the greatest tools or code. When you’re network reliability engineering for simplicity, it’s equally about what’s really important when you take the NRE cape off and go home: not getting called in and enjoying a happier holiday. And so, simplicity is what I wish for you this holiday season, and for the next one, may you be further down the road of engineering simplicity.

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