NetOps is an approach to network operations that prioritizes agility and rapid deployments. The approach incorporates techniques such as automation, virtualization, and orchestration.
Today's digital enterprise must be more agile than ever to keep pace with customer expectations. Continuous network automation and validation are designed to simplify network operations to increase speed and efficiency, improve availability, and foster agility and innovation.
However, network troubleshooting still accounts for a significant amount of NetOps engineering time, and needs to be optimized with agile platform strategies.
To support this goal, DevOps has incorporated tools such as automation and orchestration to dramatically reduce response times and development cycles.
Historically, networks have been an obstacle to agile development, managed manually and in a reactive, unplanned way, with an emphasis on availability rather than performance.
With the rise of complex digital enterprises and the need for greater agility and faster content delivery, the network—and network management—must play a bigger role in the development process. NetOps teams need an integrated view of health and performance, as well as insights so they can take action faster.
NetOps brings DevOps concepts like automation, orchestration, and virtualization into network operations, allowing it to be part of the development process. A consistent view across infrastructure and applications data allows NetOps and DevOps teams to share a common view of the data.
In some cases, NetOps can be adopted through technology. For example, tools originally designed to help automate workflows, such as Ansible, Puppet, and Chef, have been upgraded to include network operations in their process. These tools allow DevOps teams to make configuration changes and update devices automatically.
However, NetOps is not simply deployed through technology. It's a mindset that may require cultural shifts to be fully embraced.
In the past, the missions of development and network teams often clashed, with developers prioritizing robust applications and rapid deployments, while network teams prioritized availability, reliability, and capacity.
NetOps, DevOps, and SecOps are all relatively new methodologies in three areas—networking, development, and security—involved in successful agile deployments. Ideally, NetOps, DevOps, and SecOps are interdependent and form parts of a collaborative process.
- Fundamental Step - Essential, Basic
- Step 0: Basic requirements - Essential, Basic
- [Linux (LPIC-1)]
- [Bash-Script]
- [Git]
- Step 1: IaC (Infrastructure as Code) - Basic
- Step 2: Configuration Managment - Basic
- Step 3: Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment - Basic
- Step 3.1: Python (optional) - Professional
- Step 4: Network Monitoring - Essential
- Step 6: Monitoring (Only for NetDevOps) - Professional
⭕️ I highly recommend you to study this article about NetOps’ Evolution Into the Cloud.
- Network Concepts
- Network+ CBTnuggets (English Language)
- Network+ (Persian Language)
- Linux (LPIC-1)
- LPIC-1 with Jadi (Persian Language)
- LPIC-1 CBTnuggets (English Language)
- Bash-Script
- Bash Script Tutorial (Sample Traning Code)
- Git
- Git Learning with Jadi (Persian Language)
- Git Learning with Mosh (English Language)
💡 By the end of this chapter, we will be capable of write some bash scripts and use Linux to automate some tasks and also we will be able to collaborate on github using Git.
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Hashicorp Terraform
- Terraform Tutorial (Sample Traning Code from non public cloud provider)
💡 We can provision our infrastructure with Terraform, consider this to be your End-to-End Solution.
- Ansible
- Ansible Tutorial (Sample Traning Code)
💡 A great and lovely tool to automate your daily tasks, Ansible is the most common automation tools for Network engineers.
- Jenkins
- Jenkins Tutorial (Sample Traning Code)
💡 The power of automating all your tasks from 0 to 100 gathers here!
💡 This step is optional, but it is highly recommended. you should know at least one high-level programming language like python. at this point should be also familiar with ansible to make your aytomation tasks even easier.
- Python Tutorial (English Language)
- Zabbix
- Zabbix Tutorial (Strongly Recommended)
- Solarwinds
- Solarwinds Tutorial (Optional)
💡 Monitoring your network is a critical point for your infrastructure. you should be familiar with at least one network monitoring tool like zabbix.
- Docker
- Docker Tutorial (English Language)
💡 As NetOps engineers we should know a containerization solution like docker, we need this to deploy our applications in micro service format. this will bring us better performance and easier management too.
💡 This step is mandatory for those who are in NetDevOps field. you must know how to minitor kubernetes for metrics and logs.
You may be more familiar with the term NetOps than NetDevOps, though they mean essentially the same thing. The NetOps methodology also applies DevOps principles to enterprise network management, such as collaboration and automation. The word NetOps de-emphasizes the software development (Dev) aspect of IT operations, but NetOps still involves abstracting networking functions as code with SDN and automation. For that reason, NetDevOps is becoming a more popular term for this methodology in modern IT environments.
- Prometheus
- Grafana
- Metric-Server
- EFK Stack
Network operations teams traditionally use performance monitoring tools to manage enterprise network performance. But as network usage and deployments have increased, many organizations are looking for alternative performance monitoring methods. As IT infrastructure grows more complex, NetOps teams should identify ways to ensure the network remains operational and performs at peak levels.
AIOps adoption may be the future of network health monitoring, according to West Gate Network's Froehlich. The expansion into public and private clouds and edge computing has increased overall networking complexity, which can create bottlenecks in terms of network analysis.
NetOps teams are realizing that the amount of collected network health and performance data will become so large it will overwhelm the teams' ability to keep up with it. Relying on AIOps tools that automatically analyze data and deliver fixes for network performance issues may provide a viable answer.
The evolution of NetOps is making it more critical for network professionals to possess basic automation and programming skills, as well as the soft skills needed to collaborate proactively with other teams and users. NetOps 2.0 will require a significant cultural shift, with enterprise networking teams learning to embrace change and manage risk rather than avoid it.
Congradulations, if you reached this part you are a professional NetOps Engineer. Dont forget to learn more and more.