If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll see that I’ve been posting about automation and Python quite a lot recently. The reason being that it’s not only fun, but I feel it’s the way of the future. But I digress… The reason for this post is to discuss my recent experience with NetApp’s APIs. As I got off to a pretty slow start (which I f...
In my Why Automate? post I discussed how important I feel automation skills will be for engineers in the near future. I even went as far as to say that those who don’t learn to use automation will one day be left behind. Not only do I still stand by that statement, but I’d like to extend it to cover coding as well for the exact same reasons as t...
Now that we’ve covered how TextFSM work and how it can be used to record useful information from device outputs, it’s time to move our focus on how we use TextFSM templates in Ansible. Using NTC-Ansible’s ntc_show_command module, we’re able to _“get structured data from devices that don’t have an API”. _As I’ve touched on in previous posts, it ...
As my collection of automation posts continues to grow, now is a good time to discuss why you should use automation. The two automation related comments/questions and responses which I’ve found most interesting to date are: Why should I use automation, aren’t I just going to automate myself out of a job? No! Automation helps you get things ...
Update: If you find this article useful, I suggest reading the Anatomy of an Ansible Playbook post as well. Recently I posted about how it can be easy to get lost in the sea of options when it comes to having Ansible control your network gear. The next challenge you may face is figuring out how to structure your playbooks. For example, you can...