Ansible for Networks: Going Beyond Static Config Templates

Most publications and development on Ansible for Network Automation is focused on leveraging Ansible to install config files from a directory. What this doesn’t solve for is:

• Consistency
• Error Mitigation
• Agility and Efficiency
• Active Documentation

In this session we will show how to create playbooks and jinja templates that take a series of variables, which define a router’s configuration, and dynamically build the configuration files. Once built and assembled, the playbooks install the newly built configuration files. The playbook runs are idempotent, and help remove human error in template building, by using the logic written into the templates.

We will also cover Git workflow integration, additional use cases, and an introduction to CI/CD concepts for network automation.

In this session, you will learn:

• Defining network configurations with variables in Ansible
• Writing custom config templates to dynamically build vendor compliant configurations
• Potential use cases
• Git workflow and CI/CD for network automation concepts