The document provides an overview of Juniper's 5-step framework for automating network operations. The 5 steps include: 1) manual operations, 2) automated workflows, 3) automation, tests and networks as code, 4) continuous processes and pipeline, and 5) engineering outcomes. It describes each step in the framework and how organizations can transition from one step to the next on their journey to fully automated network operations.

1. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
JOURNEY TO
AUTOMATED NETOPS
5-Step Framework

2. © 2018 Juniper Networks
NETWORK AUTOMATION
AUTOMATED NETWORKS

3. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
CONSUMPTION IS THE CONTEMPORY CHALLENGE
of data center
NetOps are still
manual
82%
Mistakes of the past
• Forcing engineers’ rebirth as a
“developer”
• The “pornography of tech” has left behind
transformation of people & processes
Ironically…
humans are the heroes
in the journey to automated NetOps
BRIGHT SPOT:
NRE
Network reliability engineer(ing)

4. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
SPEED, AGILITY, EFFICIENCY &
OTHER SUCCESSES
ARE INCIDENTAL
FOR THE NRE THAT HOLDS
RELIABILITY
PREREQUISITE TO OTHER USEFUL
ECONOMIES

5. © 2018 Juniper Networks
FOR THE
NRE
OPERATIONS
SIMPLICITY
IS CREATED THROUGH
ENGINEERING

6. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
TWO SIDES TO AUTOMATED NETWORKS
DEV OPS
Automated NetOpsJuniper’s Goal Customer’s Goal
EVOLVING TOOLS &
ARCHITECTURE
• Quality products
• Autonomous (SDN)
• Abstraction (intent)
• Analytics
• APIs and tool integrations
EVOLVING OPS & NRE
• Codified workflows
• Infrastructure as code (GitOps)
• Automated building and testing (CI)
• Automated deployments (CD)
• Automated response (CR)
VENDOR CUSTOMER
Simpler and Automatable
(building the tools)
Engineering Reliable Services
(using the tools)

7. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
GENERAL 5-STEP
BACKGROUND

8. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
JUNIPER 5-STEP MODEL
Our general model for capabilities, transformation and a journey to multicloud IT
Your present does not determine where you can go, merely where you start
Device led
Business led
Operations led
Architecture led
Customer led
All steps include aspects of:
• People, learning and culture
• Process, improvement and behaviors
• Technology, products and architecture
Progress is not a straight line:
• Includes changes on the side of vendor and customer
• May skip ahead in some ways, while others need catch-up
• Contextualized steps may evolve over time

9. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
5-STEP VALUE
HOW IS THE 5-STEP USEFUL?
• Thought leadership:
• Making the map of the journey
• Clarity
• Build rapport with customer
• Agree on direction
MAP
• Conversation starter
• Let’s find your place on the map
• Consulting value:
• Service from a state audit
• SE, PS, or channel partner led
ORIENTATION
• Sales qualification
• Check need to move forward
• Sales proposal:
• To get from here to there, you
would need …
NEXT STEP

10. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
5-STEP FOR
AUTOMATION:
AUTOMATED NETOPS

11. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
Manual Ops
Continuous
processes,
continuous pipelineAutomation, tests
and networks as
codeAutomated
Workflows
Engineering
Outcomes
People:
Network
Reliability
Engineers
(NRE)
Process:
“DevNetOps”
And NRE’ing
Technology:
Autonomous and
automated NetOps
AUTOMATED NETOPS 5-STEP
DESTINATION

12. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
Manual Ops
• NetOps at the device
or system UI
• Engineers are more
technicians than
technologists
Continuous
processes,
continuous pipeline
• CI-CD-CR
• A “DevNetOps” pipeline
for accuracy and agility
• Fast feedback/fail,
small changes,
safe/canary
deployments
• Automate analytics
response for regulation
Automation, tests
and networks as
code
• Connect actions to
triggers and think test-
driven
• Rethink
troubleshooting as
testing
• Everything (even
configs) is code to be
tested
Automated
Workflows
• Automate the design of
ops: workflows
• Focus on frequent
troubleshooting or
read-only tasks before
config management
Engineering
Outcomes
• Management by
higher-order metrics
• NRE outcomes with
service-level
objectives, indicators
and agreements
(SLO/SLI/SLA)
• Use error budgets, toil
budgets
• Manage, don’t
maximize, reliability
• Manage dependencies,
separation of concerns
People:
Network
Reliability
Engineers
(NRE)
Process:
“DevNetOps”
And NRE’ing
Technology:
Autonomous and
automated NetOps
AUTOMATED NETOPS 5-STEP
DESTINATION

13. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
TRANSITION BY STEPS
Manual ops
Automated workflows
Automation, tests and
networks as code
Continuous processes
on a continuous pipeline
(CI/CD/CR)
Engineering Outcomes
(NRE)
Master architecture.
Document workflows.
Automate and aggregate
repetitive workflow actions,
especially troubleshooting
Trigger actions
automatically. Codify like a
developer. Think TDD and
proactive instead of reactive
troubleshooting
Automate build, testing,
deployment & response like
engineering teams. Move
quickly in small steps for
agility with accuracy. Use
machine insights in CR.
Engineering. Simplicity.
Network Reliability,
Business Agility,
Continuous Improvement,
Positive Outcomes

14. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
TECHNOLOGY LANDSCAPE*
+ STEP 2 + STEP 3 + STEP 4 + STEP 5STEP 1
Device CLI Product GUI
Workflow Docs
Workflow
pseudocode
Documents
Mistral
Products
Code
Markup/
Modeling
Chef
OpenConfig
NAPALM
Puppet
NETCONF
Heat
Ansible
Salt
Terraform
Helm
JET PyEZ
Junos
Scripting
git GitHub
Robot
Serverless
Prometheus
Graphana
Jenkins
Salt EDI
ELK / Elastic
ToDD
Batfish
GitLab
StackStorm
Splunk
InfluxDB
AppFormix
Events JTI, OpenNTI Ixia
Bamboo
Jenkins
Pipelines
Travis
Open AI
GitLab Runner
Tensor Flow
Spinnaker
Build Kite
theano
JLABS Cloud CCL NITA
VividCortex
Statistica
tableau
Chaos Monkey
Netsil
Spark
Istio
Catchpoint
NetBrain
MapR
Avalanche
HealthBot
{_();} </>
RFC
6241
Optimizely
It’s not what you use, it’s how you use it.
*Sample only, not exhaustive

15. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
Manual ops
1
STARTING
POINT
• NetOps at the device or
system UI
• Engineers are more
technicians than
technologists

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STEP 1 - MANUAL
Manual ops
• NetOps at the device or
system UI
• Engineers are more
technicians than
technologists
Uncreative, rote operations
Firefighting: troubleshooting
and toil most of the time
May make mistakes in
manual maintenance
Focus on learning how
networking and product
features work
PEOPLE
Ad hoc (tribal knowledge)
Reactive
Repetitive
All control is done through he
UI (CLI, GUI etc. from the
manual / product docs)
PROCESSES
A lot of touch points
Technical debt (change
becomes harder)
Alerts & incidents are noisy
and overwhelming
TECHNOLOGIES
Master networking basics. Simplify and generalize architectures.
Employ some abstractions like SDN and fabrics to make more time.
Document workflows to eliminate tribal knowledge and determine candidates to automate.
STEP UP

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Automated
workflows
2
STARTING
POINT
STEP UP
• Automate the design of
ops: workflows
• Focus on frequent
troubleshooting or read-
only tasks before config
management

18. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
STEP UP
STEP 2 - AUTOMATED WORKFLOWS
Automated workflows
• Automate the design of
ops: workflows
• Focus on frequent
troubleshooting or read-
only tasks before config
management
Creativity in applying
programming and new tooling
Focus on automating most
critical and frequent toil
May make mistakes in
automating task actions
Focus on learning how to
automate using tools and
APIs that work with
networking systems
PEOPLE
Well-understood workflows
Task may still be reactive, but
are aggregated with
constructed actions to run,
improving MTBF
Control is done through the UI
or the APIs by automation,
depending on the task
People trigger workflows
PROCESSES
Scripting and programming
Config mgmt & template tools
“Code” in JSON, YAML, etc.
Network systems’ APIs
Other IT systems’ APIs
Frameworks, kits, toolchains
TECHNOLOGIES
Understand programming, modeling, APIs and common tooling.
Focus on most reactive and troubleshooting workflows, especially those that are frequent.
Begin proactive thinking: how to eliminate mistakes and manual triggers with testing and sensors

19. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
Connect actions to triggers
and think in TDD terms
Rethink troubleshooting as
testing and provisioning +
actions as code to be tested
Automation, tests
& network as code
3
STARTING
POINT
STEP UP

20. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
STEP UP
STEP 3 - AUTOMATION, TESTS, NETWORK AS CODE
Automation, tests and
network as code
Connect actions to triggers
and think in TDD terms
Rethink troubleshooting as
testing and provisioning +
actions as code to be tested
Creativity rethinking reliability
and agility proactively
Focus on automating most
critical and frequent triggers
Focus on minimizing
mistakes with testing
Focus on learning do
contribute to a code base like
a developer
PEOPLE
Infrastructure as code: all
systems’ configuration and
automation artifacts as code
Configs and workflows are
reviewed, test-driven
developments (TDD)
Some actions are automated
by controllers (if this, then
that) that automate triggers
Manual deploys & upgrades
PROCESSES
gitOps tech: SCM, reviewing,
versioning
EDI tech sense trigger,
process, filter and action
Test framework tools
Test simulation tools
Logs, telemetry and analytics
as sensors for triggers
TECHNOLOGIES
Configuration is less drifting, maintained in one source of truth as code, and ready for immutable infra.
Proactive TDD over a rich set of runtime tools, and need for pre-production automation.
Begin continuous thinking: to automate testing, integration and deployment and response.

21. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
A
DevNetOps pipeline and
principles for agility, speed
Accuracy at speed, shorten
feedback, smaller changes,
automate safe deployments
CONTINUOUS
PROCESSES &
PIPELINE
4
STARTING
POINT
STEP UP

22. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
STEP UP
STEP 4 - CONTINUOUS PROCESSES & PIPELINE
Continuous processes
on a continuous pipeline
(CI/CD/CR)
DevNetOps pipeline and
principles for agility, speed
Accuracy at speed, shorten
feedback, smaller changes,
automate safe deployments
Continuously improving
reliability and agility
Continuous learning from
response
Lower deployment anxiety
with automated testing,
staging & small deployments
Focus on engineering pre-
production processes and
deployment
PEOPLE
Change UI is the commit and
deploy approval signal to
stage/prod
Pipeline contains judgement
logic, and is itself codified
Manual judgements on well-
informed metrics
Deployments are immutable,
UIs are not for making
runtime changes
PROCESSES
GitOps webhooks trigger
CICD pipeline
Pipeline orchestration tools
Staging tools and labs
Canary & traffic draining tools
ML and narrow-AI for
continuous response and
insights beyond telemetry
analytics
TECHNOLOGIES
Tests, builds, and deployments are nearly/fully automated.
Reliability & agility moves in small steps of change for speed, accuracy, verification and improvement
New focus on service levels and outcomes for the dependents of the network

23. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
Network reliability engineer
service-level outcomes
Plan error budgets and
objectives, use service-level
indicators, plan capacity
Engineering
outcomes (NRE)
5
STARTING
POINT
NRE

24. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
NRE
STEP 5 – ENGINEERING OUTCOMES
Engineering outcomes
(NRE)
Network reliability engineer
service-level outcomes
Plan error budgets and
objectives, use service-level
indicators, plan capacity
Thinking evolves service
levels: indicators (SLIs),
objectives (SLOs), contract
agreements (SLAs)
Planning reliability happens
with upward / downward
dependents / dependencies
Focus on engineering service
level indicators, data insights,
efficiency and planning
PEOPLE
Errors are budgeted with
“customers” of the network
Fearless retrospectives when
SLO/SLAs break, to automate
around the problem in future
Stress and boundary testing
Documented workflows are
what-if scenarios like black
swans, rather than normal
occurrences
PROCESSES
Testing from the “customer”
service-level perspectives
Big data, ML, AI platforms
Fault injection tools
Stress testing tools
Dashboard and statistical
analysis tools
TECHNOLOGIES
Data-driven culture, process and tools for observability at both low network levels and service levels
Triangulate and improve effectiveness over iteration and learning from forced and natural failures
Try to understand efficiency for planning purposes and customer satisfaction e.g. net promoter score

25. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
MAKING IT
ACTIONABLE

26. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
CONTEXTUALIZING AUTOMATION
Manual ops
Automated workflows
Automation, tests and
networks as code
Continuous processes
on a continuous pipeline
(CI/CD/CR)
Engineering Outcomes
(NRE)
IMAGINE A TRANSPARENCY OVERLAID ON TO ANOTHER 5-STEP
Example:
Overlay this 5-step onto the Data Center 5-step
AUTOMATION SOLUTIONS
• Automation solutions and NetOps is always dependent on the place in network (PIN) / network domain
• Ground conversations around culture (people), behaviors (process) and products (technologies) in a PIN

27. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
LEARNING STEP BY STEP
LEARNING
LABS
vLabs
OpenLab
NRE Labs
Cloud CCL
Juniper Cloud Labs
• JAUT training courses
• Automation & DevOps
• Paid training and certs
• NRE oriented
• Intro-level + JNCIA cert
(both new)
• Mid-level + JNCIS cert
(cert new)
• Advanced + JNCIP cert
(both new)
• Reference for APIs
• Catalog of apps /
samples / use cases
• Slack Community
• Learning section:
• Edu. services courses
and certification
• NRE Labs
• OpenLab
• vLabs
• Cloud CCL
• Built open source, by
and for network
engineers
https://labs.networkreliability.engineering
• Free lessons, each with
many quick ~2min labs
• In web browser, there’s
zero-barrier to entry
• Unbranded, Juniper
sponsored

28. © 2018 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
THANK YOU