We’re pleased to share this guest blog post from our friends at Swisscom, showcasing the great work they’ve done to open source the new NetBox Operator for Kubernetes. This post was authored by Ashan Senevirathne, Alexander North, and Joel Studler from the Swisscom team.
We are excited to introduce the NetBox Operator, an open-source tool designed by the Swisscom team to integrate NetBox resource management directly into your Kubernetes environment.
Extending Kubernetes for Seamless Network Operations
In our continuous pursuit of enhancing operational efficiency and reliability, we have fully embraced the GitOps model, leveraging the strengths of Kubernetes to automate and streamline network services and infrastructure management.
Our NetBox Operator extends the Kubernetes API by allowing users to manage NetBox resources – such as IP addresses and prefixes – directly through Kubernetes. This integration brings Kubernetes-native features like reconciliation, ensuring that network configurations are maintained automatically, thereby improving both efficiency and reliability. This enables us to manage resources using high-level intents without relying on specific implementation details such as IP addresses, VLAN IDs, etc. A brief explanation of how the NetBox Operator works, including a demo can be found on YouTube.
Transforming the Industry Together
As Swisscom continues to lead the transformation from Telco to Techco, we recognize that the future of our industry hinges on collaboration. By open-sourcing the NetBox Operator, we are opening the doors to partnering with the wider IT industry and community on a key topic in Kubernetes-driven infrastructures.
This initiative invites the community to join us in advancing cloud native automation, fostering shared innovation, and contributing to a more efficient, reliable, and automated future.
We are excited to share more about our experiences and future plans at upcoming conferences ContainerDays (find us on Sept 3 at 14:25 CEST at Stage K1) and Open Source Summit (find us on Sept 17 at 14:00 CEST in Room 0.11-0.12), where we’ll be speaking about the NetBox Operator. We hope to see you there!
For more information and to try out the NetBox Operator yourself, visit the NetBox Operator repository on GitHub. Keep an eye out for a follow-up post with a deep-dive into using the NetBox Operator. Please join us on our journey!