NetDevOps Days

London

This one-day, vendor-neutral network automation event took place in June.

Where network professionals learn and share from each other openly and authentically engage around the full spectrum of technologies, best practices, and challenges in the network automation ecosystem without the bias of commercially minded events.

6/30/2023

London

8:00 – 19:00

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Event Information

Lessons from top Network Automation experts

Learn about the latest network automation technologies and trends.

Network with peers

This event will foster genuine conversation among practitioners. Hoodies, not suits!

Absolutely no selling

No vendor pitches, tables, or selling. This is a community-first event with a vendor neutral philosophy.

Net DevOps Days London Agenda

8:00am: Doors open!

Join us for coffee, tea and juices (bring your own breakfast).

9:00am sharp: Event kick-off

Event kick-off. Please be seated!

9:05am: Pete Crocker - Director of Product and Solution Architecture - IPFabric - Explaining the business value of network automation - Or why I succeeded the second time around!

09:05 – Pete Crocker – Director of Product and Solution Architecture – IPFabric – Explaining the business value of network automation – Or why I succeeded the second time around!

At a previous $dayjob I was brought on board a network engineering team to bring in some expertise in network automation. Along the way, I built a greenfield DC in the UK fully automated, just to watch manual config changes happen on day 2, and the code abandoned. I’ll discuss what I learned about making sure leaders are aligned on the business value of automation, and how I succeeded at the next major project, including why we chose Ansible and NetBox as the core of the solution.

9:45am: Steve Corp - Director - Evolvere - Network Automation in Financial Services

09:45 – Steve Corp – Director – Evolvere – Network Automation in Financial Services

Challenges and successes from recent customer engagements, common themes, some predictions for future directions.

10:25am: Break

10:45am: Dan Finneran - Principal Community Advocate - Isovalent - k8s and gateway API for managing on-prem and edge networks

10:45 – Dan Finneran – Principal Community Advocate – Isovalent – k8s and gateway API for managing on-prem and edge networks

A session around Kubernetes and Gateway API (Which is the evolution of Kubernetes networking) and how this is leading into new ways of automating on-prem and edge networks from the control plane to areas such as IPAM and routing.

11:25am: Jason Edelman - Founder and CTO - Network to Code - Transforming Enterprises and Careers with Network Automation

11:25 – Jason Edelman – Founder and CTO – Network to Code – Transforming Enterprises and Careers with Network Automation

Network Automation continues to grow at a rapid pace enabling transformation for both organizations and individuals. In this session, the goal is to share general approaches and techniques for network automation covering everything build vs. buy, the importance of data and Source of Truth, and how to think about teams and career growth preparing for a fully automated network.

12:05am: Lunch

Stretch your legs in the garden and some grab delicious food from Ottolenghi

13:30 - Chris Wade - Co-Founder and CTO - Itential - Evolving from Individual Automation to Team Automation

13:30 – Chris Wade – Co-Founder and CTO – Itential – Evolving from Individual Automation to Team Automation

Networking teams are identifying the benefits of working collectively on automation initiatives. In this session, we will discuss an automation maturity model focused on the data, processes, and benefits that incorporate IaC and platform engineering concepts into your network automation journey.

14:10 - Ian Chilton - DevOps Engineer - LONAP - Network automation in the real world: at an Internet Exchange Point

14:10 – Ian Chilton – DevOps Engineer – LONAP – Network automation in the real world: at an Internet Exchange Point

LONAP is a not-for-profit, neutral Internet Exchange Point established in 1997 and based in London. With around 250 members, over 350 connected ports across 8 points of presence and peaks of 1Tbps (or 130Mpps) of traffic. We operate with 4 full time staff so rely on automation to be able to grow in members, ports and traffic year on year, while reducing our pricing. This presentation will give an introduction to us, our network and our tooling.

14:50 - Rick Donato - Founder - PacketCoders - The Network Automation Cookup with Nornir, NAPALM and Pandas!

14:50 – Rick Donato – Founder – PacketCoders – The Network Automation Cookup with Nornir, NAPALM and Pandas!

Ever wanted to query your network, centrally, using simple queries, to find issues or learn whats going on in the network? In this session learn about how to cook up a network analysis stack using the open-source tools: Nornir, NAPALM and Pandas!

15:30 - Break

15:50 - Steinn Örvar Bjarnarson - Lead Product Development Engineer - Advania Ísland - Network Automation Big Picture Overview 2023

15:50 – Steinn Örvar Bjarnarson – Lead Product Development Engineer – Advania Ísland – Network Automation Big Picture Overview 2023

When you are an MSP/DC/ISP, all rolled into one; the network automation big picture is big!

This talk explores the world of network automation from a high level. We’ll look at Lego orchestration, compare imperative and declarative automation methods, and showcase how NetBox serves as our reliable Source of Truth (SoT).

16:30 - Miles Sutcliffe - NetSec and Platform Automation Team Lead - iSAM - From Network Zero to Automation Hero: A Journey in Network Automation

16:30 – Miles Sutcliffe – NetSec and Platform Automation Team Lead – iSAM – From Network Zero to Automation Hero: A Journey in Network Automation

In this presentation I’ll explore my transformative journey in network automation over the past three years. Starting with my departure from a company lacking interest in automation and my subsequent entry into a new role with a visionary boss. Initially plagued by self-doubt and imposter syndrome, my perseverance led me to significant achievements. We implemented NetBox to manage a network inherited from multiple MSPs, paving the way for subsequent automation projects including automating core network deployments using Arista Validated Designs (AVD) and a Django-based firewall management tool called “Forge.”

These tools allowed us to model firewall rules based on device grouping, streamlining configuration and deployment processes and empowering business units by creating a self-service application named “BUG” (Business Unit Generated Firewall Rules) which enabled developers to request firewall rules easily.This journey demonstrates the transformative power of network automation and how my journey can hopefully help others to overcome challenges and drive impactful change in their organization.