Build a Scalable Foundation for Network Automation with WWT and NetBox Labs

World Wide Technology builds the network automation it delivers to clients on the NetBox Labs platform and works with NetBox Labs as a design partner on new features. That work starts from a pattern most teams will recognize. The first automation script works. Then it meets the rest of the network, where device data lives in spreadsheets, hand-edited inventory files, and whatever the last engineer committed to Git, and every playbook carries its own idea of what the network looks like.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform can deploy and update a network, but it acts only on the intended state a team feeds it, and an inventory file cannot hold intended state for every device and interface. Without a network and infrastructure system of record that models that intent, each new use case means rebuilding the data it depends on, and the program stalls after the first few wins.

Bob Longmore, Principal Solutions Architect at WWT, and Nathan Chan, Partner Solutions Engineer at NetBox Labs, will discuss the automation framework WWT builds for clients, then run it end to end, modeling a network in the NetBox Labs platform and driving Day 2 changes through Ansible Automation Platform.

The session airs as a scheduled premiere, with Nathan in the chat throughout to answer questions live.

This session will cover:

• Why automation needs a network and infrastructure system of record. How modeled intent data in the NetBox Labs platform gives an automation framework the intended state it deploys and tests against, and the record it plans device lifecycles from.
• Modeling a network down to the component. Building each device in the NetBox Labs platform down to its individual components, so every playbook works from one intended state.
• Driving Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform from NetBox data. Using the system of record as the inventory for Ansible Automation Platform to automate an initial network deployment.
• Running Day 2 operations. Updating device data, staging changes, and tracking each change, so the system of record keeps matching the network after deployment.
• Extending the same foundation. How WWT builds on the same data for automated patching across hundreds of devices in one change window with pre- and post-upgrade validation, zero-touch provisioning for new sites, and AI-assisted operations.

Key Takeaways

• The three stages of WWT’s automation framework (model the data, automate against it, measure the results) and the role the system of record plays in each
• A reference workflow for making the NetBox Labs platform the system of record that drives Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, through initial deployment and Day 2 changes
• A pattern for keeping intended and deployed state in step as Day 2 changes land, so the next playbook starts from an accurate record
• A starting point for running the framework in WWT’s hands-on lab for data-driven automation with NetBox, before a full rollout

This session is for network and datacenter engineers, network automation engineers and architects, infrastructure architects, and the infrastructure leaders building an automation program, ready to move from individual scripts to a framework built on a network and infrastructure system of record. It applies to teams running NetBox Cloud or NetBox Enterprise and to teams evaluating either deployment option.