Travis CI as a cloud-based build server or Drone as a self-hosted build
server could be used to orchestrate the whole CI/CD pipeline.
Cisco CML/VIRL could be used to create a test network and verify the
impact of the configuration changes in the network.
Ansible could be used to automate the configuration of all the elements
in the network.CI/CD pipelines are used by more and more companies
to speed up and increase the reliability and accuracy of
their software development processes. Companies that
have adopted CI/CD pipelines as part of their
development processes release hundreds of software
features every week.
AUTOMATION TOOLS
It is common practice for network administrators to
perform configuration, monitoring, and maintenance
activities every day on all the devices in a network or at
least a subset of them. These changes were traditionally
deployed manually: The network administrator would
connect to each network device individually and perform
the changes. The changes could be anything, from adding
a new access VLAN throughout the network, to updating
entries in an access control list, to changing SNMP
communities’ names. Where there is a manual task that
is being performed, there is an opportunity to improve
the process by automating that task. Open-source tools
such as Ansible, Puppet, and Chef can dramatically
reduce the number of manual interactions with a
network. These tools enable automation at scale for
application deployment, infrastructure management,
and network configurations. The following sections
discuss each of them in turn.
Ansible
Ansible is a configuration management and
orchestration tool that can be used for a variety of
purposes. It can be used to configure and monitor
servers and network devices, install software, and