Networks are the backbone of an enterprise.
They provide connectivity and communication between computers within an organization and connections to outside networks and the internet. But as businesses scale, so do their infrastructure.
One of the most pressing challenges facing IT organizations today is their inability to scale and manage their ever-growing networking infrastructure. All too often, network complexity is a problem that leads to inefficiencies in IT management.
An increasingly complex network environment can slow down network engineers as they search for solutions to their daily problems. It can also make it difficult for projects to stay within budget and on time. There needs to be a balance so that processes can be streamlined and economic efficiency achieved while keeping the company agile.
This is where automation comes in.
Automation has proven to be a massive benefit when the IT network infrastructure is large, heterogeneous, and operating in complex environments. Network automation has brought in a new wave of transformation in networking. Network automation software helps to streamline and improve the efficiency of IT operations.
What is network automation?
Network automation is the practice of automating the planning, provisioning, testing, and optimization of networks and associated services. It's about managing complex tasks and allowing networks to run unattended after setting up initial configurations.
At their most basic level, network automation solutions replace human activities and procedures done at each stage of the network lifecycle with software products that can accomplish them consistently and reliably.
Enterprises and their channel partners are looking for better ways to automate network operations. A new wave of vendors are starting to develop and release network automation products.
At its core, network automation isn't new. The fundamentals: software jobs, scripts, and triggers have been around for several years.
Network automation is the next step in IT automation. With recent technological advancements, network automation has become a major driving factor for organizations looking to streamline their IT infrastructure.
The problem with manual network configuration and management is that it’s time-consuming, inefficient, and prone to human errors.
With manual network processes, service requests often need to be manually escalated across multiple teams, meaning they take longer to resolve. Backups are configured and verified by hand, which can never be an exact science with so many variables involved.
Configuration compliance auditing gets postponed until someone creates time for it or a network outage occurs as these checks are performed on-demand, not proactively. Network outages can cause huge disruptions in communication and complete loss of network resources.
50%
of network professionals prioritize network automation for addressing disruptions today.
Source: Cisco
Unlike traditional network management, which relies on human effort and isn't proactive in detecting problems, network automation allows businesses to create policies that automatically apply rules to support a service-level agreement (SLA) or prioritize business-critical applications.
For example, companies use network automation for event monitoring, automated configuration changes, and multiple notifications to keep IT staff aware of issues in real time.
Network automation allows network operations (NetOps) teams to configure, scale, protect, and integrate network infrastructure and application services. The network's software-defined nature delivers the agility needed for rolling out new services across the organization.
Why should businesses automate their networks?
Businesses must adjust to the new digital world and adopt agility, which development and operations (DevOps) teams have already done. Networks, on the other hand, have a reputation for being sluggish and unresponsive.
They are prone to delays because of their complicated, bulky design mixed with manual procedures. Installing configuration files might take days. Manually managed networks create a barrier in deploying changes when apps and updates are churned out at high speed, slowing down company operations as a whole.
Automating networks provide businesses with an infrastructure that's more fluid and responsive to changes, which helps DevOps projects significantly. It also improves network security by removing the vulnerabilities that arise with manual processing.
Did you know? Firewalls are a typical example of network automation; once configured, it automatically permits or blocks incoming or outgoing traffic based on irregularities.
All of these things are crucial in today’s competitive world. The earlier businesses learn how to automate their network, the faster they'll be on their way to managing dynamic network infrastructure.
From network configuration to provisioning and planning to troubleshooting, network automation has answered many questions for networking teams. Network automation software is aggressively transforming the way networks are managed.
What is network automation not about?
There has never been a better time to embrace network automation than right now. Across the globe, enterprises realize that manual tasks performed by network technicians and engineers, which were intended to save time and money over the years, have become bottlenecks with detrimental impacts on business productivity.
The growth of network devices and services is rapidly outpacing our ability to manage and monitor them. Network automation can mitigate the ongoing operational challenges of monitoring and configuring complex networks and speed up the process of the rollout of new infrastructure.
Network automation wears many hats. Before deciding on automating business networks, IT teams should clearly understand what network automation isn't.
- Network automation isn't only concerned with automating configuration updates for network devices. It's simply a tiny component of all lifecycle change procedures that must be considered for all types of network devices (both physical and virtual).
- Network automation isn't about software-defined networking (SDN). SDN is simply a new technology that at most covers a subset of automation. SDN is a software-defined approach to network management that allows for dynamic and efficient network configuration to increase network performance and surveillance. When applied to wide-area networks, the technology is known as SD-WAN.
- Network automation will not replace network engineers. This has been a source of concern for many engineers in the past. The demand will continue to exist as long as businesses want uninterrupted data services, particularly the need for trained engineers with automation experience.
- Network automation isn't about requiring new network hardware and solutions.
Want to learn more about Network Automation Tools? Explore Network Automation Tools products.
How to automate networks
Any type of network, be it on-premise or virtual network, can use automation via both hardware and software-based tools. A wide variety of tasks can be addressed in network automation. This encompasses anything from establishing security compliance, offering visibility into workflows to upgrading software, data analysis, device testing and configuration verification, network planning and design, and more.
Traditionally, networks were automated through the command-line interface (CLI) of devices (part of network device management). A CLI is a text-based interface that network teams use to manage and inspect device data and files manually. Network administrators widely use CLI commands with Linux servers for debugging procedures.
In the scripting method, the extent of automation is confined to a single device or module at most. This requires network engineers to have prior programming expertise. In conventional processes and procedures, command-line scripting works well, but it breaks apart when the infrastructure and operations are changed strategically.
It works as a deterrent to the adoption of newer network technologies since network engineers accustomed to making changes through the command line are unwilling to attempt anything new that doesn't allow command-line scripting.
53%
of professionals use open-source infrastructure automation software for network automation.
Source: Redhat
Newer automation techniques advocate using a graphical user interface (GUI)-based software, eliminating the necessity for coding while simultaneously making automation faster and more efficient. Automation relies mainly on network devices having application programming interfaces (APIs), which is one of the primary reasons outdated systems aren't suited for it.
Network automation frameworks are available in several open-source tools, such as Ansible, Chef, and Puppet. Typically, these tools provide a library of commonly used commands or workflows that teams can readily replicate throughout the organization. In a nutshell, every business network asset that IT teams manage through a CLI or an API can be automated.
Network automation systems can now perform a wide range of functions, including:
- Network planning and infrastructure design
- Network monitoring to ensure that SLAs are met and that users are satisfied
- Real-time data collection on devices, network topology, traffic, and services on the network
- Data analysis (particularly AI and machine learning predictive analytics) provides insight into the present and future network activity
- Software updates, including software rollbacks if necessary
- Establishing security compliance
- Reports, dashboards, alerts, and alarms to provide information
Types of network automation
All types of networks, including local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), cloud networks, data centers, and wireless networks, can be automated. Depending on the method used, there are two types of network automation.
Script-driven network automation
Script-driven network automation executes tasks using programming languages. Because of their popularity, legacy languages such as Perl and Tcl continue to be used in network automation.
However, as enterprise networks get more complicated, emerging open-source programming languages like Python and Ruby have gained appeal due to their simplicity and versatility.
For example, network automation and programmability abstraction layer with multivendor support (NAPALM) is a Python library that can interact with different network operating systems (such as Cisco IOS, Cisco IOS-XR) via an API.
Software-based network automation
Software-based network automation is managed via an interface, which removes the need to manually program instructions. These systems generally offer templates for generating and carrying out activities based on plain language guidelines. Modern automation platforms can analyze network resources during provisioning and ensure that a network can handle a configuration request before executing it.
Such tools help in reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) by improving infrastructure deployment, coding efficiency, access management, monitoring, troubleshooting, and more. For example, SolarWinds network automation manager is a network automation tool designed for enterprise networks.
Top network automation use cases
The efforts required to maintain and expand networks become progressively more difficult and time-consuming as they get more complex. It's essential to apply, migrate, and provide new network parts across physical and cloud networks efficiently and consistently. Network automation is critical to keep the rate of change constant and to assure compliance.
Here are some top use cases for network automation.
Provisioning
Making modifications to device configurations is referred to as device provisioning. This might be as simple as altering the IP address of a firewall's interface or adding config files to a freshly deployed WAN router.
However, when it comes to provisioning, the actual value of network automation is the ability to make the same modification to many devices at once. It's time-consuming, wasteful, and error-prone for humans to perform tiny network adjustments on device after device. The process is repetitive, and the possibility of dealing with many devices makes this a practical challenge for automation.
A network engineer can utilize custom Python scripts, Ansible playbooks, or a specialized automation tool for network provisioning. In any case, automating repetitive processes, keeping device inventory files up to date, and implementing a continuous delivery strategy will improve configuration management, consistency, and network performance.
Maintenance
Infrastructure maintenance activities such as secure socket layer (SSL) certificates, licensing, and end-of-life (EOL) maintenance are frequently ad hoc and manual. While they are not daily activities, they are frequently overlooked. It's simple to automate continuous maintenance operations, and it eliminates unexpected failures due to certification or license expiration.
Network automation tools help businesses to manage greater infrastructure with smaller budgets and decrease network downtime.
Orchestration
Data centers are an ecosystem of computing, storage, and networking hardware. Unfortunately, these aspects are frequently maintained as separate entities by various teams. This strategy has resulted in an inflexible infrastructure incapable of adapting to a constantly changing business environment.
Diverse parts of the data center must be handled collaboratively and across teams to build an agile data center architecture. Each element of the data center relies on orchestration for network automation. Orchestration is the ability to interact with multiple device types across numerous domains.
This implies that a modification on the network is also necessary if a component (such as a server or storage configuration) is updated. Network automation enables a faster response to dynamic IT environments.
Do you need network automation?
For many businesses, the requirement to automate network devices is more often based on reducing operating costs rather than a business objective. Any savings in operations can lead to a tremendous cost reduction for the business and free up valuable time and money.
However, every organization needs to ask what their most important requirements are, which ultimately dictates the solution they will deploy. While these technologies can be beneficial to organizations, they also come with hefty price tags and liabilities. Here are some factors to examine if you're thinking about adopting a network automation strategy.
Will it fit in with your business objectives?
IT teams in developing organizations are likely to be burdened with multiple conflicting goals. Tasks such as expanding the infrastructure or beefing up network security take precedence over network automation.
As a result, the first step must be to analyze the costs, advantages, and challenges of network automation with other business goals and assign a priority level.
How much time does the IT team spend on automatable tasks?
Another vital factor in determining if network automation is suitable for your organization is considering potential areas where automation might save your team resources. IT teams waste hours performing repetitive activities that are easily executable with automation.
Consult with your IT team about how they spend their time and what they could focus their attention on if they had more of it. This will give you an idea of how automation can benefit your business.
Can you scale network automation?
Because of the high rate of expansion in most organizations and the deployment of more complicated solutions, network automation has become a more important topic of managing such complex infrastructure.
Given that many organizations now operate from a central location and multiple remote locations, network infrastructure has scaled to use multi-cloud environments and requires robust security protocols. The need for an automated network that can both help your business scale and grow with it is critical.
How well do you understand the challenges?
Although network automation has the potential to benefit organizations, there are risks and challenges associated with it. The more complicated a system, the more expensive it is to create an automated solution. As a result, investing in a network automation product is likely to pay off in the long term, but it does need upfront expenses.
A poorly constructed automation strategy runs the risk of rapidly propagating a mistake. While individuals may only make one mistake, systemic errors will repeatedly occur until found and corrected. As a result, a network automation protocol – particularly one that'll have a substantial impact on the organization – should only be created by trained network engineers who understand the system's complexity.
Are you ready for network automation? While organizations cite network automation as a critical task, most businesses are in the early stages of automation maturity.
- 29% of businesses aren't automating at all.
- 25% of businesses are starting to automate networks using CLIs with basic scripting.
- 13% of businesses are using network automation only in test, development, or lab environments.
- 21% of businesses are using automation for some networks in the production environment.
- 12% of businesses are automating their networks in the production environment for the entire infrastructure.
Source: Juniper Networks
Network automation challenges
When people think of network automation, they tend to envision a fully automated zero-touch solution with no employee interactions and where routing tables, security policies, and more are completely configurable via some sort of APIs.
It's a great idea, but it's very complex to achieve.
Network automation, especially for large enterprises, is still a young and emerging field. Challenges abound, and managing today’s complex networks requires a diverse, modular approach. Here are some of the challenges encountered by network engineers when automating network services.
Loss of control
The notion that an automated network infrastructure would miss something is why network automation isn't widespread. Another fear among network engineers is that automation will displace human employment.
However, without automation, mistakes are more likely to occur. Automating network changes doesn't have to mean that human interaction is no longer needed. They're still required, and automation improves their efficiency.
Need for customization
End-to-end or zero-touch network automation doesn't exist. Teams must implement automation gradually in compliance with a company's objectives and operations. There will always be a need for network engineers to customize network automation strategies.
Complexity and steep learning curve
Enterprise network infrastructure becomes complex as it scales. The tools used to manage and optimize the networks are complex as well. All of this complication isolates data into discrete compartments. Breaking down these barriers might feel like a huge investment when it comes to network automation.
Network engineers didn't have to undertake any programming concepts for NetOps. Due to script-based network automation, programming knowledge has become a need for automation since the first step for the IT team is to define and standardize all of the individual tasks.
Furthermore, concerns like data models and standard base components were historically the domain of software developers and architects, but most network engineers' portfolios didn't include them.
Network automation benefits
Today’s computing environment is heterogeneous and highly distributed. Specifically, the amount of data flowing through the enterprise network fabric seems to have no boundaries. Adding to this complexity is an increased reliance on virtualization of computing resources. This creates multiple virtual machines per host and expands the number of remote database and storage resources providing network services.
There's a need for network automation solutions to overcome these challenges that allow enterprises to gain greater insight into their networks, automate routine tasks, and orchestrate events to control their networks and meet business objectives.
Here are some of the benefits of network automation.
Ease network management
One advantage of network automation is that network management becomes a more straightforward process. Handling networks manually depletes resources and is a time-intensive process. Network automation enables these procedures to be carried out on a more frequent basis, reducing the risk of network failure and downtime.
Furthermore, once the network is automated, settings will be deployed uniformly throughout the infrastructure with less effort. This makes scaling network infrastructure easier, faster, and simpler.
Reduced errors
Common network difficulties are handled spontaneously by using low-code and playbook-powered procedures. Automation service providers enable the infrastructure with efficient closed-loop, intent-based operations.
The chance of mistakes due to carelessness such as setup problems, typos, and other errors are reduced as the human component is limited from complicated network operations.
Reduced operational expenses
Reduced time, defects, and increased efficiency make the network faster and more agile, which benefits software development and deployment activities. Organizations can thus get more immediate outcomes at lower prices. Automation also reduces the resources dedicated to routine network activities and instead puts them to good use, resulting in additional cost savings.
Increased insights
Network automation allows businesses to perform a more comprehensive analysis of their network by utilizing data from various sources such as devices, configuration files, switches, and routers. This can lead to a more in-depth understanding of resource allocation, security, usage, and performance.
Top network automation tools
With the growth of network automation, there's a need for network automation tools. Network automation tools make it easy to manage large networks without much manual intervention by the administrator.
A solution must meet the following criteria to be considered for inclusion in the network automation category:
- Enable automation for device configurations and maintenance
- Reduce the possibility of human error
- Enhance compliance for a company's configuration requirements
*Below are the five leading network automation platforms based on G2 data collected on July 15, 2021. Some reviews may be edited for clarity.
1. BloxOne DDI
BloxOne DDI by Infoblox is a cloud-managed solution for centrally controlling and automating DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (DDI) in hybrid and multi-cloud networks. BloxOne DDI is accessible as a SaaS service and is built on the cloud-native BloxOne Platform.
It removes the complexity, bottlenecks, and scalability constraints of traditional DDI solutions and simplifies DDI control and administration at scale.
What users like:
"Bloxone DDI is one of the finest solutions available in the market, where you can contact the administrator in one place and be secure. I recommend using this DDI solution."
- BloxOne DDI Review, Sunil G.
What users dislike:
"Cost, I would say. This is the only thing I can think of when it comes to disliking."
- BloxOne DDI Review, Pravesh H.
2. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) is an easy-to-install and operate network automation tool. NCM enables users to make rapid and widespread configuration changes by utilizing network automation to make these changes in bulk.
NCM also allows customers to create and change templates and settings. SolarWinds is a leader in network management tools. Device settings can be backed up, maintained, and restored via the platform, allowing users to quickly return to a previous configuration if a defect arises or restore from a backup if there's a malfunction or error.
What users like:
"I enjoy the ease of use and setup for Network Configuration Manager (NCM). It integrates well into the SolarWinds Orion Platform. To set it up, monitor the device and add credentials for NCM.
It will take care of backing up configurations of your device. It will show you differences in configurations from day to day and the potential security issues with your setup, which is a huge time saver when it comes to researching CVEs and best practices."
- SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager Review, Kyle B.
What users dislike:
"SolarWinds is very Cisco focused. Being American, Cisco is a huge player, but it doesn't dominate HP, Netgear, Huawei, to name a few. What this means is that a lot of the very best features aren't always supported."
- SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager Review, Grant A.
3. SaltStack
SaltStack is event-driven automation software that assists IT companies in managing and securing cloud infrastructure on a large scale while also automating the effective orchestration of enterprise DevOps operations.
The tool uses the Salt Automation Engine to provide event-driven automation, multi-vendor support, cloud provisioning and control, remote execution and orchestration, and configuration management.
What users like:
"We have been using SaltStack, and it's working efficiently. It's very reliable in automating our digital data. It was tough for us to keep account of our digital data manually and to cross the information. Still, this tool has helped us in Infrastructure automation, by which we can control and optimize any cloud-native. I love to use all its features and functions. I appreciate its features which are being enhanced every day."
- SaltStack Review, Jenny M.
What users dislike:
"I feel like the platform is overgrowing and in so many directions that sometimes, at a glance, it's hard to grasp what all Salt can accomplish. This honestly isn't much about this platform that I dislike."
- SaltStack Review, Justin W.
4. Progress WhatsUp Gold
Progress WhatsUp Gold is a network automation tool to track, monitor, and troubleshoot your IT environment. Customizable dashboards make it simple to monitor the condition and performance of all devices, whether on-premise or in the cloud.
What users like:
"The support that you receive is A+. They show care in assisting and answering every question that a customer may have. Somebody addresses my issue every time quickly and respectively. A great feature is the maintenance mode that allows notes to be left. This is a great thing to prevent our NOC from reporting device issues for something that's already known and being addressed."
- Progress WhatsUp Gold Review, Ryan K.
What users dislike:
"The user interface can be a little bit cumbersome if you aren't used to where things are."
- Progress WhatsUp Gold Review, David B.
5. SolarWinds IP Address Manager
SolarWinds IP Address Manager is software designed to save time and prevent costly network errors. Automated IP address tracking and integrated DDI management help businesses eliminate IP address conflicts in their IT environments.
What users like:
"SolarWinds IP Address Manager isn't only scanning the equipment but also providing connections to the controlled information for our unit because of the inclusion with the SolarWinds suite. It provides some good ranges of scanning for verifying IP use.
Also, you can discover an accessible IP and use it via SW and log the IP address background. SolarWinds IP Address Manager also allows for integration with DHCP and offers support for DNS."
- SolarWinds IP Address Manager Review, Marina S.
What users dislike:
"Solarwinds is a costly tool that charges for every module and has multiple node levels. It seems like I have to move to the next level way too often."
- SolarWinds IP Address Manager Review, Hawkinson J.
To automation and beyond
An intelligent network automation strategy is essential for implementing newer network technologies such as SDN, which is critical in today's enterprise IT environment. Because the future is in the cloud, automation should include hybrid, multi-cloud settings, and traditional on-premise environments.
As businesses expand their networks and incorporate new technology, network risks grow as well. Platforms for network automation should automate and maintain networks safely by using simple vulnerability detection and mitigation approaches.
Want to monitor your IT infrastructure in real time? Network monitoring tools provide an easy way to manage and optimize your business networks.
Keerthi Rangan
Keerthi Rangan is a Senior SEO Specialist with a sharp focus on the IT management software market. Formerly a Content Marketing Specialist at G2, Keerthi crafts content that not only simplifies complex IT concepts but also guides organizations toward transformative software solutions. With a background in Python development, she brings a unique blend of technical expertise and strategic insight to her work. Her interests span network automation, blockchain, infrastructure as code (IaC), SaaS, and beyond—always exploring how technology reshapes businesses and how people work. Keerthi’s approach is thoughtful and driven by a quiet curiosity, always seeking the deeper connections between technology, strategy, and growth.
