25
June 2020
Imagine If ... Network Operations Automation Was Easy
Mark Warren
NetOps Needs Automation
If you're a Network Operations expert, you may have to be continually adding new devices, updating firmware or tweaking configurations to keep the business working and secure. Of course, just to make it even more "fun" every vendor, and even every device, has its own admin interface and tools for management.
Many of the jobs are relatively straight-forward, but still need an expert to perform. Imagine how much time you could save if you could easily automate updates so that you could focus on more strategic projects.
Until now, there hasn't really been a simple automation environment that allows for common operations to be safely and securely delegated to less expert staff.
Updating a Network Switch Configuration
Here's an example.
To improve traffic management, a request has been raised to reduce the speed on a specific interface in a Cisco switch. Of course, this could have been a device from any vendor not just Cisco. That needs a lot of experience and information regarding the device. The admin needs to know the name of the device, its admin username and password (and how are those valuable credentials secured?), and the management interface on the device. That latter part means that a Cisco engineer might be needed for Cisco devices while a Palo Alto expert is need for those devices.
Of course, these admins are very busy and it doesn't look like this is a particularly urgent change so it may get put in their "to do" list and it could be days or weeks before the change is made. If a change has to be made multiple different devices, it could be days or weeks before a change has been fully deployed.
That's not good enough.
PPA to the Rescue!
There is a better way with Osirium Privileged Process Automation (PPA).
With PPA, the Cisco admin, or even the help desk agent, can quickly make the change without having to know the connection credentials, without directly connecting to the device or no way to do anything they shouldn't.
You can see it in action in the video above.
If you can automate a complex task like changing switch interface parameters, what else could you automate? PPA is as powerful as your imagination.
What could you do with the time saved with PPA?
if you'd like to learn more, please visit https://osirium.com/ppa.