Network Automation and NetDevOps at CACI
.png)
Network Automation and NetDevOps: What do they mean?
High-performing networks are now vital for business operations, as digital transformation becomes a reality for most enterprises. This shift is due to the increase in remote working, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and improved collaboration through the integration of DevOps culture.
Put simply, IT and network engineering departments face challenges in adapting legacy network deployment, troubleshooting, and management practices which no longer align with the modern networking landscape.
NetDevOps builds on the automation aspect of Network Automation. NetDevOps aligns development and operations together as is done in Software Development and applies it to networks. This enables automation within a network engineering department to happen faster, through cultural reinforcement and moving the network towards an “as a service” offering. This aligns deployment, change and provision of the network towards platform engineering and self-service approaches as seen elsewhere in IT Service Management (ITSM) and software development.
Service overview
- Our Network Automation service revolutionises your network infrastructure by leveraging advance technologies.
- From Configuration Management to Network Monitoring and troubleshooting, we streamline your operations, improve efficiency and maximise your network performance.
- Embracing the power of automation will lead to a robust and agile network infrastructure for your organisation.
Benefits of our service
- Eliminate manual network provisioning and network troubleshooting tasks.
- Codify understanding of the network topology in a structured data format.
- Integrate network provisioning workflows into IT Service Management (ITSM) tooling.
- Expedite network troubleshooting through assisted alarm and event correlation.
- Reduce risk of network deployment mistakes and rework.
- Minimise cost through modularisation of network configuration approach.
- Increase ROI through reuse of codified "Network Functions as Code".
NetDevOps Features
Network Automation requires multiple complex frameworks to progress. CACI is regularly updating specific requirements and our expertise shows these to be universally required for effective NetDevOps:
Capability |
Example Tools/Framework |
| Network Source of Truth | NetBox, Infoblox, Nautobot |
| CI/CD Pipeline | Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins CI, Bitbucket Pipelines |
| Version Control | Git, Atlassian Bitbucket, Atlassian Bamboo |
| Operational State Verification | Cisco NSO, IP Fabric, Batfish, SuzieQ, Nornir |
| Self-Documenting Code | Infrastructure as Code (IaC), YAML, YANG, JSON, Python |
| Network coding | Python, Golang (Go), Microsoft PowerShell, Bash, Cisco TCL, Netmiko, Nornir |
| Infrastructure Provision | HashiCorp Terraform, Red Hat Ansible |
| Configuration Templating | Jinja2, Markdown, Mako, HashiCorp HCL, YAML |
| Observability | Azure Monitor, Grafana, Prometheus, Cisco Prime, Infrastructure, SolarWinds NPM |
| Vendor Application Programming Interface | Cisco Firepower REST API, F5 AS3 Toolchain, F5 Declarative Onboarding, Fortinet FortiOS REST API, Azure Firewall |
Getting you to NetDevOps
CACI understand the technologies and tools required to get you to NetDevOps, as well as the wider IT services picture behind this, of cultural transformation and the people engagement required to make the change effective. Our 20 year track record of being trusted partners of the UK’s most successful companies and various Government entities, in Finance, Telecoms, Media and Utilities as well as Government organisations, act as testament to our effectiveness. We are vendor-neutral and entrusted with working across areas of IP networking through to data centre interconnect, DevOps engineering, ITSM optimisation and delivery assurance, as we provide these services and more, with operational confidentiality across our partnerships.
We understand the natural pull that can occur between the often-competing tribes of network, development and operations in getting on the same page towards aspects such as Infrastructure as code (IaC); CI/CD (Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery) and Network Coding as opposed to pure network engineering. The unique intersection of these is NetDevOps – the sweet spot where “the network” becomes part of “the platform” and provides real transformative value to your IT services and application portfolio and unblocks the network engineering silo as being a blocker to your accelerated application delivery in fully exploiting your network assets to best advantage of your business context.
Trending e-book
Compliance with DORA and NIS2: Essential steps for UK financial companies
Our latest whitepaper provides an in-depth analysis of the new financial regulations, DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) and NIS2 (Network Information and Security Directive 2).
Talk to our Network Automation experts
We act as a trusted advisor to help your organisations to drive better experiences for your people and customers by enabling more effective use of technology and business processes. Our in-house experts have architected, designed, built and automated some of the UK's largest Enterprise Networks and Data Centres.
CACI: ✔ Networked it, ✔ Designed it, ✔ Automated it
By focusing on your outcomes first, we can understand the challenges in your way and recommend the changes in process, design or technology that will remove your obstacles and enable you to reach your strategic goals.
We are trusted by the UK’s most successful companies in financial services, telecommunications, utilities and the government to work closely with their systems thanks to our strict confidentiality and high standards of work. We work with our partners to maximise the value of their technology investments by delivering on time and within budget to meet their desired outcomes.