IP Fabric and NetBox Labs Present at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live EMEA

NetBox Cloud as Part of a Modern Network Automation Architecture with NetBox Labs

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In this presentation, Rich Bibby, a technical advocate with NetBox Labs, introduces NetBox Cloud and discusses its importance in network automation architecture. NetBox Labs, founded in 2023 in New York, is the commercial steward of the open-source project NetBox and has developed NetBox Cloud, an enterprise-grade, software-as-a-service version of NetBox.

Rich explains that a network source of truth is a representation of the intended state of a network, including devices, configurations, connections, and services. This intended state is distinct from the actual operational state, which is reported by monitoring and assurance tools. NetBox serves as a structured and cohesive data model, which is essential for network automation at scale. It eliminates the need for spreadsheets and disparate data sources, providing a single source of truth and accelerating network automation through its REST API and GraphQL interface.

NetBox Cloud offers push-button lifecycle operations, automated backups, single sign-on, and simplified plugin management. It is designed to be secure and compliant, and it allows for easy upgrades and integration with other tools. Rich also briefly describes the customer journey from documenting networks to full automation and presents a modern network automation reference architecture with NetBox Cloud at its center. This architecture includes operations teams, automation tools, and observability tools that together maintain the feedback loop between intended and actual network states.

Throughout the presentation, Rich also demonstrates the NetBox UI, showing how users can view site details, rack elevations, device configurations, and connections. He clarifies that while NetBox does not actively poll devices for their state, it can integrate with plugins and tools like IP Fabric to reconcile intended and actual states. NetBox Cloud does not require direct connectivity to customer networks, as it primarily interacts with other management tools.

Rich concludes by addressing audience questions about compliance, data validation, integration with existing tools, and the process for updating the intended state in NetBox.

Personnel: Rich Bibby

Network Assurance in the Automation Ecosystem with IP Fabric

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Daren Fulwell, the Product Evangelist for IP Fabric, presented on how IP Fabric’s Automated Network Assurance Platform can transform network management. The platform is designed to proactively manage and measure networks, replacing manual documentation with interactive tools and providing an API for network intelligence. It works in conjunction with NetBox Cloud to enrich the automation ecosystem.

Fulwell discussed the challenges network operators face, such as dealing with complex, multi-vendor environments and the need for up-to-date documentation. He emphasized that traditional tools like SNMP monitoring and manual documentation are insufficient for modern network demands.

IP Fabric’s platform addresses these issues by collecting data on inventory, configuration, and state to provide a comprehensive understanding of the network. It then creates visual topologies and simulates traffic flows to understand network behavior. The platform uses snapshots to track changes over time and can flag issues for remediation based on predefined intent checks.

Fulwell also highlighted the importance of integrating IP Fabric’s API with other systems like monitoring platforms, ticketing systems, CMDBs, chatbots, and network automation tools to ensure up-to-date information and to validate changes in the network.

The presentation included a Q&A session where Fulwell answered questions about integrating network components, defining good and bad configurations, and potential impact analysis for network changes. He concluded by mentioning that while a complete digital twin of the network is difficult to achieve, IP Fabric provides the necessary oversight and intelligence to manage complex networks effectively.

Personnel: Daren Fulwell

IP Fabric and NetBox Cloud – Better Together Demo

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Alex Gittings, a solution architect at IP Fabric, presents a demonstration of a plugin that integrates IP Fabric with NetBox, a source of truth database for network automation. The plugin allows for the automatic synchronization of observed network state data into NetBox, which can be used to maintain an up-to-date source of truth for network automation purposes. This functionality is available for both the open-source and cloud-based versions of NetBox.

During the demo, Alex shows how a network discovered by IP Fabric can be imported into NetBox, including devices, interfaces, VLANs, VRFs, prefixes, and IP addresses. He explains that IP Fabric supports both cloud and on-premises versions of NetBox and demonstrates how to create an ingestion process to synchronize data from IP Fabric into NetBox. The plugin translates data from IP Fabric’s model to NetBox’s model using transform maps.

Alex also addresses questions regarding the plugin’s capabilities and limitations, such as its focus on the underlay network rather than the overlay, its ability to support various technologies, and how it can be used for compliance and change tracking. He explains that while IP Fabric captures snapshots of network state periodically, it does not support real-time monitoring, which means out-of-band changes may not be immediately reflected.

The demo concludes with a discussion on the potential for integration with other tools like Terraform and the challenges of maintaining a single source of truth for network state. Alex emphasizes the importance of aligning tooling with processes to ensure that the network source of truth remains accurate and effective for automation purposes.

Personnel: Alex Gittings