[j-nsp] Automation - The Skinny (Was: Re: ACX5448 & ACX710)

[Robert Raszuk]

Hi Adam,

I would almost agree entirely with you except that there are two completely
different reasons for automation.

One as you described is related to service provisioning - here we have full
agreement.

The other one is actually of keeping your network running. Imagine router
maintaining entire control plane perfectly fine, imagine BFD working fine
to the box from peers but dropping between line cards via fabric from 20%
to 80% traffic. Unfortunately this is not a theory but real world :(

Without proper automation in place going way above basic IGP, BGP, LDP, BFD
etc ... you need a bit of clever automation to detect it and either alarm
noc or if they are really smart take such router out of the SPF network
wide. If not you sit and wait till pissed customers call - which is already
a failure.

Sure not everyone needs to be great coder ... but having network eng with
skills sufficient enough to understand code, ability to debug it or at min
design functional blocks of the automation routines are really must have
today.

And I am not even mentioning about all of the new OEM platforms with OS
coming from completely different part of the world :) That's when the real
fun starts and rubber hits the road when network eng can not run gdb on a
daily basis.

Cheers,
Robert.