This chapter introduces the concept of network automation and familiarizes you with the keywords that are part of the automation framework. Before we dive into the details of network automation, it is important to understand why we need network automation and what we can achieve if we embrace the automation concepts and framework. This chapter also provides an insight into the traditional model of engineer and support operations, and shows how network automation can help bridge that gap for better efficiency and reliability.

Some of the topics covered in this chapter are as follows:

• What is network automation?
• DevOps
• Software-defined networking
• Basics of OpenFlow
• Basic programming concepts
• Programming language choices for automation
• Introduction to REST framework