Reference no: EM133876653
Network Automation
Assignment - report, with individual demonstration.
Assessment - Network Automation - Configuration Management
Purpose of the assessment - Comprehend network automation framework and leverage its advanced capabilities;
Apply encryption to network content and decrypt data at runtime environment;
Analyse the advanced features and capabilities required to tackle complex automation challenges;
Apply workflows, use cases, troubleshooting, and automation extensions;
Examine and debug automation operations and resolve issues.
Assignment Task and Description
You have a startup which provides infrastructure solutions to its customers. As applications and workloads grow, shrink, and shift based on client demands, the network team must also make frequent changes to the VLAN, router, firewall configuration on their network devices to match the new application environment. These network changes are done manually and delays the entire process, from days to weeks, and ultimately impact a customer's ability to use the application.
You have tasked yourself to demonstrate a Proof of Concept (PoC) to automate the network configurations using Ansible. You are required to demonstrate that time taken to change network configurations such as VLANs, Router configurations, Firewall rules etc. reduces significantly and takes much lesser time than the manual configuration.
Your task in this project is to demonstrate that network automation can improve performance and resilience over manual intervention. You have assumed a network topology which mimics a typical data centre components and you want to create automation setup for that topology.
NOTE:
Each group must have different topology to demonstrate. It must map to the real world scenarios. Please consult your tutor about the topology.
Share your topology on the Moodle Discussion Forum so that no other group copies the same.
If two groups have same topology, then both the groups may attract penalty.
Network Automation Tasks:
Identify a topology. You can use given topology as a guideline or choose any topology of your own which has all the features of a data centre. Your topology must include a real (physical/virtual) node outside GNS3 (if you are using GNS3 as the platform!) and configured using network automation tool(s). The minimum set for automation should at least include VLANs, Interface configuration, and Routing Protocols.
Simulate the topology in GNS3 or you can also create virtual network in your laptops using virtual routers provided by Cisco and Juniper. If your topology contains a mix of devices from different vendors, it will fetch bonus marks !
Prepare a report (one report per group) to be submitted on Moodle on or before the due date. This report should be well formatted with proper cover page, Table of Contents, Abstract, Methodology, Results, Citations and references. The report should also include your observations, performance comparison results, work history and recommendations about the network automation etc.
The report should also contain
The link to your Git repository. Also upload your zipped Git Repository on Moodle.
Complete steps how to setup the environment, clone your automation project locally and execute the automation. It would consist of following but not limited to:
The network setup details with proper versions of the products being used.
Installation and configuration details of all the devices.
Table of devices, with MAC addresses, allocated IP addresses, interfaces etc.
Pre-configuration steps to automation if any.
Work History (from Git) in the Results section.
Choose the matrix of comparison to provide the relative improvement of network automation over manual configuration (e.g. time for initial configuration, time for updates, time in deprovisioning the setup etc.). Obtain the comparison of these matrix in your network setup with and without automation and include that in your report in the form of a table.
Contributions by each member of the group in the Appendix of the report.
Use your configured system to create a video for automation task and also demonstrate individually the implemented scenario during your week-11 and 12 labs. Individual understanding will be tested during your demonstration.
References
Must consider at least five current references. Must follow IEEE referencing style.