Agenda

10:00 - 15:00 — Registration open; networking begins!

13:00 - 13:15 – Conference opening and introduction

13:15 - 13:45 – Day One Keynote: John Willis

13:45 - 14:30 – Mini-Track: The State of Network Automation
Moderator: Kirk Byers, Twin Bridges Technology
Speakers: Dawn Howell, Equinix, Inc.
Karl Newell, Internet2
Nick Thompson, World Wide Technology
Urs Baumann, Swisscom

14:30 - 15:00 – Applying Platform Engineering Principles to On-Premises Network Infrastructure
Speaker: Kaon Thana, The New York Times
Abstract: The challenges and solutions of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in the Classic Enterprise Network. As a small team of network engineers at the New York Times we manage many connectivity services such as a production data center, printing plant, corporate WAN, campus wired/wifi network and multi-cloud connectivity between AWS, GCP and Azure. In this talk I will discuss the challenges we faced over the last few years adopting automation practices in the brownfield and and the real-world solutions (with examples) we used to overcome the pitfalls.

15:00 - 15:30 – BREAK

15:30 - 16:15 – Mini-Track: Challenges to Network Automation Adoption
Moderator: Jeff Doyle, Juniper Networks
Speakers: Chris Cummings, ESnet
Dan Kelcher, IP Fabric
Jeff Kala, Network to Code

16:15 - 16:30 – Evolving the Network Automation Journey from Python to Platforms: Itential

16:30 - 17:00 – A Real-World Approach to Intent-based Networking and Service Orchestration
Speaker: Alex Ray, ESnet
Abstract: Network Orchestration is a defining factor in next generation networks, enabling operators to deliver more consistent and reliable services. Using the collaboratively developed Workflow Orchestrator and other commercial and open source tools, ESnet has been able to successfully Orchestrate and Automate network configuration deployment for large swaths of the ESnet6 network. This approach has enabled rapid deployment of new network services, as well as ensuring that configuration standards are well enforced when deploying network services. During this talk, we will provide a brief history of automation at ESnet, Introduce The Workflow Orchestrator, dive into what our goals were for orchestration and automation in the ESnet6 project, describe the technology and process that we used to meet those goals, and then provide a live demonstration of ESnet’s orchestration tooling in action. Finally, we will discuss the lessons we learned along the way while developing this tooling, providing time for Q&A.

17:00 - 19:00 – HAPPY HOUR (on-site)

07:00 - 11:00 – Registration and check-in open

07:00 - 09:00 – BREAKFAST (on-site)

09:00 - 09:15 – Conference opening and announcements

09:15 - 09:45 – Day Two Keynote: Kireeti Kompella

09:45 - 10:30 – Mini-Track: AI and ML in Network Operations Applications
Moderator: Scott Robohn, Network Automation Forum
Speakers: Dave Siegel, Selector
Igor Giangrossi, Nokia
Javier Antich, Anetta.ai

10:30 - 11:00 – BREAK

11:00 - 11:30 – Simplified Troubleshooting through API Scripting
Speaker: Cat Gurinsky
Abstract: How often do you find yourself doing the same set of commands when troubleshooting issues in your network? I am willing to bet the answer to this is quite often! Usually we have a list of our favorite commands that we will always use to quickly narrow down a specific problem type. Switch reloaded unexpectedly? "show reload cause" Fan failure? "show environment power" Fiber link reporting high errors or down on your monitoring system? "show interface counters errors", "show interface transceiver", "show interface Mac detail" Outputs like the above examples help you quickly pinpoint the source of your failures for remediation. SSH'ing into the boxes and running these commands by hand is time consuming, especially if you are for example a NOC dealing with numerous failures throughout the day. Most switch platforms have API's now and you can instead program against them to get these outputs in seconds. I will go over a variety of examples and creative ways to use these scripts for optimal use of your troubleshooting time and to get you away from continually doing these repetitive tasks by hand. NOTE: My tutorial examples will be using python and the Arista pyeapi module with Arista examples, but the concepts can easily be transferred to other platforms and languages.

11:30 - 12:00 – Automating a World-Class Technology Conference; Behind the Scenes of CiscoLive
Speaker: Jason Davis, Cisco Systems
Abstract: Since 1987 CiscoLive has been the premiere event for networking education, collaboration and fun. Las Vegas 2023 brought 19,600 attendees to the Mandalay Bay Conference Center and adjacent properties. To support that we have a few days to install and provision 2300 wireless access points, over 650 switches and a mobile data center. This session is a behind the scenes look at the automation and network monitoring done to support such a large event in such a short time-period. You'll hear about open source solutions like InfluxDB and Grafana. You'll also hear about the importance of standardized management interfaces like gRPC and NETCONF/YANG.

12:00 - 12:30 – Design Driven Network Assurance
Speaker: Jeremy Schulman, Major League Baseball
Abstract: In this talk Jeremy will present MLB's approach to network automation and Infrastructure as Code. This system is used to design, deploy, and validate complex multi-vendor networks, in the presence of on-going design changes. The "prime directive" focuses on validating the expected operational state. Jeremy will discuss the architectural elements and the benefits of this methodology. He will also offer a comparative analysis of traditional configuration-management IaC approaches.

12:30 - 14:00 – LUNCH (on-site)

14:00 - 14:45 – Mini-Track: Observability
Moderator: Richard Piasentin, Accedian is now part of Cisco
Speakers: Craig Johnson, Forward Networks
Josh Stephens, BackBox
Justin Ryburn, Kentik

14:45 - 15:15 – Zero to Automated in Under a Year
Speaker: Garrett Nowak, 11:11 Systems
Abstract: Leader behind the network automation in our company. I would love a chance to show off how we went from no network automation to majority network automation in under a year. Current network automation infrastructure hooks into Prometheus, Grafana, and Netbox to maintain our network infrastructure.

15:15 - 15:45 – Network Source of Truth and Infrastructure as Code revisited
Speaker: Damien Garros, OpsMill
Abstract: As an industry we made a lot of progress adopting Automation to manage Network infrastructure in the last few years however only a few organizations have been able to reach the expert level and most are still trying to break the glass ceiling that comes with the solutions available right now. In this talk, we'll explore the current challenges that most organizations are facing to reach the expert level in automation. In a second part, we'll explore a new approach to building an Automation Platform with at its core a new generation of Source of Truth that brings the best of Data Modelings and Version Control together.

15:45 - 16:15 – BREAK

16:15 - 17:00 – Mini-Track 5: Lessons from Public Cloud
Moderator: Chris Grundemann, Network Automation Forum
Speakers: Jeff Loughridge, Konekti Systems
Mark Ciecior, Carrier Access IT
William Collins, Alkira

17:00 - 18:00 – Mini-Track: How Can We Do Better?
Moderator: Anna Claiborne, Zayo
Speakers: Aaron Werley, Zayo
Graham Vaughn, PacketFabric
John Willis, Botchagalupe Technologies
Jeremy Schulman, Major League Baseball
Kireeti Kompella. Juniper Networks
Kirk Byers, Twin Bridges Technology
Levi Perigo, CU Boulder

18:00 - 19:30 – Working Session: Now What?
Group discussion, with key takeaways and next steps - homework for everyone!