NETWORK AUTOMATION
The core of what we do is Network Automation and NetDevOps aimed for Network Engineers, Consultants, and Businesses looking for adding network management and automation for their existing network environment. We have deployed several network automation solutions based on the environment, hardware (Cisco, Arista EOS, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet), and requirements to view specific operations, applying configuration, performing differential configuration backups, to other network automations to include the following:
- Configuration Management using Network Scripts, Frameworks, and/or Orchestration
- Firewall Automation using REST APIs
- Building Playbooks using Ansible
- CI/CD Pipelines and Build Servers
- Network Testing and Monitoring
- Web Scraping and Automation
- Day Zero Automation for Device Provisioning
- Custom Solutions and Automation Appliances
HELP DESK AUTOMATION
Besides networks, we also provide automation services for IT and help desk teams working with different cloud products that are typically used. Whether it is providing an automation process for adding a new employee or providing a custom web UI for managing cloud services based on the business. Below shows the list of cloud products we have worked and used to provide automation services based on what APIs are supported:
- Active Directory
- Office 365 and Azure AD
- Exchange Online Powershell
- DUO
- Dropbox Business
- AutoTask
- PassPortal
- Crashplan
CUSTOM SOLUTIONS & APPLIANCES
Lastly, we also provide custom solutions that provide automation. For example, we have built a custom Network Automation appliance utilizing a web frontend with a Python framework and a backend using a Mongo Database along with RQ for job FIFO queuing for all automation tasks. Many of these automation tasks, templates, and reports included in this custom solution involve:
- Automatic gathering of network device details (e.g. software version, hardware model, serial number)
- Recurring configuration backups for all network devices and continued backups if there are new changes detected. This includes showing those differences via email notification report, and/or log event
- Checking device availability, CPU, memory, to errors of the network devices using SNMPv3
- Running compliance checks (and building reports) of all network devices against a baseline configuration to ensure all network devices are configured based on bast practices, standards, and security requirements.
- Provide the ability to push configuration based on a prepared configuration or configuration templates that can be applied to a targeted group of network devices
- Other automated tasks such as performing password changes to gathering the list of interfaces on network devices, checking its status, and shutting down any unused ports among other requested tasks/operations
- Providing a custom task used to pre-build a provided configuration, calculating the MD5 hash used for Day Zero Automation deployments
You can get more details on the ‘Custom Network Automation Appliance’ tab such as viewing a sample video that will showcase this Automation Appliance and the type Network Automation and NetDevOps projects we have prepared for companies, engineers, and consultants.
Pricing
The pricing breakdown for our network automation services are simple. It is based on the block of hours that you purchase.
We would provide us your requirements along with your automation and development needs. Then we will provide you an estimated number of hours for the work.
Below is the pricing breakdown:
- 5 HOUR PACKAGE: $450
- 10 HOUR PACKAGE: $750
- 20 HOUR PACKAGE: $1,300
- 100 HOUR PACKAGE: $5,500
If you have any questions or want to get started fill out the following form with details of your automation request needs. We will answer your questions and explain the next steps involved for the automation services we provide:
Skills
The network automation services we provide will be based on our experience with the following APIs, frameworks, and technologies seen below:
| NETWORK APIs | Python NETMIKO NAPALM |
| NETWORK FRAMEWORKS | NORNIR Ansible Ansible Tower |
| NETWORK ORCHESTRATION | Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) |
| FIREWALL AUTOMATION | Palo Alto Networks FortiGate |
| DAY ZERO AUTOMATION | POAP (Cisco Nexus 9K) ZTP (Cisco IOS-XE, Arista EOS) |
| CI/CD | Jenkins |
| TESTING FRAMEWORKS | pyATS and Genie |
| NMS | Prometheus and Grafana with SNMP |
| VCS | Git GitHub |
| HELP DESK AUTOMATION | Active Directory Office 365 Azure AD Exchange Online Powershell DUO AutoTask PassPortal Crashplan Dropbox Cisco Umbrella – Management |
| OTHER | Docker Containers Web Automation and Development |
You can watch a preview video that will show the type of network automation and NetDevOps projects we provide for companies, engineers, and consultants:
In the following video, I want to provide a preview for one of my custom network automation projected I have developed (and deployed) into a few customer environments.This custom appliance utilizes a web frontend with a Python framework backend and a Mongo Database along with job FIFO queuing for all automation tasks. Many of these jobs consisting of tasks, templates, reports to workflows.