Enabling DevOps Approach with Cisco NX-OS and Ansible

I blogged back in November 2015 when Cisco participated at the AnsibleFest in San Francisco and the response from the attendees has ranged from “wow you support Ansible” to “how does it work and show me use case.”

Regardless of where you are in your expertise as a DevOps or network IT admin, I highly recommend this eBook that walks you in details how to program and automate your Nexus data center infrastructure. In addition, we have sample playbooks based on Ansible 1.9 on GitHub as well as a provisioning demo on GitHub. And in this demo we walk through automation of Day 0, 1, 2 operations.

For more scripts and getting started, visit our DevNet site

We’re back at #AnsibleFest London Feb 18, 2016. At the same time Cisco Live Berlin Feb 15-19 is in full swing. So whether you’re in London or Berlin we got you covered!

If you plan to attend AnsibleFest in London, check out Cisco’s session on “Managing Your Datacenter Network with Ansible” by Fabrizio Maccioni. As a DevOps admin, you’ll learn how reliable provisioning and management can be automated to accelerate innovation in your business environment.

If you intend to be at CiscoLive Berlin, make sure to check out the DevNet zone to learn more about programmability and automation for your data center infrastructure or visit the Cisco Learning Network.

Also, check out these specific sessions:

Session | Speaker | Date & Time

Programmability and Automation on Cisco Nexus Platforms [BRKDCT-2459]

Abhinav Modi, Technical Marketing Engineer, Cisco

Tuesday, Feb 16, 2:15 p.m.

Automating with NX-OS – Let’s Get Started! [DevNet-1077] | Jeff McLaughlin, Principal Engineer, Cisco Systems | Wednesday, Feb 17, 4:00 p.m.

Maximizing Network Programmability and Automation with Open NX-OS [BRKDCT-2025]

Nicolas Delecroix, Technical Marketing Engineer, INSBU, Cisco

Thursday, Feb 18, 2:30 p.m.

Configuration Management Tools on NX-OS [DevNet-1075]

Abhinav Modi, Technical Marketing Engineer, Cisco

Thursday, Feb 18, 12:00 p.m.

Nexus 9000 DevOps & Programmability Options [LTRDCT-1225] | Clifford Aldan, Lauren Malhoit, and Vishal Mehta | Thursday, Feb 18, 2:00 p.m.

Ansible continues to enhance and innovate its software and recently introduced Ansible 2.0. In this release, there are new Ansible Core modules specific to Nexus devices (nxos_command, nxos_config and nxos_template) that allow customers to easily send CLIs or push configuration files to a Nexus device using either SSH or NX-API transport. It introduces new capabilities like delegating authentication to a jump host and managing ssh keys for password-less authentication, so that customers don’t need to store passwords in the Ansible configuration files. This is a huge benefit in terms of security compliance.

Whether you decide to deploy ACI that recently won the InfoWorld’s 2016 Technology of the Year Award winners or DIY with NX-OS, only Nexus platforms can offer you such flexibility with a common automation model to enable DevOps approach.