Learn How to Leverage BGP Automation to Execute Python Code Directly on an End Device

It’s Monday 4th March 06:00, my alarm is going off and it is time to get that much required cardio in. Whilst I am peddling away on my exercise bike like a hamster on a wheel, I am thinking of my day ahead. Most of my planning is done whilst I exercise in the morning. I like to think of the goals I want to achieve that day. I switched up thinking recently that my days are not busy, but productive. I am also thinking I should have had coffee before starting my exercise this morning too!

On the exercise bike this morning I’m thinking about the sessions I’m planning for DevNet Create. Create is coming up soon (April 24-25), and bringing the best content, workshops, and demos needs planning out. If the content of these sessions is of interest to you, I hope you’ll register to attend DevNet Create and join me there.

Learn How to Leverage BGP Automation to Execute Python Code Directly on an End Device

Do you manage a plethora of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) sessions? If you have any BGP peering’s with a service provider (ISP) and/or peering at IXP (Internet exchange point), are you using BGP down to your servers? Event data is the recording of data at specific times triggered by a specific monitored state change. The state change could be a boolean value, such as an interface being up or down, or an exception triggered by exceeding a limit on a metric like a BGP peer exceeding its received prefix limit, which can have potentially unintended consequences to existing BGP sessions.

BGP is an important component of Internet routing and is responsible for exchanging information on how Autonomous Systems can reach one another. When BGP issues occur upstream, your internet traffic can be affected, from packet loss, latency, complete loss of internet connectivity, and even route withdrawal.

At DevNet Create, I’ll be leading a session on how we can leverage automation to execute Python code directly on an end device as part of the application hosting capabilities provided by GuestShell. We will cover CLI, and the Python library specifically designed to be able to run CLI commands in Python. Here’s a preview of what we’ll be covering in a nutshell:

To demonstrate IOS-XE’s Guestshell capabilities, we will executed a Python script that runs as an agent on the router to detect any BGP changes or packet loss / latency upstream

Upon detection, the device will automatically decide what to do for us!

We will look how as an admin you can be alerted with ChatOps – from warning to critical problem

How this script can be modified to create service tickets for critical issues

Tie this to event-driven telemetry, see how Peering event telemetry data is ideally sent when an event occurs on the device

At DevNet Create you’ll be able to get your hands really dirty with this session. You’ll experience how this works in real time and configure this from day one. You’ll see how Guestshell is a virtualized Linux-based environment designed to run custom Linux applications, including Python, for automated control and management of Cisco devices. It’s all about taking on problems and solving them with automation.

Register for DevNet Create and join me for this session.

Getting Started with Golang

At DevNet Create I’ll also be leading a session on “Getting Started with Golang.” The Go Programming Language (Go) is an open-source programming language sponsored by Google that aims to simplify systems programming and to make programming fun again. This workshop is designed to introduce developers, Network Architects and Engineers to Go, and give you enough information to try it out for yourself.

In this workshop we start at day one for those whom want to get started with learning a new programming language just as i did. It’s a steep learning curve, but in this session we will work this out, have fun and see you can get started with Golang.

Sound interesting? My previous blog post – Why Did I Start to Learn Go(lang)? – will get you started. Then of course don’t forget to register for DevNet Create and join me for this workshop.

ProTip: Bring some coffee with you! Oh yea, and don’t forget to get your cardio in

Want to learn more?

DevNet Create will take place April 24-25, 2019 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. If you cannot attend I will publish the slide deck and code after the event on Code Exchange also.

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