Summary

In this chapter, we took a grand tour of the open-source automation framework, Ansible. Unlike Pexpect-based and API-driven network automation scripts, Ansible provides a higher layer of abstraction called a playbook to automate our network devices.

Ansible is a full-featured automation framework capable of managing large infrastructures. Our focus is on managing network devices, but Ansible is capable of managing servers, databases, cloud infrastructures, and more. We have only touched the surface of its capabilities. If you feel Ansible is a tool you would like to learn more about, the Ansible documentation is an excellent source of reference. The Ansible community is friendly and welcoming if you would like to get involved.

In Chapter 5, Docker Containers for Network Engineers, we will start to learn about Docker and the world of containers.