NetDevOps or CI CD for Networks: Myth or reality

As network engineers, it’s almost impossible to avoid the CI/CD/NetDevOps hype-cycle. In this talk we explore how much of this is a myth, versus the ground reality network engineers experience, managing production networks.
In our experience, while CI/CD for most vendors can demo very well, they do not hold ground for production networks. The interdependencies between physical hardware and the Network OS (NOS) make it difficult to conduct realistic tests on a purely virtual form factor.
In this talk we propose a realistic approach using GitOps and Infrastructure as Code. We will also discuss the limitations of virtualized network OS and provide recommendations on utilizing virtualized platforms for limited testing and configuration linting