Major Chain of Convenience Stores Streamlines Hardware Refresh for Over 900 Locations Quickly and Consistently with Network Automation

May 15, 2023

THE CHALLENGE

This Major Chain of Convenience Stores’ (MCCS) requirements included improving efficiencies to perform multiple hardware refreshes at over 900 convenience stores to replace outdated devices and enable new services. In addition, MCCS’s intention was to complete this process efficiently and autonomously by support staff that were not network engineers.

THE SOLUTION

MCCS chose Network to Code to help build their network automation strategy and jump-start their deployment. Network to Code developed automated workflows that could be executed by non–network engineering staff to complete hardware refreshes. With these workflows in place, the execution is done consistently across all store locations resulting in efficient execution across the entire retail environment.

RESULTS & IMPACT

The MCCS team completed the hardware refresh of their convenience store locations in approximately 225 hours with minimal interruption to the business by automating the process built by the Engineering team at MCCS and saving over 3,600 manual hours. The deployments are consistent and based on a data-driven approach to network automation with the intended network state defined inside their Source of Truth (SoT), Nautobot. The solution also embedded validation, providing MCCS further visibility and confidence in the automation.

Leveraging Nautobot as a Source of Truth and Network Automation Platform, Network to Code created nine distinct stages to complete for each site’s conversion. Actions, data collection, and validation elements within each stage ensured that tasks were completed with minimal to zero errors while ensuring maximum uptime for endpoints. While many of the deployments were similar, there was variability between each that automation helped solve with minimal human intervention.

LOOKING FORWARD:

MCCS has been embracing automation for several years now, having the ability to complete network activities consistently throughout the entire network. The current team structure is built upon delivery teams across disciplines of the networking stack—Network, Security, and Systems Delivery; and network automation is currently used across each team. MCCS has since identified numerous systems that can also be automated for quicker, less error-prone results and increased reporting.

ABOUT NETWORK TO CODE 

Network to Code is a network automation services and solutions provider that helps companies transform the way their networks are deployed, managed, and consumed. Through managed and professional services, Network to Code enables enterprises across all industries and geographies to deploy data-driven network automation based on NetDevOps principles to improve reliability, efficiency, and security while reducing costs.

NTC is the sponsor of Nautobot, an open source Network Source of Truth and Network Automation Platform with a growing ecosystem of integrations and partners. Nautobot is the leading Network Source of Truth for Enterprises looking to adopt a data-driven approach to network automation and a platform that complements any network automation journey.

Major Video Game Developer Increased Speed to Market by 2X with Network Automation

May 15, 2023

THE CHALLENGE

In 2019, with the growth of the company came the growth of its complex networks. This Major Video Game Developer (MVGD) started to realize that in order to continue providing innovation, increase speed to market, and ensure security to service their customers, they needed to adopt network automation as part of their company fabric. MVGD was having network latency issues, along with problems with unorganized/inaccurate data. In addition, there was a need to increase speed to deployment, security, configuration consistency, and visibility. The Engineering Leader at MVGD said, “If we didn’t start to automate our environment, we would have failed as an organization to grow and service our customers.”

ABOUT NETWORK TO CODE 

MVGD initially engaged with Network to Code in 2020 and shortly after became a trusted partner. Network to Code continues to be an extension of the MVGD team, and together both teams are executing on multiple fronts. Network to Code is a Gartner-recognized network automation leader and solution provider that, since its founding in 2014, has been committed to drastically changing the way networks are deployed, managed, consumed, and operated daily by leveraging network automation and DevOps technologies and principles. Network to Code provides a variety of strategic consulting and professional services to define, design, implement, and support outcome-driven network automation solutions, along with enterprise training. Network to Code also sponsors and supports the open source Network Source of Truth (SoT) and Network Automation platform, Nautobot, launched in 2021.

ABOUT NAUTOBOT 

Network to Code has reimagined what a Source of Truth needs to be to truly enable network automation. Nautobot is an extensible SoT at every level, from data models and data sources to external integrations. Its REST and GraphQL APIs expose functionality, and Nautobot apps extend it. Integrations with configuration management, change management, and chat systems allow Nautobot to extend any workflow. This extensibility enables Nautobot to pull data from any Source of Records (SoR), centralize it, normalize it, and extend it back with enriched context and value. As Nautobot eliminates the practice of managing spreadsheets and data across disparate systems, it eliminates risks from configuration errors and costs from additional operational time. When Nautobot is deployed as a Source of Truth, it becomes possible to document the intended network state and realize the full potential of network automation.

THE APPROACH

In order to address the network latency issues, problems with unorganized/inaccurate data, speed to deployment, security, configuration consistency, visibility, and more, MVGD and Network to Code created a plan. In the partnership, the challenges were solved with the following network automation solutions:  

The Network to Code team developed and enhanced Nautobot as MVGD’s new Source of Truth (SoT), and all Points of Presence (PoPs) were integrated; in addition, a Nautobot plugin was constructed for circuit maintenance, and data was leveraged for alerts based on tags and operational state via integration to providers. Configurations were rendered in a consistent manner across all devices, and data accuracy was increased by data audit jobs to ensure consistency and accuracy of data inputs/outputs and records of intent. 

Thanos (microservices), Grafana, Telegraf, and GNMI/GRPC are all components of the new telemetry stack that was built and provides Visibility and Observability into network operations. Telemetry data is normalized via collectors and then appended with tags coming from their centralized SoT, Nautobot. The Infrastructure as Code for Telemetry stack is a fully automated deployment on K8s leveraging GitOps technology via Flux, and automatically deploys updates upon code repository changes.

THE OUTCOME

Automation is now a top priority at MVGD for many teams, including Networking, Security, and Hosting. As MVGD continues to develop more automation tools, additional teams continue to adopt the culture of automation as part of their business processes. Automation Teams throughout the organization are benefiting from what Network to Code is helping to build. In addition, other teams have been able to consume Automation as a Service through Nautobot and other tooling that Network to Code has helped build. In the partnership with Network to Code to deliver automation, the MVGD team has been able to increase speed to market by 2X since adopting network automation, allowing the team to drive strategy and focus on long-term projects.

LOOKING FORWARD:

Network to Code continues to focus on delivering automation at MVGD every day. Through agile development, Network to Code and MVGD work together in two-week sprints and ultimately tackle challenges one by one. At the start of the partnership, MVGD focused on designing and building a strategic design that enabled them to be tactical soon after. MVGD is not done automating, they continue to drive manual repeatable workflows to automation by leveraging the Network to Code team’s expertise.

Professional Sports Organization Invests in Network Automation to Transform Network Foundation

May 15, 2023

THE CHALLENGE

When the Senior Director of Network Infrastructure joined this PSO, it was clear that there was a need to transform how the current network was operated. With the number of network infrastructure projects planned over the next three to five years, investing in network automation immediately became a priority. “We needed to change the culture completely. There was no way any automation was going to help with the way the network was currently implemented,” said  the Senior Director of Network Infrastructure. With no authoritative inventory to base network automation on, and a single password used to access hundreds of legacy devices, this PSO began to evaluate solutions to improve operational efficiency and map out a foundation for network automation.

THE SOLUTION

This PSO chose Network to Code to help build their network automation strategy and jump-start their deployment. Once Network to Code assessed where this PSO was on their network automation journey, and they could evaluate not only what this PSO needed in order to increase operational network efficiencies but could explain why the solutions were needed, the partnership was a clear choice. Solutions were assessed for the project, and a Source of Truth (SoT) was deployed, along with network automation using Ansible and self-service with ChatOps. “Network to Code listened to our needs as opposed to providing cookie-cutter solutions that may or may not apply,” said the Senior Director of Network Infrastructure.

RESULTS AND IMPACT

This PSO will continue to make investments in the automation space. Now that they have the proper foundation, their automation possibilities are endless. “It is refreshing to know that Network to Code can step in should we find ourselves without the internal expertise that we’ve built over the past few years,” said the Senior Director of Network Infrastructure. They also stated, “I don’t even know of another company like theirs, they are so committed to, and deep in, network automation, it really was an easy decision.”

“Network to Code brings a level of expertise that is unmatched in the market. As our trusted advisor in the Network Automation space, we feel like they have seen it all and can properly advise us when we hit a roadblock on our way to network automation nirvana.”

LOOKING FORWARD:

NTC helped jump-start MBF’s Nautobot deployment and unlocked MBF’s ability to build an enterprise observability platform. In addition, MBF now understands how to build and run a completely containerized application stack and use Ansible to instantiate and manage the containers. MBF continues to refine some of the existing features and is looking to add system capacity. Nautobot will remain the primary user interface for inventory and automation self-service capability, and they will continue to develop new applications in Nautobot and maintain the entire app stack.

ABOUT NETWORK TO CODE 

Network to Code is a network automation services and solutions provider that helps companies transform the way their networks are deployed, managed, and consumed. Through managed and professional services, Network to Code enables enterprises across all industries and geographies to deploy data-driven network automation based on NetDevOps principles to improve reliability, efficiency, and security while reducing costs.

NTC is the sponsor of Nautobot, an open source Network Source of Truth and Network Automation Platform with a growing ecosystem of integrations and partners. Nautobot is the leading Network Source of Truth for Enterprises looking to adopt a data-driven approach to network automation and a platform that complements any network automation journey.