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Cisco pyATS is a python-based testing framework which is used to test functionality of network devices such as routers, firewalls, switches, wireless controllers, security etc.
As the digital world is moving very fast and increasingly connected, network infrastructure is very critical to facilitate secure businesses, organizational operations and improved efficiency. As network infrastructure is so crucial to run businesses there is a need for greater testing and network devices validation and this is where pyATS comes into the picture.
The test framework comprises tools and libraries which help engineers to create, manage, test and execute test cases and analyze the results.
In this article we will learn more in detail about NetDevOps and pyATS, their characteristics and use cases.
What is NetDevOps
NetDevOps is a holistic approach, set of methodologies, principles which brings together all that is good for software DevOps and networking. The end goal is to implement changes in the network in a faster and reliable manner. The key focus of NetDevOps is agility in designing, development, integration, testing, deployment and demand. Multiple and small network changes are efficiently reliably automated using NetDevOps.
Characteristics of NetDevOps
- Latest updates with high network uptime
- Small but frequent network changes which are efficient, reliable and automated
- Manual intervention is reduced with infrastructure as a code (IaC) practise
- Deployments are less risky with incremental changes
- Telemetry and data collection is supported
- Ensure changes are implemented correctly for compliance
What is Cisco pyATS
pyATS automates device testing for network devices. Tools and libraries in pyATS help developers and network engineers to create, manage and perform system testing. It is a python-based testing framework and can be integrated with other tools such as Jenkins, robot framework, Ansible to develop a complete and comprehensive deployment pipeline. It has a python library called ‘Genie’ which has knowledge of all network operations.
Related: Steps to Install pyATS
Uses of pyATS
- Network configuration validation – is conducted by pyATS so as to ensure the network devices are configured properly.
- Testing of network devices – testing of network hardware appliances functionality before being deployed in production environments post upgrade
- Performance testing – get insight into network performance upon additional traffic provisioning
- Security testing – testing network devices to ensure they are safe and configured with standard baseline security parameters
- Interoperability – testing if devices of different vendors are compatible or not
- Automated testing – it can be used to automatically test implementation of devices correctly in the network
Using pyATS in NetDevOps
Since NetDevOps discipline or methodology is all about bringing best practices into software development and networking pyATS helps in building, testing, staging, and applying NetDevOps core principles into the real world. Manual testing of network infrastructure is taxing and complex as it is a mix of non-integrated procedures and tools which are prone to errors. This becomes more complex as the network grows and expands. pyATS helps in the automation testing process.
The pyATS library framework known as ‘Genie’ is an open source platform and vendor agnostic library which has the capability of CLI output parsing and generating appropriate commands as per operating system and device type. The pyATS dictates how network scripters will interact with devices.
All testing workflows can be automated using pyATS such as connection management to devices, operational network state profiling, configuration changes, profiling information comparison.
Use Cases
pyATS provides a framework for NetDevOps to perform network test automation and used in variety of use cases such as:
- Automation of network health checks – pyATS can continuously monitor network devices, protocols and interfaces to allow early detection of issues
- Troubleshooting and debugging of network issues – pyATS can diagnose and troubleshoot network issues with automated checks on status of device, connectivity, protocols in operation without any manual intervention
- Automation of network tests – pyATS is used for automation of testing network devices configuration, network connection status , health of protocol, and security policies in an automated manner.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
You can learn more about her on her linkedin profile – Rashmi Bhardwaj
