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NetCadCam - Network Automation by Design

This repository contains the NetCadCam project core framework library.

The primary goal of this project is to answer the question:

How do we know if a network is operating as designed ?

"Network Automation by Design" is the name I am giving to the concept that User can:

  • Declaratively represent the expected operational state of a network as a design

  • The design can be used to automatically generate the collection of checks so that the User can validate the correctness of the actual state of the network against the expected state

  • The same design can be used to generate the network device configurations in order to achieve the expected operational state

  • The same design can be used to generate business ready documents that describe the design in various forms, reports, and diagrams

The NetCadCam Project

The NetCadCam is a general purpose python toolkit. The toolkit is used by a "Designer" to declaratively represent the operational state of a network design via a composition of design elements arranged in manner specific to their needs. The toolkit provides two CLI tools netcad for the design automation features and netcam for the features that interactive with the devices, such as checking the operational state.

WARNING: The netcadcam project is under active development, is very nascent, and is not released on PyPi. Code is subject to change without notice. Once the API has settled a bit, docs will be written.

The best way to "see" how this project is used is via the example, found here.

  • Plugins - The netcadcam framework takes a "plugin" approach to integration with network devices and external systems, such as Netbox. At this time there are two device integrations, one for Arista EOS and another for Meraki devices. These integrations are stored in separate repos.

  • Extensible - Extensible so a User can create new design composition elements to support network features specific to their needs; for example Wireless, PTP, multicast, equipment vendor specific features, etc.

  • Syndication - Syndicates design artifacts with other systems of record such as Netbox, Nautobot, InfoBlox, other IPAM products.

Design Elements

This core repository contains the following design-elements:

  • Topology
  • VLANs
  • LAGs
  • MLags (Arista)
  • IP Address Management

Network Device Integrations

These device integrations provide the design-element "checking" features.