Introduction
The Ansible Community Day Berlin 2023 provided a platform for networking enthusiasts to connect and share their innovative approaches to network automation. During the event, we had the privilege of meeting Petr Ankudinov from Arista Networks, who introduced us to an exciting project to streamline containerized network environments.
Meet Petr Ankudinov
Petr Ankudinov, representing Arista Networks, shared insights into a project that bridges the gap between network automation and containerization. Arista Networks recognizes the pivotal role of Ansible in accelerating project deployments and enhancing efficiency in network management.
Building Successful Containerized Environments
The presentation of Petr Ankudinov and Patrick Mathy focused on creating successful containerized environments using the concept of DevContainers. He highlighted the importance of Ansible in saving time and ensuring project success. His Playbooknstration showcased an easy-to-consume demo environment deployed on GitHub code spaces. GitHub’s code spaces simplify the development process by allowing users to create their development environments with a single click. This approach offers a familiar VSCode experience accessible from any device, making it incredibly convenient for demos and introducing enhanced user experiences.
The Future of Network Automation
When asked about the future of network automation and software-defined networking (SDN), Petr Ankudinov challenged the common perception of SDN. He emphasized that writing code to achieve various tasks within network management can be more powerful and flexible than traditional SDN approaches. This perspective highlights the potential for Ansible to redefine the landscape of network automation by offering a versatile and code-driven solution.
Interview
Luca Berton: Hi, friends. This is Luca, your Ansible pilot, and I’m here with a new friend that I made today during the Ansible Community Day. But please introduce yourself and the project that you are bringing to the community.
Petr Ankudinov: Hello, my name is Peter. So, I’m working for Easter Networks, and Ansible is a super important tool for us because it allows us to save a lot of time and deploy a lot of projects successfully.
And… I came up with an idea of how to build a successful, containerized environment, so for our use cases, but potentially for many others, using DevContainer, which is a relatively new concept but alrea