Network Engineers are worried about the skills required to learn about the next generation technologies like SDN and NFV. Every time when someone talk about SDN and NFV, I always think that do I need to learn any kind of programming language like C, Python, Perl, SLAX, RUBY etc.? Does my CCNA, CCNP, CCIE, JNCIA, JNCIS skills are no more required? There are lot of questions comes in my mind about job security also. At times, I assume will companies hire or retain only those engineers who understand programming better than BGP or OSPF or ISIS.

Automation is the new buzz word in the industry. Every customer wants to automate their entire infrastructure without understanding how does it work. As per my understanding automation means is to shorten the completion cycle of current job by writing some scripts or loops. But as industry perspective, we think automation means programming and without having its knowledge how someone can automate any kind of job.

In IT industry, automation was being used since long. Ansible is the right example of IT Automation industry. But in networking automation was also used since long. The best example of automation is to run a script in the night which normally takes the backup of the current configurations of network elements. Second best example of automation in networking is Network Management System (Vendor Specific)