👤 About
I'm a veteran Network Engineer who has finally caught on how to put together CS teachings with a Networking degree. Working on doing almost all things via automation.
Self re-taught network/automation engineer. I've primarily been digging around within Ansible and Python. I've been doing Python networking since 2015 when a speaker came in and talked about how he had put together a NOC for a conference heavily leveraging automation capabilities via Python. Since then I have been going deep down the rabbit hole that is Network Automation.
In 2020 Cisco released the Cisco DevNet certification program. I am one of the first 500 individuals to achieve a Cisco DevNet certification, with passing first the DevNet Associate exam. Later I followed up that certification with the DevNet Professional certification as well.
My Work#
Books#
During the pandemic, I thought what better way to get started than with writing a book about getting started with open source network tools. Get it on LeanPub. See the Open Source Network Management tab for more.
2024 brought the release of two more books, published by Packt. The first released book Network Automation with Nautobot introduces how to automate networks with the use of Nautobot. See the tab linked for more.
The second book in 2024 is Modern Network Observability, which provides a hands-on approach to using open source tools for network observability in 2024.
Podcasts#
- Packet Pushers - Ansible or Terraform
- Network Automation Nerds - Interview Part 1
- Network Automation Nerds - Interview Part 2
Speaking Engagements#
2025 MNNUG Spring Event
2025-Q2At the MNNUG 2025 Spring event I was the keynote speaker talking about getting started with automation. Highlighting the journey that the source of truth has been on and what to look to do in order to get started with automating multi-vendor networks in an intelligent way.
2024 Internet2 Technology Exchange
2024-Q4At Internet2's TechEx 2024 I talked alongside Shannon Byrnes about how to get started with Network Automation. Get going, and focus on what you can control.
2023 Internet2 Technology Exchange
2023-Q3At Internet2's TechEx 2023 I gave an overview of Nautobot to the Network Automation community and introduced several of the core Nautobot Open Source Ecosystem Plugins such as Nautobot Golden Config, and the new configuration remediation capabilities built in.
2023 WWT Automation Day - Minneapolis
2023-Q2In this speaking engagement I had the opportunity to talk about Nautobot as the Open Source Network Automation and SOT applications. I gave an overview of what Nautobot brings to the table and incorporated demos of using real world scripts to complete activities leveraging the Nautobot open source ecosystem.
2023 Summer MNNUG
2023-Q2Introduction of Nautobot and the core functionality for the the audience. Drove attendance with the focus on Network Automation that saw individuals drive from 3 hours away!
2022 NANOG86
2022-Q4In 2022 I had the opportunity to complete my first NANOG talk, on automating circuit maintenance notifications. This section will outline my continued source of talks: - NANOG86 - Automating Circuit Maintenance Notifications
2021 Ansible Meetup
2021-Q1Ansible Records Ansible - Minneapolis Ansible Meetup January 2021 - Ansible Records Ansible - ARA
2020 Interop
2020-Q3I present on using CICD in a network automation capacity - Interop Network Automation CICD
2020 Ansible Meetup
2020-Q2Here I dive into using a SOT for automation combined with the use of Custom Filters - Minneapolis Ansible Meetup April 2020 Talk
Ansible Content#
In 2019 I worked to develop a Network Automation Course with Ansible for Packet Pushers. This was in my transition time to Network to Code. Note that the course was developed at a time when only NetBox was around. At this point in time I would swap out NetBox in favor of Nautobot.
- Packet Pushers Network Automation with Ansible: YouTube
- Network Automation Course (Packet Pushers): Ignition page.
- Minneapolis Ansible Meetup April 2020 Talk
- First half using NetBox with the NetBox Ansible Collections
- Second half on creating your own custom filters
- Ansible Guest Blog Post - Using NetBox as Ansible Source of Truth
- Minneapolis Ansible Meetup January 2021 - Ansible Records
Telemetry Content#
- How to Introduce Telemetry Streaming (gNMI) in Your Network with SNMP with Telegraf
- Upcoming: DZone: How to Introduce Telemetry Streaming (gNMI) in Your Network with SNMP with Telegraf
NTC Blog Posts I Wrote#
- Network Telemetry for SNMP Devices
- How to Monitor Your VPN Infrastructure with Netmiko, NTC-Templates, and a Time Series Database
- Monitor Your Network With gNMI, SNMP, and Grafana
- Monitoring Websites with Telegraf and Prometheus
- Alerting with Prometheus
Cisco Champion#
2021 - Cisco Champion
