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Open Source Network Management Second Edition

·358 words·2 mins·
Automation Book Open-Source Network Book
The Open Source Network Management stack drawn as a left-to-right data pipeline — your network into Telegraf (collect), Nautobot as the source of truth, Prometheus (store) and Grafana (visualize), with Vault and NGINX as the platform layer.
Table of Contents

Today (July 11, 2026) I’m announcing the availability of the second edition of my book - Open Source Network Management. This is an updated version on the writing that I put together several years ago about how to manage networks using Open Source tooling. I wanted to take the time to get an update out and make a few general updates as well to the guide. On top of the initial writing, I’m also working on alternative chapters or a take on a “Choose Your Own Adventure” books that I used to love as a kid. I’m working on putting together additional chapters with tooling that I think Enterprises may want to adopt in order to continue managing networks in a new, modern way.

Updates Made #

First, it is updated to 2026 versions of all of the software. That was the first thing that was definitely a requirement. The tooling has come a long ways and continued to be adopted. Nautobot has been updated from version 1.x to 3.x now. Which has many awesome improvements along the way over the years. And it is even better now.

The one glaring hole from the first edition was configuration management. At that time I didn’t think Golden Config from Nautobot was the right tool to make changes to network devices. That has now changed and I have added Nautobot Golden Config to the book.

Metrics & Logs #

I’ve gone ahead and brought in Victoria Metrics and Victoria Logs to the chapters on Metrics and Logs. These are drop in replacements and there are additional options that will be brought in with the additional chapters that will be made available.

Remaining Consistent #

A lot of the rest is remaining consistent, but there are new capabilities within the tools. Including improved Alerting and Dashboarding with Grafana and updates to the rest of the stack involved.

Summary #

You can get your copy now, it is live at https://osnm.josh-v.com. The digital versions are available now and the bundle of digital + physical print is available for pre-order, with the digital versions being delivered immediately. Let me know your thoughts on the book below.

-Josh