Note: This post integrates several automation tools at once. My objective is to provide some well-documented, concrete examples of executable Ansible Playbooks, D2 Diagrams, and best practice to illustrate ways to make good documentation easy. Note: All code examples in this blog post are structured in a format to be …

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Let's do something a bit more stereotypical when we talk about IT diagramming - building Network Diagrams with D2. D2's OSS layout engines (Dagre, ELK) are both centered around hierarchical layouts, which was a bit part of why we needed to hack D2 to get vSphere diagrams to draw. Here, it quickly becomes our best …

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In a previous post we tested methods to illustrate documentation as-code with Terrastruct's D2 language. Documentation is good for infrastructure engineers in a variety of scenarios practically speaking, but we often forget the value of building consumer confidence. This may vary based on culture! My experiences are …

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Documentation is always important, but always takes too much time Ever had an issue where a new installation is completed, but there's just no time to update the ol' Visio diagrams? Manually composed diagrams always possess a certain art to them, but the hours per unit of documentation isn't always worthwhile …

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Ansible is a fantastic tool for Linux-based and NOS-based automation. Have you seen this error before? 1"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: Host key verification failed." When you use Ansible with SSH transport (as opposed to an API), you rely on the SSH key trust …

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VMware introduced RESTful APIs with their vSphere 7.0 release train; migrating from the old MOB APIs is a welcome choice. REST clients provide a powerful tool for automating processes, but it's important to embody reliable practices when interacting with infrastructure. The neat thing about published and documented …

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Have you ever heard someone say "I'm not a coder" at work? The IT industry is changing again. Our humble origins began as polymaths moved from adjacent industries and created a new world from scratch. The pioneering phase led to unique opportunities, creating our transport protocols, programming languages, …

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VMware's vDS is a bit of a misnomer In a previous post, I covered the concept of transitivity in networking - but in Layer 2 (Ethernet) land, transitivity is critically important to understanding how VMware's Virtual Distributed Switch (vDS) works. The statement "VMware's Virtual Distributed Switch is not a …

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Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) has turned out to be a great tool for deploying virtual network resources, but the "only Cisco VNFs" limitation is a bit much. Let's use this opportunity to really take advantage of the capabilities that NSX-T has for virtual network labs! Overview For the purpose of lab …

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Ever wonder what it would be like to have a platform dedicated to Continuous Improvement / Testing / Labbing? Cisco's put a lot of thought into good ways to do that, and Cisco Modeling Labs(CML) is the latest iteration of their solutions to provide this as a service to enterprises and casual users alike. CML is the …

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