The Everything Feed - All Packet Pushers Pods NAN088: See Something, Improve Something – An Iterative Approach to Automation Success
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Mar 26, 2025 In this engaging discussion, Michael Bushong, an industry veteran with experience at Juniper, Brocade, and Nokia, shares hard-earned lessons from both successes and failures in network automation. He cautions against chasing flashy projects, urging leaders to focus on what truly matters. The conversation delves into the importance of incremental progress and understanding human dynamics to bridge the skills gap. Bushong emphasizes collaborative efforts in diagnosing network issues, highlighting how effective teamwork enhances automation outcomes.
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Bushong's Automation Journey
- Michael Bushong's career in operations and automation began in 2007, focusing on Juniper's Junos and new technologies like NetConf.
- He worked on early SDN, network programmability, and integrations with Puppet and Chef, influencing the first Net Dev libraries.
Technology vs. Adoption
- Focusing solely on technology and programmability can be limiting, as it might not resonate with network engineers lacking strong software backgrounds.
- Traction is crucial, and simply having programmable interfaces isn't always enough to generate widespread adoption.
Workflow-Oriented Strategy at Brocade
- At Brocade, Bushong's workflow-oriented strategy, while good in theory, faced challenges due to a lack of common workflow language and semantics.
- This created overhead without the intended transformative benefits, highlighting the need for practical implementation alongside theoretical frameworks.