TNO073: Network Automation Forum: From Simple Survey to Global Community

Scott Robon (0:10)

Welcome to Total Network Operations. I'm Scott Robon, your host. I want to give you a very personal intro to this special episode today where we get to talk about Network Automation Forum, NAF.

And when Chris and I, the co-founders of NAF, get to be on the other side of the mic, and talk with our good friends, William Collins and Eric Chou, from their respective podcast perspectives, Eric for Network Automation Nerds, and William from The Cloud Gambit, also here on the Packet Pushers platform.

Look, this is a super special thing for me. And we talk about NAF a lot, but I wanted to just put out there how incredible this has been for me to be part of something like NAF and tap into a community that's focused on a set of technical problems, but also has a strong, strong cultural component to it. To be able to meet hundreds and hundreds of people worldwide, actually thousands, you know, through Slack, see what's going on here and that interaction between what does the culture issue look like, what do the technical issues look like. And to have met so many of you, and actually you have had the opportunity to work with Chris Grundemann, who is a great friend and my respect for him and his experience, knowledge and wisdom in the space has only helped me grow and helped me see things from different perspectives. So see for yourself, listen in, give us feedback, tell me what you think. We'll see you on the next episode. Enjoy this special episode of Total Network Operations.

William Collins (1:46)

In late 2023, in November, we were all introduced to Network Automation Forum, where a simple question was asked, a deceptively simple question. What is the holdup with network automation?

Another individual, so I'll say that one individual ran a survey, and then another individual heard about that survey, and we happened to have both of them on this podcast. And three years later, that question has turned into a seven-person conference on multiple continents, and a vendor-neutral reference architecture in a community that keeps telling network engineers that the four words they most need to hear, you are not alone. So today, it's a full house. I've got Eric Chou with me from Network Automation Nerds. He's going to be co-hosting with me, and we've got the two founders of Network Automation Forum with us, fresh from Autocon 5 in Munich, and headed on a jet to Tucson, Arizona later this year. My home city, by the way. So let's dig in. So first of all, thank you, Scott and Chris for joining us here. So Scott, you spent a lot of time at Juniper, Nokia, Drive Nets, before going all independent. And you also host TNOX. And then Chris, you've written more, a lot of RFCs and an IPv6 book, and you've built communities before.

IX Denver and the Internet Society. And you also run the state of network automation survey, I think still.

So we're not here to talk about resumes, right? The story is what happens when a community organizes around a question instead of a product. That's what we want to talk about. So Scott, Chris, welcome to the show. How are you all doing today?

Scott Robon (3:57)

Doing great.

You know, I think we all had some combination of technical difficulties getting set up for today. So the planets have aligned and we're all here and we're pressing record. So, yeah, look, Munich, Munich feels like it was just last week. It was longer than that ago. I, maybe five or six weeks back at this point.

And I don't feel like I've really had a chance to breathe getting ready for Tucson, Autocon 6 in November. That's not a complaint. There's a lot of good stuff lining up for Tucson. I'm sure we'll talk about it a little bit today.

William Collins (4:38)

Awesome.

Yeah, glad to be here. Thanks for having us. And definitely excited to share the NAF community and what's going on there with a wider audience for sure.

Eric Chou (4:52)

Yeah. Awesome.

And I just want to say hi, Eric. Thanks for having me. And obviously we're all friends here and have more than one meal with each of you, I think. So, yeah, you know, I'm excited to just get the party started.

William Collins (5:09)

And you're not a neutral host here, are you, Eric? Because aren't you on the NAF advisory board for this go-around? And you were on stage in Munich. You're on stage in Munich as well, so.

Eric Chou (5:22)

Yeah. So I was on stage in Oticon 2, Oticon 4, and I hosted workshops in 2 and 4 And the 3 workshop was actually the same workshop, conducted by Christian Nadel. And yeah, and we had advisory board breakfast, we have advisory board meetings. So yeah, I'm an invested party.