Bringing Production Validation into Network Automation CI/CD

Integrating production validation into network Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) is becoming crucial for enhancing network automation's efficiency and reliability. Infrahub and Netpicker are two platforms that facilitate this integration by offering unique solutions tailored to network automation's specific requirements. Infrahub acts as a vendor-neutral source of truth, allowing users to define their data models and perform continuous integration checks, while Netpicker provides a versatile testing platform, enabling engineers to validate network designs and compliance using either Python or a user-friendly UI. Together, these platforms enable practical use cases such as comparing configured interfaces and integrating tests into the CI/CD pipeline, thus ensuring consistency, accuracy, and compliance with organizational standards. By leveraging Infrahub and Netpicker, network engineers can achieve improved efficiency, reliability, and visibility, ultimately delivering high-quality services consistently.