> Instead of an in-depth discussion of architectures, data structures, software development methodologies, and challenges of modifying the state of a distribute

> Instead of an in-depth discussion of architectures, data structures, software development methodologies, and challenges of modifying the state of a distributed system, those motivational talks often resulted in a cargo cult of expert beginners focused on low-level tools. We may still be in the early innings of the network automation game. One factor that makes network automation hard is that networking is still lagging behind other resources (such as storage, compute, etc.) in openness and modularity. Network devices, in many places, use proprietary gear from Cisco, etc. that has a custom user interface (modern Cisco devices do have bash). Many networks are still managed using older protocols such as SNMP although newer protocols such as OpenConfig seem to be gaining ground. Many companies are trying to disaggregate networks (commodity hardware + Linux) but it still has not taken off that much. Many interesting projects (such as switchdev) are languishing. Big companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon etc are building their own Network OSes (FBoss, SONiC, DentOS, etc) rather than consolidating under a common standard. Lack of resources does not help. Even Wikipedia did not have articles on basic networking concepts until recently. The textbooks that teach this subject talk about older abandoned protocols. We will see improved automation techniques in networking as time progresses.