Most probably you have heard already about Nautobot. Or maybe you have heard about NetBox, the project that Nautobot is based on. But what is it? Why should you care? And how can it help you in your day-to-day work?
And why I'm talking about Nautobot and not NetBox?
Well mainly because I did not work with NetBox, but I have been using Nautobot for a while now, and many of my blog entries will be based on it.
What is Nautobot?
Nautobot is Django based open source software with foundation of Network Source of Truth and Network Automation Platform. Thanks to application (former plugin) build and maintained by Network To Code, it has a great community and ecosystem around it. After some learning curve, it's also possible to build your own application. So I would say that hidden power of Nautobot is in its extensibility and customizability. Thanks to API first approach, it's also possible to integrate it with other systems and processes, making it a great tool for building automation around it, empowering business and IT operations.
That's in short what Nautobot is for me, but you can find more information about it on the official website, and I encourage you to check it out if you haven't already.
Useful resources
During my work with Nautobot I have found some resources that I found useful, and I want to share them with you:
- 100 days of Nautobot - hands on experience, step by step lessons, great insights.
- Nautobot documentation - the official documentation is a great place to start, and it's very well written and organized.
- NTC Slack channel - great place to ask questions, share your experiences, and connect with other Nautobot users and developers.
- Network Automation with Nautobot book - book that covers various aspects of Nautobot and network automation in general, and it's a great resource for learning about it in depth.