Speaker
Description
Design‑driven automation treats the high-level design of infrastructure as a first‑class artifact: an explicit model of topology, roles, relationships, and constraints that exists independently of any particular device configuration.
In this talk, we will explore what design‑driven automation means in practice, why it emerged, and why it keeps resurfacing whenever networks reach a certain level of scale or complexity. We will look at how working from a design model changes everyday operational thinking — from how state is understood, to how drift is interpreted, to how refactoring and unplanned change are handled.
We will trace how these ideas have evolved, from early topology‑aware network management and fabric controllers to modern intent‑based and fabric‑oriented systems. The focus will be on the underlying mechanics: how networks are modeled, how change is reasoned about over time, and where design‑driven approaches help — and where they still struggle in real operational environments.
