New Podcast Episode: How to Approach Network Automation: 3 Practical Tips for Network Engineers

That's exactly why we sat down with two people who've been in the trenches long enough to know what works. Daren Fulwell of IP Fabric is a self-proclaimed "old dog learning new tricks" in the network space. Simon Bell of Paessler has been around long enough to remember writing DOS batch scripts for Novell networks. Together, they shared their perspectives on network automation in an episode of The Monitoring Experts podcast - and more importantly, they gave some very practical tips on how to approach it.

Listen to their full discussion here, or read on below for their tips.

The Goals of Network Automation

Network admins and engineers have been automating tasks since the earliest days of networking. At its most basic level, it's about making life easier: when you automate manual tasks, you no longer need to waste time and resources on doing repetitive, time-consuming work. You reduce human error. You free up time to focus on things that actually require your expertise.

But network automation is also about repeatability, scalability, and consistency across your entire network infrastructure. The example Simon gives is writing batch files back in the day to ensure that each and every server was set up in the same way - without the risk of typos or configuration errors creeping in. That principle hasn't changed. What has changed is the scale and complexity of modern networks.

Today, network operations span on-premises data centers, cloud network environments, SD-WAN deployments, IoT endpoints, and multi-vendor device configurations. Manual workflows simply can't keep up - and the consequences are real: outages, security vulnerabilities, and failed upgrades that could have been prevented. And with AI-driven approaches like AIOps and intent-based networking gaining traction, the pressure to automate - and automate intelligently - has never been higher. According to Gartner, 30% of enterprises will automate more than half of their network activities by 2026. That number was under 10% just a few years ago.

Tips for approaching network automation

While the goals of network automation are clear, actually automating complex data flows and workflows across your network infrastructure is a different story. As Daren puts it: a network isn't a network. It's lots of different networks put together to deliver a business outcome. So when you're trying to automate tasks across all that complexity, you could easily find yourself thinking, "How do I boil this ocean?"

1. Focus on the Solution, Not the Technology

There are more network automation tools, frameworks, and platforms out there than ever before - Ansible, Python scripts, CLI-based automation, zero-touch provisioning, low-code orchestration platforms, you name it. And that choice can actually become a problem. "I think people get too wrapped up in which of the frameworks and automation tools they should be using," Simon says.

His advice: don't start with the technology. Start by framing the problem and the desired outcome. What exactly is the pain point? Is it provisioning new devices taking too long? Configuration management being inconsistent across network devices? Troubleshooting taking hours because there's no single source of truth? Are your security policies applied inconsistently because device configurations are managed manually? Once you've clearly defined the problem, "the toolset will suggest itself."

This approach also helps you avoid the trap of automating for automation's sake. Not every workflow needs a full orchestration platform. Sometimes a well-written Python script or a simple API call is all you need to streamline a specific network operation. And sometimes, what looks like a complex automation challenge is really just a managed services question - or a matter of choosing the right network automation platform from the start.

2. Understand the Data Flows You Are Automating

A data flow is made up of several tasks strung together to provide a service or function. To not only automate a workflow but also deliver a real outcome, you need to deeply understand the workflow you're replacing. This is where Daren believes automation gets genuinely interesting - and genuinely powerful.

"What you're now talking about is not just automating a task, but feeding data from that automated task from the network infrastructure itself into other platforms, other tools. You're using APIs and such like to hook together systems and provide connectivity - not just for the people connecting to the network, but for the data itself to go through the process."

In other words: end-to-end automation isn't just about eliminating manual steps. It's about creating programmable, connected workflows where data flows intelligently between systems - from network devices to ticketing tools, from monitoring platforms to configuration management databases, from security policies to automated remediation. Think of it as building a digital transformation layer for your network operations: one where workloads are handled automatically, IP address assignments are tracked without manual intervention, and network security events trigger immediate, automated responses. That's the foundation of what modern AIOps and closed-loop automation are built on - and it's where DevOps thinking meets network engineering.

And while low-code platforms make this easier than ever, you still need to understand the data flow well enough to trigger the right APIs and get the right responses from your systems. Skipping this step is one of the most common reasons automation projects fail.

3. Start with Single Tasks

Both Simon and Daren are strong advocates for starting small. "Start small, start with clearly defined requirements, get that working, and then build out your tooling as things evolve," is Simon's advice. It sounds almost too simple - but it works.

Daren sees the same benefit in starting at the single-task level and then building that automated task into an existing process. You can gradually replace manual steps until you've automated the whole workflow. And once you have the full process automated, you can start to optimize it - looking at other use cases for the data, improving the flow, reducing downtime, and increasing application performance across the board. Firmware upgrades that used to take an entire weekend? Automated. Load balancing adjustments triggered by real-time traffic data? Automated. Authentication checks for new devices joining the network? Automated.

There's another benefit to this approach that often gets overlooked: reusability. Once you've built and tested an automated task - say, automatically detecting new devices and adding them to your inventory, or triggering configuration management checks after network changes - that task can be reused across multiple workflows. "Once you've gone through the pain of the initial setup, you can then just recycle and tweak with relatively minimal effort," Simon explains.

That's the real lifecycle advantage of network automation done right: the upfront investment pays dividends across your entire network management practice.

Monitoring as Part of the Automation Chain

Here's something that often surprises people: a monitoring tool like Paessler PRTG isn't just a passive observer in your network automation setup. It can be an active participant in your automation workflows.

Think about it. PRTG monitors your network infrastructure in real-time - routers, switches, firewalls, Wi-Fi access points, endpoints, servers, and more. When something changes or goes wrong, PRTG can trigger automated responses: running scripts, calling APIs, kicking off Ansible playbooks, or alerting the right people before downtime even happens. That's monitoring as part of a closed-loop automation chain - not just watching, but acting.

In the podcast episode, Daren and Simon talk through a concrete example where IP Fabric and PRTG work together in an inventory management scenario. IP Fabric acts as the source of truth for network topology and device configurations, while PRTG handles real-time monitoring and alerting. Together, they create an automated, end-to-end workflow that reduces manual effort and improves network visibility. You can see exactly how this works in this video with Simon and Daren.

This kind of integration is exactly where network automation is heading in 2026: not isolated scripts and one-off tools, but connected ecosystems where monitoring, configuration management, orchestration, and AIOps work together to keep your network operations running smoothly. Whether you're a service provider managing hundreds of customer environments, an enterprise network team dealing with cloud-native workloads, or a network engineer trying to get on-demand visibility into your modern networks - the principle is the same: monitoring and automation belong together in the same chain. Network automation solutions that don't include monitoring are only half the story.