Summary: Intent-based networking is the latest in a long string of dreams and schemes to get meaningful, wide-scale automation into data center networks.<br> In broad strokes, intent-based networking, or IBN, sounds like magic: take high-level, human comprehensible business goals, run them through some abstraction layers, click your heels three times, and out comes the low-level configurations that are automatically programmed into the requisite devices.<br> For any network engineer who’s been burned by automation schemes in the past, this might sound too good to be true.<br> On today’s Heavy Networking, we peer behind the curtain of intent-based networking to find out if we’re actually dealing with a wizard this time, or just another pretender blowing smoke.<br> Our guest is Phil Gervasi, a network engineer and solutions architect. You may know him at <a href="https://twitter.com/network_phil" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Network Phil on Twitter</a> or his blog <a href="https://networkphil.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">networkphil.com</a>.<br> Phil wrote two in-depth white papers on IBN for the <a href="https://ignition.packetpushers.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Packet Pushers Ignition</a> site. He did a lot of research and analysis, and today we’re going to pick his brains as we follow the yellow brick road to intent-based networking.<br> In particular, we dive into three main areas of IBN:<br> <br> <br> <br> * Network abstraction<br> * Continuous validation<br> * Autonomous remediation<br> <br> <br> <br> Sponsor: ThousandEyes<br> ThousandEyes gives you performance visibility from every user to every app over any network, both internal and external, so you can migrate to the cloud, troubleshoot faster and deliver exceptional user experiences. Sign up for a free account at<a href="http://www.thousandeyes.com/packetpushers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> thousandeyes.com/packetpushers</a> and choose a free ThousandEyes t-shirt.<br> Show Links:<br> <a href="https://ignition.packetpushers.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Packet Pushers Ignition</a><br> <a href="https://twitter.com/network_phil" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Phil Gervasi on Twitter</a><br> <a href="https://networkphil.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Network Phil</a><br> <a href="https://www.ietf.org/id/draft-clemm-nmrg-dist-intent-02.txt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Intent-Based Networking – Concepts and Overview</a> – IETF<br>
