Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Abstract
Network change failures in real-world environments still most often trace back to manual changes, configuration drift, and the absence of structured pre- and post-change validation. Over the last few years, I have worked with multiple customer environments that shifted toward a “Network as Code” operating model, applying CI/CD workflows, structured intent, and automated testing to day-to-day change operations.
This talk focuses on what that looks like in practice from an operator workflow point of view rather than from a product or tooling perspective. It covers how configuration data, schemas, validation rules, and automation pipelines fit together, and which guardrails have actually helped reduce rollback events and improve consistency across devices and domains.
The session also includes lessons learned from incremental adoption, including where teams started, what worked operationally, and what did not, along with a short recorded demo showing validation behavior and post-change verification inside a CI/CD-driven workflow.
NAVIN SUVARNA:
Navin Suvarna is a Principal Architect at Cisco Systems, working with large enterprise and public sector organizations on network architecture, operations, and large-scale transformation initiatives. His work spans enterprise, data center, and service provider environments, with a focus on improving operational reliability through better change processes, validation, and automation. Navin has spent his career designing and operating complex multi-domain networks, and more recently helping teams adopt structured, CI/CD-style workflows and “as code” approaches for network change and configuration management. He is a regular speaker at industry forums and the author of Designing Real-World Multi-Domain Networks.
nanog.org/events/nanog-96/content/5675
Abstract
Network change failures in real-world environments still most often trace back to manual changes, configuration drift, and the absence of structured pre- and post-change validation. Over the last few years, I have worked with multiple customer environments that shifted toward a “Network as Code” operating model, applying CI/CD workflows, structured intent, and automated testing to day-to-day change operations.
This talk focuses on what that looks like in practice from an operator workflow point of view rather than from a product or tooling perspective. It covers how configuration data, schemas, validation rules, and automation pipelines fit together, and which guardrails have actually helped reduce rollback events and improve consistency across devices and domains.
The session also includes lessons learned from incremental adoption, including where teams started, what worked operationally, and what did not, along with a short recorded demo showing validation behavior and post-change verification inside a CI/CD-driven workflow.
NAVIN SUVARNA:
Navin Suvarna is a Principal Architect at Cisco Systems, working with large enterprise and public sector organizations on network architecture, operations, and large-scale transformation initiatives. His work spans enterprise, data center, and service provider environments, with a focus on improving operational reliability through better change processes, validation, and automation. Navin has spent his career designing and operating complex multi-domain networks, and more recently helping teams adopt structured, CI/CD-style workflows and “as code” approaches for network change and configuration management. He is a regular speaker at industry forums and the author of Designing Real-World Multi-Domain Networks.
nanog.org/events/nanog-96/content/5675
