Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
A continuation of Cat's panel series for "Network Automation Showdowns". Cat has previously held panels on automation tools (Ansible, Nornir, Napalm, etc) and automation programming languages (Go, Python Rust). This time we will have a panel comparing and contrasting the two open source tools that are heavily used as Network Source of Truth (NSoT) solutions: NetBox & NautoBot, as well as the new kid on the block which is also open source: Infrahub.
NOTE: Just Like all previous showdown panels this is not a true "showdown" but a panel to help compare, contrast and educate attendees about the options out there available and their pro's and con's. Topics to discuss:
* What are some of the best features on the NSoT you chose that you rely on regularly?
* Why did you pick it over the other one?
* What can each NSoT do vs. not do (core functionality, extensibility, etc)?
* What are the limitations of the NSoT you chose?
* How easy is it to write automations against your NSoT?
* Do you integrate your NSoT with any network automation tools (Ansible, Napalm, Nornir, etc)
* How did you populate your source of truth w/ your network inventory? (manual, automation, discovery, etc)
* Do you use the free vs paid (enterprise) versions of your NSoT? What limitations would free users run into with each?
Moderator Cat Gurinsky - Apple Inc.
Panelist Shannon Byrnes - Internet2
Barrie Cook - Barrie Jones Cook Consulting LLC
Michael Costello
Jason Edelman - Network to Code
Damien Garros - OpsMill
A continuation of Cat's panel series for "Network Automation Showdowns". Cat has previously held panels on automation tools (Ansible, Nornir, Napalm, etc) and automation programming languages (Go, Python Rust). This time we will have a panel comparing and contrasting the two open source tools that are heavily used as Network Source of Truth (NSoT) solutions: NetBox & NautoBot, as well as the new kid on the block which is also open source: Infrahub.
NOTE: Just Like all previous showdown panels this is not a true "showdown" but a panel to help compare, contrast and educate attendees about the options out there available and their pro's and con's. Topics to discuss:
* What are some of the best features on the NSoT you chose that you rely on regularly?
* Why did you pick it over the other one?
* What can each NSoT do vs. not do (core functionality, extensibility, etc)?
* What are the limitations of the NSoT you chose?
* How easy is it to write automations against your NSoT?
* Do you integrate your NSoT with any network automation tools (Ansible, Napalm, Nornir, etc)
* How did you populate your source of truth w/ your network inventory? (manual, automation, discovery, etc)
* Do you use the free vs paid (enterprise) versions of your NSoT? What limitations would free users run into with each?
Moderator Cat Gurinsky - Apple Inc.
Panelist Shannon Byrnes - Internet2
Barrie Cook - Barrie Jones Cook Consulting LLC
Michael Costello
Jason Edelman - Network to Code
Damien Garros - OpsMill
