Automation plays a critical role in modern networks.
It helps network engineers manage networks with fewer repetitive manual tasks for greater agility.
Network engineers cannot automate - or secure - what they don't understand.
Understanding network automation workflows is vital for efficient network management and security.
Networks are an important factor as enterprises scale their digital initiatives, and automation can enable digitalization and innovation.
To maintain networks and automation efficiently, network engineers and administrators should follow some best practices to secure network automation workflows.
This step ensures that only authorized devices and users can access and run automation scripts and tools.
Networks that aren't secured well can be compromised at any time.
The challenge for network engineers and administrators is to work on secured workflows for safer networks.
Use a VPN. Attackers can eavesdrop data any time on public networks.
A VPN encrypts the traffic and helps network professionals access network automation workflows remotely anytime they want to work.
This includes passwords, API keys, credentials and other sensitive data in the automation network.
Network engineers and admins interact with devices using network protocols all the time.
Nonsecure data can be intercepted or eavesdropped, so it's recommended to choose Secure Shell and HTTPS instead of HTTP. Use complex encryption algorithms.
Network engineers and admins should improve workflows to have efficient vulnerability management, and automation can help.
By using a CI/CD pipeline to automate build, test and deploy automation scripts, engineers and admins can ensure that scripts and any changes to them are secure.
This data is helpful for network engineers and admins to improve automation workflows by observing behaviors in the logs they collect and analyze.
Automation involves collaboration among different teams.
Consider the CALMS framework in DevOps: culture, automation, lean, measurement and sharing.
Verlaine Muhungu is a self-taught freelance network technician.
This Cyber News was published on www.techtarget.com. Publication date: Thu, 21 Dec 2023 16:13:05 +0000