Book Image

Mastering Python Networking

Book Image

Mastering Python Networking

Overview of this book

This book begins with a review of the TCP/ IP protocol suite and a refresher of the core elements of the Python language. Next, you will start using Python and supported libraries to automate network tasks from the current major network vendors. We will look at automating traditional network devices based on the command-line interface, as well as newer devices with API support, with hands-on labs. We will then learn the concepts and practical use cases of the Ansible framework in order to achieve your network goals. We will then move on to using Python for DevOps, starting with using open source tools to test, secure, and analyze your network. Then, we will focus on network monitoring and visualization. We will learn how to retrieve network information using a polling mechanism, ?ow-based monitoring, and visualizing the data programmatically. Next, we will learn how to use the Python framework to build your own customized network web services. In the last module, you will use Python for SDN, where you will use a Python-based controller with OpenFlow in a hands-on lab to learn its concepts and applications. We will compare and contrast OpenFlow, OpenStack, OpenDaylight, and NFV. Finally, you will use everything you’ve learned in the book to construct a migration plan to go from a legacy to a scalable SDN-based network.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Title
Humble Bundle
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
12
OpenStack, OpenDaylight, and NFV

Network s API


Often, your network consists of network devices that do not change a lot once put into production. For example, you would have core devices, distribution devices, spine, leaf, top of rack switches, and so on. Each of the devices would have certain characteristics and features that you would like to keep in a persistent location so you can easily retrieve them later on. This is often done in terms of storing data in a database. However, you would not normally want to give other users, who might want this information, direct access to the database; nor do they want to learn all the complex SQL query language. For this case, we can leverage Flask and the Flask-SQLAlchemy extension of Flask.

Note

You can learn more about Flask-SQLAlchemy at http://flask-sqlalchemy.pocoo.org/2.1/.

Flask-SQLAlchemy

Of course, SQLAlchemy and the Flask extension are a database abstraction layer and object relational mapper, respectively. It's a fancy way of saying use the Python object for a database....