Muna On The Road: Building a Source of Truth at AutoCon 4

For this stop, I traveled to the Network Automation Forum’s AutoCon 4, the definitive gathering for network automation practitioners. It was a beautiful experience, and I am looking forward to the next edition!

My session, "From CLI to Model: Building a Foundational Source of Truth for Brownfield Networks," was inspired by my time in the industry. From managing ancient, brownfield networks, I experienced firsthand how valuable a dependable Source of Truth (SOT) is in network operations.

This experience birthed "Revelo," a practical methodology designed to reverse-engineer a reliable SOT directly from a network's existing state. We explored how to move away from static spreadsheets and manual tracking by implementing a bootstrap workflow that automatically discovers devices and generates a dynamic inventory. By shifting the focus from reactive scripting to building a comprehensive model of the network, we laid the groundwork for automation that is actually scalable and understandable for engineers dealing with legacy infrastructure.

The technical core of the talk demonstrated how to execute this transformation using a robust Python stack. We walked through using NAPALM for vendor-neutral data collection, Netmiko for specific command execution, and Genie to parse raw CLI output into structured JSON models. This process allows us to capture the network's "intended state" programmatically, enabling powerful validation workflows. By comparing these live state models against baseline snapshots, I showed how engineers can perform intelligent, "noise-free" diffs to detect configuration drift and audit compliance instantly—without ever needing to touch the live network during the audit.

It was a privilege to share this roadmap with engineers looking to close the "automation gap" and move from fragile scripts to robust, auditable infrastructure.

You can watch the entire talk here: