Streamline Operations with Cisco Meraki and Red Hat Ansible Automation

[ad_1] Cisco Reside North America is simply across the nook, and it’s the right time to dive into the world of community automation. For those who’re trying to streamline operations, increase effectivity, and guarantee compliance, you might want to take a look at the facility of mixing Cisco Meraki and Crimson Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

On this weblog we'll discover a number of well-liked buyer use circumstances for Meraki and Ansible Automation Platform. We are going to present steering on the way to be taught extra, together with a demo. And in the event you’ll be at Cisco Reside San Diego, we show you how to plan your agenda to be taught extra about these use circumstances.

Cisco Meraki and Crimson Hat Ansible: higher collectively For companies with a number of department areas or complicated community infrastructures, managing IT infrastructure manually is a recipe for human errors and inefficiency, principally attributable to inconsistencies within the operational procedures. Cisco Meraki’s cloud-managed networking, coupled with Ansible Automation Platform, affords a sturdy and constant resolution to boost your IT operations.

Let’s discover a number of the prime Meraki use circumstances that might be obtainable with Ansible Automation Platform, within the type of a Validated Content material Assortment, that can simplify your operations lifecycle: department provisioning, audit and compliance checks, configuration drift audits, and common rotation of Wi-Fi pre-shared keys.

1. Department provisioning: quick, constant, and dependable Think about deploying a whole lot or hundreds of latest websites, retail shops, distant places of work, or perhaps a single web site. Historically, this course of would contain hours of guide configuration for every location, rising the danger of errors and inconsistencies. Every web site would possibly require constant configurations for firewalls, switches, and Wi-Fi entry factors, all of which should align with safety insurance policies. Handbook provisioning shouldn't be solely time consuming but additionally susceptible to human error, doubtlessly resulting in safety vulnerabilities or community outages.

With Meraki and Ansible Automation Platform, web site enlargement turns into a streamlined, automated course of. Ansible Automation Platform permits you to create reusable Ansible playbooks, that are automated scripts that outline the specified state of your community. These Ansible playbooks can work together with the Meraki API to carry out configurations throughout your whole gadgets. This implies you'll be able to outline a template or “golden configuration” for a typical department after which apply that configuration constantly throughout all new websites.

Steps required for a department provisioning orchestrated workflow:

Create networks and declare gadgets. Configure gateway (firewall) and WAN. Configure switches. Configure SSID and entry factors. Automate documentation and reporting to replace enterprise methods together with Sources of Reality

Through the use of Ansible Automation Platform to automate department provisioning with Cisco Meraki, organizations can obtain a extra agile, dependable, and safe community infrastructure. This strategy is particularly useful for firms with a lot of geographically distributed areas, with operation groups that must orchestrate a number of applied sciences, at scale, with a centralized strategy.

2. Audit and compliance verify: Keep forward of the curve Managing configurations throughout an unlimited community with a number of areas can rapidly turn out to be complicated. Sustaining consistency and guaranteeing compliance with inner insurance policies and exterior laws is vital. That is the place automating audit and compliance checks with Ansible Automation Platform turns into invaluable.

Ansible Automation Platform permits you to leverage the Meraki API utilizing Ansible Automation Platform to check a corporation’s settings and standing towards a set of greatest practices and thresholds – uncovering configurations that needs to be modified.

This consists of common checks, in addition to Wi-Fi and swap compliance checks.

3. Configuration drift audit: keep a supply of reality in your firewall insurance policies Configuration drift can result in sudden community conduct and safety vulnerabilities. With Ansible Automation Platform, you'll be able to set up a “good community” baseline—your supply of reality. Then, Ansible Automation Platform compares your reside community configurations to this baseline and identifies any deviations, particularly in vital areas like firewall insurance policies. You resolve in order for you Ansible Automation Platform to robotically right any non-compliant configurations or create a service ticket with all the small print.

Through the use of Ansible Automation Platform to take care of a supply of reality and audit for configuration drift, you'll be able to be sure that your Cisco Meraki community operates reliably, securely, and in compliance along with your group’s requirements. This proactive strategy enormously reduces threat and streamlines community operations.

4. Scheduled rotation of Wi-Fi pre-shared keys: improve safety Usually updating Wi-Fi pre-shared keys (PSK) for visitor networks is a vital safety greatest observe. In dynamic environments the place quite a few visitors might entry the community, static PSKs can turn out to be a safety vulnerability. If a PSK is compromised, unauthorized customers can simply achieve entry. A scheduled rotation of those keys considerably reduces this threat. Manually altering PSKs each month throughout a number of websites is a tedious and error-prone course of, however Ansible Automation Platform can automate this important safety activity, guaranteeing constant and well timed updates.

Ansible Automation Platform can be utilized to generate new, sturdy PSKs robotically after which push these new keys to your whole Meraki entry factors. This may be scheduled as a recurring activity, guaranteeing that the PSKs are rotated each month with out guide intervention. This automated course of not solely enhances safety but additionally frees up beneficial IT sources.

Why This Issues: key benefits of Cisco Meraki and Crimson Hat Ansible Automation Platform By combining Cisco Meraki’s cloud-managed networking with Ansible Automation Platform, organizations obtain:

Fast deployment Proactive compliance Operational stability Enhanced safety

Be part of Us at Cisco Reside North America!

Able to see Cisco Meraki and Ansible Automation Platform in motion? Be part of us at Cisco Reside North America! Listed below are just a few periods so as to add to your agenda that showcase the facility of those applied sciences: