abstraction layer

"All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection"

David Wheeler

Once upon a time

• Lots of manual work. Hello typos.
• Remember to not forget any command
• Remember all the specifics commands and workflows of each potential platform
• The buffer will bite you back if your config is too long

Template all the things

• Still a lot of manual work. Hello again, typos.
• Lots of data to track
• Duplicated information
• Never forget a command again

Step back

What are you trying to achieve?

ABSTRACT

Template all the things

• Things just happened
• We abstracted our goal and our vendors
• Still some manual labor still to check everything is fine
• People has to know how to add/remove a link
• I have to remember a not very intuitive long command, that I have to set a variable called commit_changes

Did I say abstract already?

• 🌈 🦄 👸 🐸 ✨ 👽 🤖
• You can add/remove a link without having a clue what happens behind the scenes
• check_fabric_health is a red/green check

Abstract again!

• Operations exposed to the entire organization
• Do you want to know what happened at 3am when things blew? Just scroll up
• An API to connect all the systems

Let's recap

• We abstracted individual interfaces and BGP peers
• We abstracted our real goal; build a fabric
• We also abstracted our network equipment
• We abstracted the operations: adding/removing a link and checking the fabrics' health
• We finally abstracted the environment by exposing it via slack and an API

Questions?

Don't abstract them

https://www.dravetech.com/presos/abstraction.html
https://github.com/dravetech/preso_abstract_all_the_things