The challenges of CLI

At the Interop expo in Las Vegas 2014, BigSwitch Networks CEO Douglas Murray displayed the following slide to illustrate what has changed in Data Center Networking (DCN) in 20 years between 1993 to 2013:

Datacenter Networking Changes (source: https://www.bigswitch.com/sites/default/files/presentations/murraydouglasstartuphotseatpanel.pdf)

While he might be negatively biased toward the incumbent vendors when displaying this slide, the point is well taken. In his opinion, the only thing in managing routers and switches that has changed in 20 years was the protocol changing from Telnet to the more secured SSH. It is right around the same time that we start to see the consensus around the industry for the clear need to move away from manual, human-driven CLI toward an automatic, computer-centric automation API. Make no mistake, we still need to directly communicate with the device when making network designs, bringing up initial proof of concepts, and deploying the topology...