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Chapter 12: Operational Automation — Day 2 and Beyond

Day-2 operational automation covering automated compliance checking, device configuration backups, drift detection, scheduled automation tasks, and ongoing operational procedures.

What You'll Learn

Automated Compliance Checking

Configuration drift detection:

  • Compare live configs against source of truth
  • Detect unauthorized manual changes
  • Flag configuration deviations
  • Generate compliance reports
  • Alert NOC via Webex on drift detection

Automated Device Config Backup

Daily backup procedures:

  • Scheduled backup of all device running configs
  • Git commit with timestamp and metadata
  • Retention policy management
  • Restore capability from backup history
  • Integration with change management system

Scheduled Automation Tasks

Recurring operational procedures:

  • Daily config backup (2 AM local time)
  • Weekly compliance scanning
  • Monthly certificate expiration checks
  • Quarterly license inventory
  • On-demand validation runs

Chapter Navigation

Operational Philosophy

Continuous Compliance

Compliance is not a point-in-time audit. Daily drift detection ensures configurations match approved source of truth throughout the lifecycle.

Backup Before Change

Always capture pre-change configuration backup. Enables fast rollback without requiring Git history navigation.


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