Key Features to Look for in a Network Automation Platform for SONiC Networks

By a CCIE-Certified Network Engineer

As data center networks evolve toward open and disaggregated models, SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) has gained significant traction among enterprises and hyperscalers alike. Its modular architecture and support for a wide range of hardware platforms make it an ideal OS for scalable and vendor-neutral networking environments. However, with flexibility comes complexity, especially when it comes to operationalizing and automating these networks at scale.

Whether you’re migrating to SONiC or scaling up your existing deployment, selecting the right network automation platform is critical. You need tools that interconnect and support each other, like a platform. Here are the most important features I think you should look for:

1. Support for SONiC APIs and Management Models

At the core of SONiC is its reliance on standardized interfaces like REST, gNMI, and gRPC, as well as the use of Redis DB for state tracking. Your automation platform should natively support these interfaces. I suggest avoiding platforms that rely solely on CLI scraping or require custom scripts. I’ve found that native integration offers more reliable configuration management.

2. Declarative Configuration and Intent-Based Networking

A modern SONiC automation platform should support declarative commands, you define the desired network state, and the platform determines how to achieve it. Intent-based approaches reduce errors, enhance consistency, and make rollbacks and audits significantly easier.

3. Multi-Vendor and Multi-Platform Support

SONiC’s hardware-agnostic nature is both a blessing and a challenge. Automation platforms should support a variety of hardware platforms running SONiC, as well as legacy devices from traditional vendors. This ensures that automation workflows can span the full network stack without creating silos or needing multiple tools.

4. Telemetry and Real-Time Monitoring

SONiC exposes a rich set of telemetry data via streaming protocols like gNMI and SNMP. The ideal automation platform should be able to ingest, normalize, and visualize this data in real time. Look for platforms with built-in alerting, anomaly detection, and integration with Prometheus, Grafana, or similar tools.

5. Modular and Extensible Architecture

Given SONiC’s own modular design, it makes sense to choose an automation platform that mirrors this principle. Whether you’re managing BGP, EVPN-VXLAN overlays, or ACL policies, the platform should allow you to enable or disable modules as needed and easily integrate custom workflows.

6. Automated Testing and Validation Pipelines

Support for pre-deployment validation through test pipelines—especially integration with CI/CD tools—is essential. The platform should provide the ability to simulate configuration changes in lab or staging environments and validate them before applying changes in production. Integration with containerized lab environments like Containerlab or virtual testbeds is a plus.

7. Role-Based Access Control and Audit Logging

Enterprise deployments demand tight access control. The automation platform should include granular RBAC, integrate with identity providers like LDAP or SSO, and maintain a comprehensive audit trail of all changes and actions.

8. Open Standards and Community Support

Look for platforms built on open standards with strong community backing. Tools like Terraform, Ansible, Nornir, or platforms with open-source roots often provide better flexibility and faster adoption of SONiC-specific modules.

Final Thoughts

SONiC represents the future of open networking, but its full potential can only be unlocked with a capable automation framework. Choosing the right platform isn’t just about feature parity, it’s about alignment with the open, modular, and scalable ethos that SONiC embodies. A well-integrated automation solution turns complexity into agility and makes managing next-generation networks both practical and efficient.

Josh Saul

VP Product Marketing

Josh Saul has pioneered open source network solutions for more than 25 years. As an architect, he built core networks for GE, Pfizer and NBC Universal. As an engineer at Cisco, Josh advised customers in the Fortune 100 financial sector and evangelized new technologies to customers. More recently, Josh led marketing and product teams at VMware (acquired by Broadcom), Cumulus Networks (acquired by Nvidia), and Apstra (acquired by Juniper).

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