Join us for an engaging session on Kubenet, a community-driven initiative designed to explore the untapped potential of Kubernetes as a robust automation and orchestration platform for network systems. While Kubernetes has revolutionized container orchestration, its capabilities extend far beyond, offering powerful tools to automate and manage physical, virtual, and containerized Network Operating Systems (NOS). This talk will highlight how network engineers can leverage Kubernetes to simplify, standardize, and scale network automation.

We’ll discuss the motivations behind Kubenet, its architecture, and its practical applications in diverse networking scenarios such as datacenter networking, WAN, peering, campus networking, and cloud environments. Core topics include: • Abstraction: Simplify and standardize network management with Kubernetes’ abstraction capabilities. • API-First Approach: Leverage Kubernetes’ vendor-agnostic and vendor-specific APIs to create programmable, flexible automation pipelines. • Desired State and Source of Truth (SOT): Use Kubernetes’ declarative model to define and maintain the desired state of network configurations. • Event-Driven Framework: Harness Kubernetes’ event-driven architecture for responsive and real-time network management. • Reconciliation Loop and Drift Detection: Ensure consistent alignment with desired configurations and quickly detect and remediate drift. • Vendor Plugins and Extensions: Integrate a wide range of tools and services through Kubernetes’ extensibility. • GitOps Principles: Adopt collaborative, version-controlled workflows for change and lifecycle management.

This session will also introduce open-source extensions developed by the Kubenet community, designed to tackle real-world networking challenges across Day-0, Day-1, and Day-2 operations.