Data-driven Automation with Netbox
Solution overview
What is Data-driven Automation?
Data-driven automation is an approach that prioritizes a data-first mindset in automation design and execution. It often leverages event-driven architectures to trigger automated configuration changes and validation testing in response to updates in a source of truth, such as NetBox. Beyond system design, data-driven principles also guide how automation is structured—for instance, by organizing variables around specific features and writing logic that executes conditionally, only when corresponding data is present.
Why is it Important?
Data-driven automation brings consistency, agility, and scalability to IT operations. By leveraging trusted data, organizations can reduce human error, ensure compliance with design standards, and automate complex workflows in response to real-time changes.
What's in the lab?
In this hands-on lab, learners will explore how to build and configure a data-driven automation workflow using Ansible Automation Platform and NetBox. The lab guides users through practical exercises that demonstrate how real-time source of truth changes can trigger automated configuration. Participants will configure NetBox event rules and webhooks to emit actionable events, set up Event-Driven Ansible event streams to receive and process those events, and create rulebook activations that respond intelligently. By the end of the lab, learners will have a working solution that tightly integrates their source of truth with automation workflows—enabling scalable, responsive infrastructure management.