Network Automations Fabric - NORFAB

NORFAB is a tool for extreme network automations.

Features

• Run Anywhere - locally on Windows, MAC or Linux, in a container, on a VM, in the cloud, centralized or distributed
• Extend Anything - extendability is in the core of NORFAB
• Integrate with Everything - Python API, REST API, CLI northbound interfaces
• Manage Anything - develop your own services or use built-in to manage your network infrastructure
• Model and data driven - Pydantic models for API, validation and documentation
• Automate Anything - we mean it, sky is the limit on what you can do with NORFAB automating your networks

The IDEA

Most of the software to manage networks falls into one of the two categories:

• heavyweight platforms running on dedicated infrastructure
• lightweight scripts or tools developed and run locally

NORFAB goal is to be both - software you can run equally well from your laptop or on a server, centralized or fully distributed, lightweight and feature reach. Capable of doing any use cases without the need to throw gazillions of dollars and man hours at it. Always ready to serve the purpose of unlocking engineers superpowers making their life better while fulfilling business requirements.

Architecture

TLDR Micro Services

Key components include

• Broker
• Clients
• Workers that form services

Services expose functionality consumed by Clients via Broker.

Built-in Broker

NORFAB comes with modified version of MDP (Majordomo Protocol) broker.

Built-in Clients

• Python API Client to provide foundation layer for building other clients
• PICLE Client for interactive command line shell interface targeted to be used by humans
• REST API Client based on FastAPI

Built-in Services

• Nornir Service to manage Network devices
• File services
• Simple Inventory Service a.k.a. SID

History

NORFAB is a successor of Salt-Nornir SaltStack proxy minion targeting to surpass its limitations.