Labs
Projects, experiments and step-by-step build notes.
NetOvi: One Intent, Four Network Operating Systems
The NetOvi guardrails became a web portal, and the portal went multi-vendor: Cisco IOS and NX-OS, Arista EOS and Juniper Junos, driven from one vendor-neutral NetBox intent, every change proposed, confirmed with a literal YES, applied and verified by reading the device again.
NetOvi: Putting Guardrails Around an AI Network Engineering Assistant
What started as ShowPilot - AI-assisted, read-only network troubleshooting - became NetOvi once a guardrailed write path was worth building: a NetBox-driven MPLS pipeline, and an AI interface that can propose config changes but cannot apply one without a literal YES.
Phase 3: Giving an AI Read-Only Access to the Fabric via MCP
Building two MCP servers - one auto-generated from NetBox's OpenAPI schema, one hand-built on Netmiko - and testing whether an AI actually notices something real on the fabric, or just reports 0% packet loss and calls it done.
Phase 2: Cisco VXLAN EVPN in Practice - L2VNI, L3VNI, and External Connectivity
Building and verifying a VXLAN EVPN fabric by hand - L2VNI bridging, symmetric IRB L3VNI routing, VRF isolation, and eBGP-based external connectivity - before automating any of it with MCP.
Phase 1: Building My Network Automation Lab with Netlab and NetBox
Building a proper network lab with NetBox as source of truth, preparing for AI-powered automation