You've learned the foundations of network automation.
Why automate: Manual processes fail at scale. Automation provides speed, consistency, and auditability.
Configuration management: Ansible, Puppet, and Chef manage device configurations. Ansible dominates due to agentless design.
Network APIs: REST, NETCONF, and RESTCONF provide programmatic access. YANG models standardize data structures.
Python libraries: Netmiko handles SSH. NAPALM provides multi-vendor abstraction. Nornir enables concurrent execution.
Infrastructure as Code: Treat network configs like software. Version control and testing transform operations.