Accelerate NetOps transformation with Ansible Automation Platform

2025 was an incredible year for network operations (NetOps) and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. To address growing network complexity, Red Hat has provided the tools NetOps teams need to implement a strategic automation approach.

Through major platform releases, new partner integrations and global events, Red Hat has helped customers achieve enterprise-wide network automation with Ansible Automation Platform. Let’s take a look back at the major network automation milestones that defined the year.

Key platform innovations

In October, Ansible introduced Automation Platform 2.6, which introduces new capabilities, platform enhancements and strategic integrations to help customers build resilient and reliable foundations for modern IT operations. The 2.6 version highlighted 3 new features:

• The new automation dashboard: Unlock more value with the new automation dashboard that lets you measure the value and impact of automation initiatives.
• The new Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed intelligent assistant: Work more efficiently with the new Ansible Lightspeed intelligent assistant, which enables you to use gen AI to provide on-demand support for a more intuitive platform experience.
• The self-service automation portal: Achieve scalability in less time with the self-service automation portal, which enables you to quickly and easily scale automation service delivery to new users and teams

You can learn more about these new features in the Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 release blog.

Partner Ecosystem Growth

Our Red Hat Ansible-certified content ecosystem also saw exponential growth in 2025, enabling NetOps teams to unify their multi-vendor environments with proven, supported automation.

The new partner integrations and automation content include:

• Cisco: New validated content for Cisco Meraki has also been released to automate cloud-managed remote devices, including branch provisioning, troubleshooting via health checks, and Wifi key rotation use cases. The network.meraki_ops validated content collection uses the existing certified content collection, cisco.meraki.
• F5: F5 released the f5networks.f5_eda_security content collection to enable proactive security. By integrating Event Driven Ansible with monitoring systems, this solution automatically updates Advanced Web Application firewalls when an incident is detected. Advanced WAF appliances are part of BIG-IP platform for application delivery and security services, and this content collection provides a starting point to extend event-driven automation to more F5 technologies.
• Sliding ware: We have released the Red Hat Ansible Certified Content Collection for Sliding wareenabling users to leverage Gluware’s Network Automation Suite and predefined use cases with Ansible Playbooks to enable faster network automation.
• HPE Juniper: Red Hat and Juniper partnership has yielded several improvements for our joint customers.
  • Ansible Automation Platform collection with Juniper Network provides a single, supported collection of modules and plugins for our customers, now available in the juniper.device certified content collection.
  • HPE Juniper has released a solution to automate Juniper Apstra and enable event-driven automation through Kubernetes events, which can be achieved using the juniper.apstra and juniper.eda collections.
• Multivendor inventory reports: New validated content collect, generate, maintain and visualize network resource inventory_reports for Edge EOS, Cisco IOS XE, Cisco IOS XR, and Cisco NXOS devices.
• Health checks with multiple providers: New validated content with platform-agnostic roles perform automatic health checks on various network devices, including BGP, CPU, memory, uptime, environment, crash files, file system, and interface facts for Edge EOS, Cisco IOS XE, Cisco IOS XR, and Cisco NXOS devices.
• Cisco Meraki ops
• NetBox Labs: In collaboration with NetBox Labs, we have provided updated guidance, joint demos and webinars. These resources have helped customers establish a network source of truth through the Red Hat Ansible Certified Content Collection for NetBox.
• Network to Encode: New certified content has been released to support network source-of-truth solutions, including a Red Hat Ansible-certified content collection for extended support for Nautobot.
• Nokia: New certified content has been released to support Nokia Service Router Linux (SR Linux) network operating system (NOS). The nokia.srlinux collection is YANG-based and uses Nokia SR Linux YANG models.
• Red Hat OpenShift Network: As of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, version 4.17, the OpenShiftSDN CNI plugin has been deprecated.

The network.offline_migration_sdn_to_ovnk collection helps you migrate the CNI Network Plugin from OpenShiftSDN to OVN-Kubernetes Network Plugin and perform rollback from OVN-Kubernetes to OpenShiftSDN.

• Splunk: New add-on integrates alerts from Splunk ITSI and Splunk ES with the Event-Driven Ansible decisioning capability. Delivered as a Splunkbase add-on, you can now automate response to Splunk alerts. Learn more in here blog or look at this webinar.

Key events

Ansible Automation Platform experts have been busy this year attending various events around the world, making sure our users have plenty of opportunities to learn and share best practices. A few of our top events include:

• Red Hat Summit and AnsibleFest 2025 (May): Now fully integrated with Red Hat Summit, the event featured in-depth network automation tracks, hands-on labs and keynotes focused on scaling NetOps across the hybrid cloud.
• Red Hat Summit connects: We’ve brought the Summit experience to cities worldwide, giving local attendees direct access to Ansible Automation Platform experts and interactive learning opportunities.
• AI Network Summit: At this NYC event, we met with thought leaders to demonstrate how Ansible Automation Platform is paving the way for innovation in the network automation space.
• Cisco Live (EMEA and North America): We sponsored events in both regions to connect with partners and customers through technical sessions, labs and one-on-one conversations.
• AutoCon: Organized by the Network Automation Forum in Austin, TX, this event allowed us to support the community’s mission to advance network operations through automation.

Top performing webinars

Throughout the year we also published various virtual content around network automation. From highlighting partner updates to demonstrating the value of Ansible Automation Platform, these webinars support customers who want to learn about network automation:

New content

Over the course of 2025, we’ve continued to provide our customers and users with updated content, including new eBooks, blogs, customer stories, and more. Top assets of this year include:

Look ahead to 2026

As we close this year and look ahead to 2026, we are grateful for all that we have accomplished and are excited to discover the opportunities and growth that the new year holds. Here are some things to look forward to:

• Attend “The Automation Advantage: Accelerating Agility and Efficiency in the Hybrid, Multi-Cloud Era” with Infoblox on Wednesday, December 17. (See region-specific links to register.)
• Join us for new webinars launching in our series starting in January.
• Catch us up Cisco Live EMEA in February.