Automating Network Programmability and Backup on Cisco Devices Using Python and Netmiko Library: A Case Study of Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital LAN

The need for programmability and backup automation in modern network administration has become increasingly critical. In environments that facilitate and heavily depend on essential network operations, such as hospitals, ensuring secure, stable, and reliable processes in network management is imperative. This study proposes an automated framework for the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) Local Area Network (LAN), leveraging Python and the Netmiko library to streamline backups of Cisco devices, significantly improving upon the limitations of manual processes used by the hospital's networking professionals. Results from experiments conducted in the study show a slightly above 99% reduction in backup completion time; 60 minutes to a maximum of 1.56 seconds per device, a 100% success rate in backup configuration, and an optimized resource utilization. The experiments also demonstrated that the proposed automated scheme effectively addressed the challenges posed by these conventional yet error-prone manual processes. This was validated through performance evaluation metrics such as backup completion time, success rate, and resource utilization.