I wanted to draw attention to this WAN Orchestration demonstration video from Nuage Networks to highlight that you don’t need to become a programmer to bring orchestration to your network.
Its worth a 3 minute watch to get some new ideas on how to simplify ownership and management of a large WAN. 
I reject the idea that NetOps means every engineer needs to be coding in Python. That simply doesn’t scale. A very few people will use Python to provide customisation of platforms and frameworks like Nuage Networks Networks, VMware NSX and Glue Networks. But most of us will make things work just fine with orchestration products that will automate the network for us.
This is the deliverable that Software Defined Networking will bring you.
Other Posts in A Series On The Same Topic
- Analysis: CloudFlare Keyless SSL Scales Down Internet Connections (13th March 2015)
- Analysis: Marriot Court Case Highlights the Problems of WiFi Services (12th March 2015)
- Analysis: Example of WAN Orchestration (25th February 2015)
I agree with you, however in my opinion the majority of network engineers need to face that it’s no longer acceptable just knowing the CLI of a particular vendor so well. The importance of deep understanding of network protocols and overall network design has become more profound.
I ‘d like to know your opinion on this and where you think the direction of the most network engineers should be?
I am not so sure the majority of networks engineers need to code. Sure it can be hugely valuable in some cases. The more mature technology becomes, the less low level coding is involved, as illustrated by this article.