Design and Experimental Evaluation of a NetDevOps Framework for Automated Network Deployment, Testing and Troubleshooting

Network automation increasingly requires reproducible workflows that connect deployment with objective post-deployment assurance. This study proposes a six-phase NetDevOps framework integrating Planning, Infrastructure Modeling, Validation, Automated Deployment, Operational Testing, and Operational State Verification. The framework was instantiated using YAML, Jinja2, Ansible, and pyATS and evaluated in two emulated MPLS L3VPN configurations comprising five and ten Cisco devices. Fifteen measured runs per workflow and configuration characterized execution time as well as automation-host processor and memory consumption, while the Operational Compliance Index (OCI) and Global Compliance Index (GCI) quantified operational acceptance. Controlled perturbations examined compliance behavior and baseline-driven state verification. The results showed repeatable execution and stable automation-host resource consumption under the evaluated conditions. OCI and GCI differentiated conformity among evaluable outcomes from incomplete evaluability, while qualified-baseline comparisons exposed structured state differences associated with known interface- and protocol-level perturbations. These findings support the feasibility of integrating automated deployment, quantitative operational acceptance, and baseline-driven state verification within a repeatable NetDevOps lifecycle, without implying comparative superiority, scalability, or multi-vendor portability.