As the Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) has become a popular industry-leading software for automating services across traditional and virtualized networks, I have observed that the orchestrated traditional (physical) or virtualized node is based on ConfD to provide programmability via NETCONF and YANG. It, therefore, made sense to put together an application note aimed at network element providers who build their products around ConfD to show what best practices to follow when their products are ConfD based, NETCONF and YANG enabled, and managed by NSO.
When NSO or similar NETCONF and YANG capable managers want to deliver high-quality services faster and more easily, service automation becomes a top priority. For ConfD based physical or virtual equipment, the best practice is to follow the recommended Service Automation Criteria.
In this application note, I provide an overview of the expectations of network elements from service providers who want to ensure that their services are delivered in real time. I then show how a ConfD based network element can be interfaced with NSO to meet the requirements described as the Service Automation Criteria through precise machine-to-machine transactions.
Another important piece of any integration is to be able to verify the interaction between NSO and a ConfD based network element. This application note provides a walk-through demonstration of a test environment for such a setup. Readers are guided through how NSO and ConfD can be set up to support network-wide transactions where the Pioneer NED Builder tool together with the DrNED Examiner tools can be used to continuously verify the device’s NSO interoperation.
As a next step after reading this app note, we highly recommend taking the NSO interoperability testing of your ConfD based network element to the next level by contacting us to learn more about our ConfD and NSO Interoperability Testing program.
I look forward to hearing from current and future NSO interoperability testers and developers about your thoughts on how ConfD, NSO, and the DrNED and Pioneer NED Builder tools can be improved to fully utilize the strengths of ConfD and NSO. We aim to make good on our promise of a programmable network where services are automatically provisioned by managing the configuration in network-wide transactions.
Download your copy of the app note today.
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