Creating a fabric intent using a manual topology

Before you create a new fabric intent based on a manually configured topology file, ensure you have done the following:

  • Created a region to which the fabric can belong; see Creating a region.
  • Imported a JSON file that describes the topology into the Fabric Services System.
This procedure describes how to create a fabric intent based on a previously defined topology that is described in a JSON file.
  1. Click to open the main menu.
  2. In the main menu, select Fabric Intents.
  3. Click the + CREATE A FABRIC INTENT button.
    Templates are displayed in a grid view by default. To switch to the list view, select in the template selection screen. Click to return to the grid view.
  4. Select the Imported Fabric Design / Manual Topology template.
  5. Click the CREATE button.
  6. On the left-side panel, enter or select the basic parameters that define your intended fabric as described in Basic parameters for manual topology fabric intent.
    At the top of the left-side panel, the name of the template you selected in step 4 is displayed as the "Reference Template".
    Table 1. Basic parameters for manual topology fabric intent

    Parameter

    Description
    Fabric Type

    Select Real. This creates a fabric intent intended for deployment to real-world hardware.

    The Digital Sandbox option is used to create a virtual fabric to test and validating prospective designs. This option is described in Digital Sandbox.
    Fabric Intent Name

    Enter the name that identifies this fabric.
    Imported Topology From File Use this drop-down list to select the name of a previously imported topology.
    Description

    Optionally, add information to describe the fabric intent.
    Prefix Naming

    Enter a string to be added at the beginning of the name of every node in the fabric intent. The rest of the node name is automatically generated.

    For example, enter "A01" here to assign nodes names such as "A01-leaf-1" and "A01-spine-1".

    The Prefix Naming string must be unique to each fabric.
    Region

    In the drop-down list, click an already-created region from the list. This identifies the region that contains the new fabric intent.

    To create or edit a region now, click the regions icon ( ) to navigate to the Regions page. This exits the fabric intent creation procedure. You must begin fabric intent creation again after creating the new region.
    Labels

    This area is disabled when creating the initial fabric intent.
    Deploy Trigger Percentage

    The minimum percentage of nodes within the fabric intent that must be physically installed before the system allows you to deploy the intent to hardware.

    For all real fabrics, this value is fixed at 0%.

    For a full explanation of the impact of this setting, see The Deployment Trigger Percentage setting.
  7. Click to save the fabric intent. When you save the fabric intent, the system:
    • updates the state of the fabric intent to Created.
    • updates the version number of the fabric intent to 1.0.
    • enables the GENERATE FABRIC button.
  8. Click GENERATE FABRIC.
The system generates a recommended topology for your fabric based on the template you selected and the parameters you provided.

When generating the topology, the system also generates the various cable connections and the individual node configurations required to support this fabric topology.

During fabric generation, the fabric intent state advances through the following:

  • Cable Map in Progress
  • Config Generation in Progress
  • Configuration Generated

After the generation is complete, the resulting topology displays in the main area of the Fabric Intents page.