What are intent types?

Intent types

NSP allows you to create and execute intent-based automation flows to allow you to implement network-level planning and design. Intents translate high-level goals to the necessary network configuration, and the NSP generates and validates the configuration and continually verifies the state of the network.

With the use of intents, you can implement planning and design at a network level rather than at an individual device level. NSP translates the high-level goal from an intent to necessary network configuration. NSP generates and validates the configuration and continually verifies the state of the network and systems under its administrative control.

For example, you can have a goal to set up a service for a subscriber. In NSP, you define this goal using an intent type. The intent type defines the parameters for the service and provides mapping for device models. The intent type defines how an intent will work. When you create an intent using an intent type, you create an instance of the intent type with any required inputs provided. Network Intents maintains a catalogue of intent types created or imported by the user.

You can store service topology and configuration information in the database for later deployment and schedule audits of the network against the saved configuration requirements. Intents are customizable and can be deployed during runtime.

RESTCONF APIs are available for Network Intents; see the Intent Manager API page on the Network Developer Portal.

Intent types and intents

An intent type is a detailed specification for a desired network configuration. The intent type includes the YANG model and scripts and templates for the configuration to be performed. The intent type describes both what the creation of the intent looks like in the NSP, and what executing it does.

An intent is an instance of an intent type. The intent provides inputs to the intent type and executes the configuration.

Intent types can be modified or reused as often as needed, and can be deployed at any time for maximum flexibility.

Developer information

The Network Automation Guide provides an overview of network intents for operators.

For detailed information about the following topics for developers, see the Network Intents tutorial on the Network Developer Portal:

• intent type design

• resource file configuration

• schema form configuration

Developer mode

If developer mode is disabled in the NSP, users cannot create, import, modify, or delete intent types.

See the NSP Installation and Upgrade Guide for more information.

Access control

User groups are assigned access to menus, network resources, and Analytics resources by assigning roles in the NSP. Action permissions are assigned to roles.

Note: Disabling developer mode overrides access control settings. If developer mode is disabled, restricted functions are restricted for all users.

The following table describes scopes that are specific to intents.

Scope	Available operations
Manage Intent Types	Manage life cycle and delete intent types
Manage Intents	Create, edit, and delete intents, approve misalignments
Manage mediators	Perform all operations on the Mediators view
Import	Import all available file types
Operate-Intents	Synchronize, audit, mark as misaligned, run RPC actions, activate, migrate
Manage-Policies	All operations on the Policies and Policy Actions pages
Write Intent Types	Create and edit intent types

The scopes are combined to create the following roles:

• Developer:

  • Write Intent Types

  • Import

• Troubleshooter:

  • Manage Policies

  • Manage Mediators

  • Operate Intents

• Operator:

  • Manage Intents

  • Operate Intents

• Network Engineer

  • All scopes

Depending on your access settings, some of these pages or operations may not be available to you. See the NSP System Administrator Guide for more information.