What are the principles for NSP compatibility with MDM devices?

NE compatibility

The NSP adaptor artifact program is designed to provide compatibility with MD SR OS and SRL NE releases on an N-3 and N+2 basis. For example, NSP 25.4 supports NE releases 22.x, 23.x, and 24.x, as well as NE releases 26.x and 27.x when released. As the NE model evolves, NSP delivers adaptor artifacts in support of those changes.

Flexible discovery

NSP supports flexible discovery of NEs managed via MDM artifacts. Flexible discovery means that NSP can use existing artifacts to discover an NE that has been upgraded to a new maintenance release. If you elect to use this capability and skip the installation of new artifacts, NSP will only be aware of the NE model objects (MDC, device telemetry, alarms) defined for the NE version for which the artifact was designed. To get support for new models in the latest NE version, you must update to the artifact bundle associated with that NE version.

The following example uses the fictitious NE 9999 ABC, release 12.x:

Discovered NE version	Adaptors and compatibility rules in place	Expected result
12.1 R1	No 12.x adaptors installed	NE is not certified and cannot be discovered or managed.
12.1 R1	12.1 adaptors installed with explicit support for 12.1.R1 defined in the metadata	NE is certified, that is, it can be discovered and managed without use of a compatibility rule.
12.1.R2	12.1 adaptors installed but 12.1.R2 is not defined explicitly in the metadata	If the adaptors have a default compatibility rule defined, NE is compatible and can be discovered or managed at the level of 12.1.R1. If the adaptors do not have a default compatibility rule defined, NE is not compatible and cannot be managed.
12.2.R1	12.1 adaptors installed No adaptors available for 12.2 Custom compatibility rule is in place listing 12.1.R1 as the compatible version for 12.2.R1	NE is compatible, that is, it is discovered and managed according to a compatibility rule. The NE will be managed at the 12.1.R1 level.

The NE compatibility rules for artifacts are defined in the discovery adaptor and extrapolated to the artifact documentation. For multi-vendor NEs, you can override the default NE compatibility rules using RESTCONF APIs as described on the Network Developer Portal.

For more details about the applicability and/or any restrictions of the NE compatibility feature to specific devices, consult the NSP adaptor artifact guides for those devices.