Sample procedure: using mass deployment discovery with blueprints

Purpose

This sample procedure describes the general steps of discovering logical configurations from NFM-P into NSP, and managing them using blueprints.

A recommended practice is to select a reference NE: an NE that reflect the desired configuration according to the network plan. The use of a reference NE will ensure that the desired configuration is discovered when defining the blueprint templates, which in turn will be used for centralized policy management.

In this example, the NE with NE ID 92.168.97.35 is used as the reference NE. This sample procedure uses the Premium QoS ingress policy as an example. The same high-level steps for other policy types need to be performed to obtain complete centralized policy management.

Setup

Before this sample procedure begins, the following is done:

  • Several classic NEs have been discovered in NSP, including a designated reference NE.

  • The reference NE has the following QoS policies: Gold, Silver, Premium, default, and test.

  • The relevant intent type, qos-sap-ingress-csros-23-10-1_24-4 has been imported to Device Management, Configuration Intent Types. See How do I import a configuration intent type?.

  • A flexible template, Generic_QoS_Ingress, has been configured based on the intent type; see How do I create a configuration template?

Steps
 
1 

Associate the generic template to the network to discover the QoS policies from NFM-P:

  1. Open Device Management, Configuration Templates.

  2. Choose the Generic_QoS_Ingress template and click png1.png (Table row actions), Associate to Network, Associate selected classic instances. See How do I perform a mass deployment discovery from a template?

  3. In the form that opens, click png6.png Target and choose Select targets from the drop-down list.

  4. Select the reference NE and click Add.

  5. Click png6.png Identifier and choose All Identifiers from the drop-down list.

    This instructs the NSP to discover all SAP ingress QoS policies on the NE and associate them with the template.

2 

Choose the Generic_QoS_Ingress template and click png1.png (Table row actions), View all deployments. The list of deployments shows the SAP Ingress QoS policies that were configured on the reference NE.

Creating blueprints allows the policy to be applied and managed on a group of NEs. Proceed to Step 3.

3 

Choose the deployment of the Premium QoS policy, that is, the deployment with Premium in the Identifier, and create a blueprint from it:

See How do I convert a logical configuration deployment to a blueprint?.

  1. Choose png1.png (Table row actions), Clone to blueprint.

  2. Enter a name for the blueprint in the Template name field. All other template details are automatically configured from the deployment.

  3. Click Clone to create the blueprint in released state.

    A blueprint template is created and its definition is based on the selected deployment.

    The new template is added to the list in the Device Management, Configuration Templates view. Note that the template type is Blueprint.

The new Premium blueprint includes all the configuration values of the Premium policy created for the reference NE.

4 

To apply the blueprint to NEs, perform a mass deployment discovery:

  1. From Device Management, Configuration Templates, choose the Premium blueprint template and click png1.png (Table row actions), Associate to Network, Associate selected classic instances.

    The form opens with the blueprint template already selected.

  2. Click png6.png Target and choose All targets in the network from the drop-down list.

    The target identifier is automatically selected.

  3. Click Associate to apply the configuration to the targets.

5 

Double-click on the Premium blueprint template to view the deployments. The list shows the NEs with the Premium QoS policy definition.

The blueprint distribution status is Global Definition, meaning the NE configurations are in sync with the blueprint values.

You can edit any of these deployments individually and apply changes to the NE, similar to making local changes in NFM-P; see How do I edit a deployment?. If a local change has been made, the deployment remains affiliated with the blueprint, but the blueprint distribution status is updated to Local Definition to show that it is out of sync.

6 

Updates to the blueprint template are automatically applied to all deployments in global status. See How do I edit a template?

To update the blueprint:

  1. Select the blueprint and choose png1.png (Table row actions), View/Edit.

  2. In the form that opens, click Edit form to open the configuration form. In this example, the config form is the QoS policy details.

  3. Configure the parameters and click Update.

The local deployment shown in Step 5 is not changed when the blueprint definition is updated.

7 

To align the local deployment with the blueprint, globalize it; see How do I verify or globalize a deployment?.

  1. Choose the deployment.

  2. In the Deployment Details panel, click Globalize and confirm. The deployment is updated to the global configuration and the blueprint distribution status information is updated.

End of steps