Provider Connectivity Assurance, Telemetry Collector, and Endpoints

Objectives and Responsibilities of Provider Connectivity Assurance

Provider Connectivity Assurance provides intent based connectivity assurance by exposing a Yang model for RESTCONF calls. Endpoints are abstracted and exposed via metadata to offer the creation of sessions and services. Users, via RESTCONF will be able to do the following:

• Create, edit and delete service endpoints

• Create, edit and delete sessions (with predefined endpoints)

• Create, edit and delete services (with predefined sessions)

• Get notifications on the state of endpoints, sessions and services) via SSE (Server Sent Events)

• Subscribe to a gNMI stream which contains the performance metrics received by endpoints of active sessions

Components of Provider Connectivity Assurance

Skylight Gateway

Skylight Gateway is the component does the following:

• Exposes the Yang Model, and accepts RESTCONF calls to establish intent-based commands for Provider Connectivity Assurance

• Provides the Server Sent Events Notifications for the consumers to process

Telemetry Collector

Telemetry Collector serves as a Measurements Data Collector for Provider Connectivity Assurance and although there are many types of Telemetry Collector configurations that can be used, focus will be on the following types:

• DataGateway: Collection of data from Assurance Sensor Agents

• FileWatcher: Collection of data from Assurance Modules and SFP

More detailed installation steps for Telemetry Collector can be found here.

Analytics, and gNMI Streamer

The Analytics service handles the following:

• Consumption of Performance Metrics collected by Telemetry Collector

• Provides the data for the gMNI Streamer for its corresponding stream to its subscribers

Assurance Sensor Agent Orchestration API, and Assurance Sensor Agents

Assurance Sensor Agents

Sensor agents are containerized microservice test agents capable of performing active testing on layers 3-7. Given their minimal footprint, they offer a software approach to creating probes within a network to measure performance.

They are managed by the Assurance Sensor Agent Orchestration API, found within Provider Connectivity Assurance.

They stream their performance metrics to an instance of Telemetry Collector (configured as a DataGateway), which in turn transmits the data to the Analytics service in Provider Connectivity Assurance. More information on Assurance Sensor Agents can be found in this document.

Assurance Sensor Agent Orchestration API

This is a REST API that allows to do the following:

• Register a newly deployed Assurance Sensor Agent

• Configure

More details on this API can be found in this document.

Specifications of the API can be found here.

Legacy Orchestrator, Assurance Sensor Control, and Assurance Sensor Elements and Modules

Assurance Sensor Modules (and SFPs)

Sensor Modules are lightweight hardware modules that are used to monitor network performance. They are managed by an instance of Assurance Sensor Control. More information can be found here.

Assurance Sensor Control

Because Assurance Sensor Modules and SFPs, by their lightweight hardware footprint, does not have the capability for management, Assurance Sensor Control serves as the control and management hub for them.

You can find more information on it here.

In terms of function and capability, the combination of Assurance Sensor Control and Assurance Sensor Modules and SFPs make up the equivalent of Assurance Sensor Elements.

Legacy Orchestrator can also be used to manage Assurance Sensor Control, and by extension, Assurance Sensor Modules and SFPs.

Assurance Sensor Elements

Assurance Sensor Elements are hardware probes that have a heavier footprint, but offer more capabilities in terms of traffic processing, as well as management. They do not require Assurance Sensor Control for configuration or management, as these capabilities are baked into its hardware. You can find more information on the Sensor Elements here.

Legacy Orchestrator can also be used to manage Assurance Sensor Elements.

Legacy Orchestrator

Legacy Orchestrator is an element and service management system. It can manage

• Full range of Sensor Elements (LT, LT-S, LX, GT, GT-S, F25, F100)

• Assurance Sensor Control

• Assurance Sensor Modules and Assurance Sensor SFP

Among its large inventory of capabilities, you can:

• Automate provisioning of Managed Elements

• Automate configuration of Managed Elements

• Bulk management of sessions and tests

• Backup and Restore of configuration for full networks

For more information on Legacy Orchestrator can be found here.

Configuration

Assurance Sensor Agents as Endpoints

Configuring Assurance Sensor Agents as Endpoints for Provider Connectivity Assurance, you would need to have the following:

• Provider Connectivity Assurance

• Telemetry Collector, configured as a DataGateway

• Sensor Agents deployed.

Note: Keep the management and data ports in mind when configuring this type of Data Collection, as they are both important for registering and configuring a Sensor Agent.

Assurance Sensor SFP and Modules as Endpoints

Configuring Assurance Sensor SFPs and Modules as Endpoints for Provider Connectivity Assurance, you would need to have the following:

• Provider Connectivity Assurance

• Telemetry Collector, configured as a FileWatcher

• Legacy Orchestrator deployed

• Assurance Sensor Control deployed

• Assurance SFPs and Modules deployed

Configuration

Assurance Sensor SFPs

Please ensure the following:

• They are plugged in and functional

• They are reachable by your instance of Assurance Sensor Control

Assurance Sensor Control

Steps to follow:

• Ensure that Assurance Sensor Control is reachable by Legacy Orchestrator

• Discovering and Managing Assurance Sensor SFPs

• Creating VCEs with the Assurance Sensors SFPs

  • Naming convention: <NEID>+<VLAN>++

Legacy Orchestrator

Steps to follow:

• Configure the access account for Provider Connectivity Assurance to connect to

  • Rights required: ROLE_ADMIN, ROLE_WS

• Configure the recipient for the CSV files (performance metrics), also the host that will be running the FileWatcher Telemetry Collector

  • Recipient host must have SFTP configured to the path for the destination of the CSV files for consumption by the Telemetry Collector

• Add Assurance Sensor Control as a Managed Object

Telemetry Collector

Steps to follow:

• Create a host:

  • SFTP is installed, configured for access to a specific path, referred to as <file-path>

  • Docker is installed, in order to run the container for the Telemetry Collector

  • Reachable by

    • Legacy Orchestrator

    • Provider Connectivity Assurance

• Log into Provider Connectivity Assurance

• Create a Telemetry Collector

  • Type: FileWatcher

  • Folder: <file-path>

• Deploy the Collector:

  • Download and unpack the tarball package on to the Telemetry Collector Host

  • Final tweaks

    • IP of Provider Connectivity Assurance

    • RR_INSECURE=true for insecure connections

  • Run the docker image: run.sh

Provider Connectivity Assurance

Steps to follow:

• Configure the hostname and port to use to interface with Legacy Orchestrator

  • sensorcontrol.host.url: "{'<orchestrator-name>':'http://<orchestrator-host>:<port>'}"

• Configure the user account credentials to gain access to the functionalities of Legacy Orchestrator

  • sensorcontrol.login.username: <username>

  • sensorcontrol.login.password: "<password>"

• Restarting the Skylight Gateway

  • On the leader node for Provider Connectivity Assurance:

  • docker service rm aod_nso-gw

  • /etc/aod/solution.sh deploy aod

Assurance Sensor Elements as Endpoints

Configuring Assurance Sensor Elements as Endpoints for Provider Connectivity Assurance, you would need to have the following:

• Provider Connectivity Assurance

• Telemetry Collector, configured as a FileWatcher

• Legacy Orchestrator deployed

• Assurance Sensor Elements deployed

Configuring gNMI Stream