Cisco Cisco Prime Network Services Controller 3.2 White Paper
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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on a
enterprises. In this model the focus is specifically on networking features and communications provided
automatically on demand. This model is now known as networking as a service. The use cases for NaaS range
from self-servicing connectivity details, like changing service-level agreement (SLA)/quality of service (QoS)
parameters on the network, adding more bandwidth to user connections, making user connections redundant or
more secure, redirecting user connections to a different location, and so on in order to automate large-scale
networks using Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) VPNs, and other
technologies. Software defined networking (SDN) is yet another possible implementation path for NaaS where an
application’s networking requirements are met by a set of network provisioning tasks fulfilled on networking devices
application’s networking requirements are met by a set of network provisioning tasks fulfilled on networking devices
through their APIs in order to use a set of networking capabilities. Those SDN use cases again can be changing
SLAs/QOS, redirecting traffic, providing more throughput, and so on.
While NaaS is gaining momentum, there is still a need for simplicity in the data center cloud facilities. The
networking automation requirements in such facilities are basic yet need to provide higher scale and higher agility
then other parts of the cloud facilities.
The networking automation part in the IaaS/PaaS models has the following characteristics:
●
Mostly uses basic and common networking features and capabilities
●
Highly focused on data center hosting services use cases
●
Requires highly flexible networking service, ability to add/remove/modify the networking infrastructure
dynamically per application requirements
●
Requires highly scalable, reproducible protocol capabilities and networking solutions
Network automation for data center cloud hosting is the focus of this paper. The paper will detailed a suggested
networking data model for allowing highly scalable, reproducible, and dynamic data center networking services.
This model is now known as Flexible Topologies for Dynamically Automated Virtual Data Centers (VDCs). The
model was successfully implemented in service provider facilities using both Cisco and third-party automation
tools. The model is now made more dynamic and highly secure by the Cisco Prime
™
Network Services Controller.
Challenges of Network Automation
As Cisco has been implementing customer’s network automation requirements, it has become apparent that there
are three major challenges for network automation:
●
Ability to instantiate, create, and automatically configure common data center service appliances:
◦
Switching services for Layer 2 network connectivity (now referred to as overlay networks)
◦
Routing services for Layer 3 network connectivity (routing service appliances)
◦
Firewall services for traffic protection and authentication services, using multiple layers of firewalls
(known as three-tier application security models)
◦
Load-balancing services for a more scalable application deployment
◦
IP services: Network Address Translation (NAT), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Domain
Name System (DNS), and so on
◦
Application layer network services
In this paper we will refer to this
challenge as “network services configurations,” or NSC.