CONFIGURING A NETWORK

• US 20160142243A1
• Filed: 11/14/2014
• Published: 05/19/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apstra, Inc. (Juniper Networks Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Apstrktr, Inc.
• Inventors: Karam, Mansour Jad, Ratkovic, Aleksandar Luka, Samoylov, Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 10,389,573 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/13 File access structures, e.g. distributed indices arrangements of input from, or output to, record carriers G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/022 Multivendor or multi-standard integration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0803 Configuration setting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies

Abstract

Configuring a network is disclosed. A set of network requirements is received at an interaction agent. At least a portion of the set of network requirements is published to a system data store. The published network requirements are received at an application agent. The application agent has subscribed to the published network requirements published in the system data store. Device requirements for a plurality of network devices are published to the system data store. At least a portion of the published device requirements is received at a proxy agent. Native hardware instructions are generated based on the received device requirements to configure at least one of the plurality of network devices.

Claims

1. A system for configuring a network, comprising:

an interaction agent component configured to receive a set of network requirements and publish at least a portion of the set of network requirements to a system data store;

an application agent component configured to receive the published network requirements and publish to the system data store device requirements for a plurality of network devices, wherein the application agent has subscribed to the published network requirements published in the system data store; and

a proxy agent component configured to receive at least a portion of the published device requirements and generate native hardware instructions based on the received device requirements to configure at least one of the plurality of network devices.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the interaction agent component receives the set of network requirements from a user.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the interaction agent component receives the set of is network requirements via an application programming interface.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of network requirements includes a specification of a desired configuration for the network.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of network requirements is a set of declarative network requirements.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of network requirements specify a desired mesh network topology.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the interaction agent component, the application agent component and the proxy agent component do not communicate directly to each other and communicate together via the system data store.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein publishing at least the portion of the set of network requirements to the system data store includes storing at least the portion of the set of network requirements to the system data store in a manner that identifies the application agent component.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the application agent component is further configured to determine and identify that the plurality of devices is required to implement the received published network requirements.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the application agent component is one of a plurality of application agent components of the system.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the application agent component is further configured to generate for each of the plurality of network devices, device specific device requirements to implement the received published network requirements.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the device requirements include declarative device requirements for each of the plurality of network devices.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of devices includes a network switch.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the proxy agent component is included in the configured one of the plurality of network devices.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the proxy agent component is further configured to publish to the system data store a status identifier of the configured one of the plurality of network devices.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the status identifier identifies a status of a Ternary Content Addressable Memory.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the application agent component is further configured to receive the status identifier from the system data store and perform an action in response to the status identifier.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the application agent component is further configured to receive the status identifier from the system data store, determine a status of achieving the published network requirements using at least the received status identifier, and publish to the system data store the status of achieving the published network requirements.

19. A method for configuring a network, comprising:

receiving at an interaction agent a set of network requirements;

publishing at least a portion of the set of network requirements to a system data store;

receiving at an application agent the published network requirements, wherein the application agent has subscribed to the published network requirements published in the system data store;

publishing to the system data store device requirements for a plurality of network devices;

receiving at a proxy agent at least a portion of the published device requirements; and

generating native hardware instructions based on the received device requirements to configure at least one of the plurality of network devices.

20. A computer program product for configuring a network, the computer program product being embodied in a tangible computer readable storage medium and comprising computer instructions for:

receiving at an interaction agent a set of network requirements;

publishing at least a portion of the set of network requirements to a system data store;

receiving at an application agent the published network requirements, wherein the application agent has subscribed to the published network requirements published in the system data store;

publishing to the system data store device requirements for a plurality of network devices;

receiving at a proxy agent at least a portion of the published device requirements; and

generating native hardware instructions based on the received device requirements to configure at least one of the plurality of network devices.