Automated deployment of network services using the latest configuration protocols and languages

Abstract

The primary aim of the project undertaken in collaboration with GO Plc. is to automate the deployment of network services using the NETCONF protocol and the YANG data modelling language. Network automation is set to play an important role in the development of computing within the next few years, particularly in the area of telecommunications and Internet service provision. This is because automation saves time through reducing human interaction and removes the possibility of human error. At the moment, the most common method for network management is a combination of using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) for monitoring the network state and using a Command Line Interface in order to affect any configuration changes on the network devices. Most network vendors limited the amount of configuration that could be done via SNMP and opted to use proprietary interfaces for configuration. NETCONF helps solve this issue as it is a standardized network management protocol which allows configuration changes to be made to network devices through Remote Procedure Calls. The protocol can be used in the same way on devices made by different vendors as long as a NETCONF agent is running on the device. In this project, a bespoke Python tool was developed for GO Plc which is able to provision and deprovision E-Line services by remotely configuring a Cisco IOS XR device using NETCONF. An E-Line is defined by the Metro Ethernet Forum as a Layer-2 point-to-point link between two user-network interfaces. The tool was tested in GNS3, a network simulation tool which was run in a Ubuntu 20.04 environment to emulate a variety of possible network set-ups together with the respective router configurations. Furthermore, a basic network inventory and service catalogue was developed using a MariaDB database. The developed tool was able to query the MariaDB server and execute a number of commands to obtain or insert data into the network inventory or service catalogue.