New Features

Junos Space is a state-of-the-art network and application management tool that presents an innovative user interface through which you can provision Layer 2 Ethernet services, perform element management, and manage the fabric itself.

The Junos Space product is available as a physical appliance or as a software-only virtual appliance that can be loaded onto a server running VMware software. Physical and virtual appliances can be clustered in a fabric for greater throughput and high availability.

The Junos Space product consists of the Network Application Platform and the Ethernet Activator application. The Network Application Platform manages network devices and users in addition to managing the appliance fabric. The Ethernet Activator application provides features for provisioning Layer 2 point-to-point Ethernet services and multipoint Ethernet services.

The following sections describe the features of the Junos Space product:

• Ethernet Activator Features
• Network Application Platform features
• User Interface Features

Ethernet Activator Features

The Junos Space Ethernet Activator application presents the following new features:

• Point-to-point Ethernet services support—Enables the design, provisioning, and management of point-to-point Ethernet services. These services use LDP switching in the network core. A unique virtual circuit provides a secure network connection enabling two customer sites to communicate in a virtual private network (VPN).
• Multipoint Ethernet services support—Enables the design, provisioning, and management of multipoint Ethernet services, implemented as virtual private LAN services (VPLS). These services use BGP switching in the network core. Each customer site connected by the service communicates with all other customer sites in the VPN. Customer sites can be added with ease. The Junos software in the devices uses the route targets and route distinguishers provided by the Junos Space software for autodiscovery to establish secure connectivity among provider-edge routers quickly and efficiently.
• Port, 802.1Q, and Q-in-Q user-to-network interfaces support—Point-to-point services and multipoint services connect with customer sites through full port interfaces, 802.1Q interfaces, or Q-in-Q interfaces. Services that connect full port interfaces transport all customer traffic on the port to other customer sites in the VPN. Services that connect 802.1Q interfaces transport a single VLAN among all customer sites in the VPN. Services that connect Q-in-Q interfaces transport either all customer traffic on the interface, or a specified range of VLANs.
• Discovery and assignment of provider-edge devices and interfaces—These prestaging activities prepare the devices for provisioning. Predefined rules identify all provider-edge devices already under Junos Space management, identify all device interfaces suitable for UNI assignment, and assign to each interface a VLAN profile appropriate to the encapsulation type. With just a few mouse clicks you can assign all discovered devices and interfaces for use by the provisioning software. The software also enables you to manage exceptions to devices and interfaces during and after the initial discovery process.
• Service design support—The Ethernet Activator software separates the design of services from service provisioning, enabling these functions to be performed by operators with different levels of privilege. You can restrict service design to users with a higher level of privilege. This feature enables the service designer to create a service definition that defines the attributes of a service that will be consistent across all service instances based on that definition.

  Attributes that can be set in the service definition include interface type (port, 802.1Q, or Q-in-Q), traffic type (all traffic, single VLAN, range of VLANs), encapsulation type, connectivity MTU, UNI MTU, and rate-limiting bandwidth. For point-to-point service definitions, you can also set the virtual circuit ID (VC ID). For multipoint service definitions, you can set the level of VLAN preservation across the network.

  Additionally, the service designer can allow some attributes set in the service definition to be modifiable by the service provisioner. These attributes include VC ID selection (point-to-point Ethernet services only), connectivity MTU, VLAN preservation setting (multipoint Ethernet services only), VLAN ID selection, UNI MTU, and bandwidth.

• Predefined service definitions—The Junos Space product contains predefined point-to-point and multipoint service definitions that further simplify the process of designing a service. These service definitions support most use cases, often elimintating the need to create a customized service definition. Each of ten predefined point-to-point service definitions provides a combination of different settings for interface type, traffic type, encapsulation type, and commonly used rate-limiting bandwidths. Each of seven predefined multipoint service definitions provides not only a combination of different settings of interface type, traffic type, encapsulation type, and bandwidth, but also whether VLAN preservation is enforced.
• Service provisioning support—The Ethernet Activator application separates the task of provisioning the service from service design, enabling these functions to be performed by operators with different levels of privilege. You can enable less privileged users to perform service provisioning. In this way, you can limit the provisioner’s role to no more than specifying the endpoint devices and the UNIs. However, the provisioner can override some attribute values specified in the service definition, if the service definition allows it. These attributes include VC ID selection (point-to-point Ethernet services only), connectivity MTU, VLAN preservation setting (multipoint Ethernet services only), VLAN ID selection, UNI MTU, and bandwidth.
• Functional audit—Enables monitoring of the functional status of the service. This feature runs operational commands on the devices and analyzes the command output to check if the service is functionally up or down. You can view detailed results of a failed functional audit to assist in troubleshooting a failed service.
• Configuration audit. This feature checks whether the configuration that was initially pushed to the devices as part of service deployment is still present on the device. If not, the feature reports what configuration is missing or inconsistent. You can use this feature to detect out-of-band changes that have affected the service configuration.

Network Application Platform features

The Network Application Platform presents the following new features:

• Administration of the fabric, database, software, licences, and applications—Junos Space Release 1.0 provides support for the following administrative features:
  • Junos Space supports a multiple-node fabric to support high availability and scalability. As you add devices to your network and provision more services, you can add nodes to manage the extra capacity without disrupting current services. As you add nodes to your fabric, the functions of the appliance (load balancer, database, and application logic) are distributed across nodes for availability and scalability. You can also monitor the status of the database, load balancer, and application logic functions running on each node, and identify nodes that are overloaded or down.
  • Database backup and restore features support local and remote backups. The database can be backed up on demand or on a schedule to the Junos Space default directory, or to a remote network host or media. A backup contains all jobs that finished before the backup began.
  • Software management supports uploading and installing upgrades to the Junos Space software or applications.
  • Licence management enables uploading and viewing of licenses.
  • Application management supports the setting of application-specific parameters. For the Ethernet Activator application, you can configure autoresynchronization to update automatically the Junos Space database and make it consistent with the service configuration on managed devices.
  • Troubleshooting capabilities collect data logs for analysis. Data logs can be collected through user interface actions or commands in the CLI. You can customize system status checking, and you can customize which log files are gathered. Junos Space also supports a maintenance mode that an administrator can use to perform system recovery or debugging tasks while all nodes in the fabric are shut down and the Web proxy is running.
  • System health monitoring calculates and displays a measure of the system condition and fabric load.
• Management of network devices—Junos Space Release 1.0 provides support for the following device management features:
  • Device discovery searches for devices on your network and brings them under Junos Space management. You use device discovery to discover devices and synchronize device configurations with the Junos Space database. You can use device discovery to discover one or many devices at a time.
  • Device inventory supports viewing information about the hardware and software components of each device that the Junos Space software manages. You can also view the operational and administration status for the physical interfaces on devices.
  • Device resynchronization makes the device configuration in the Junos Space database consistent with the configuration on the device. This feature enables Junos Space to manage out-of-band changes on the device.
  • Supported device families include MX Series devices, M Series devices, T Series devices, and J Series devices. These devices can be running any of the following releases and versions of the Junos software:
    • Junos Release 9.3R4
    • Junos Release 9.4R3 or R4
    • Junos Release 9.5R2 or R3
    • Junos Release 9.6R1 or R2
• Management of users and roles.—Junos Space software supports authentication and authorization. A Junos Space super administrator or user administrator creates users and assigns roles (permissions) that allow users to access and manage the users, nodes, devices, services, and customers under Junos Space management.
• Management of jobs—Job management supports viewing details of scheduled, ongoing or completed jobs. In Junos Space, a job is a unit of work performed on objects such as devices, services, or customers. Typical jobs include device discovery, deploying services, prestaging devices, and performing functional and configuration audits. Junos Space also enbables you to cancel a job in case the job has stalled and is preventing other jobs from starting.

User Interface Features

The Junos Space product provides an easy-to-use, task-oriented user interface. It provides the following features:

• Application chooser—You can select a Junos Space application either through a top-level application chooser screen that provides thumbnail and carousel views of all applications, or through an always present application switcher in the title bar of the user interface, which allows you to move between applications quickly.
• Related tasks grouped by workspace—The Junos Space user interface groups related tasks into workspaces. For example, all tasks related to managing devices are grouped in the Devices workspace, and all tasks related to service provisioning are grouped in the Service Provisioning workspace.
• Real-time statistics—The landing page for each workspace provides continually updated charts and graphs that provide critical information about the objects managed in that workspace or shortcuts to filtered views for taking action.
• Inventory pages—Each object type in the system has an inventory page in a corresponding workspace that provides thumbnail and table views of the objects in the inventory. For example, the Devices workspace has an inventory for devices; the Service Provisioning workspace has inventory pages for customers, service orders, and services. You can select one object or multiple objects in an inventory page and perform operations on those objects by selecting tasks from the Actions panel on the inventory page.

  Status information can be gleaned from inventory pages by interpreting decorations on thumbnails, tabular information, a “quick look” panel, or a detailed view of the object.

• A Getting Started panel provides a checklist of tasks for commonly performed operations, with links to the user interface pages where the tasks are performed, and links to help for the specific task.
• Online help can be accessed easily from any user interface screen. It is context-sensitive at the workspace level.
• Graphical images for creating a service order or viewing a service provide visual guides to these key operations, presenting status, and intuitive access to the data input panels for primary tasks.