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Managing IP Connectivity

 

Network Director enables you to configure Layer 3 (L3) routing protocol, BGP.

The IP Connectivity task displays all the autonomous systems configured in the different devices in a data center. When you mouse over the device, the autonomous system in which the device is added is displayed. You can also view the details of the device such as the IP address, platform, connection state, serial number, and action that can be performed on the device (double-click to add or modify the router reflector). When you double-click an autonomous system, the Configure Autonomous System and Policy window is displayed, where you can configure the import and export policy for the autonomous system. When you mouse over the autonomous system, a cross mark () is displayed. Clicking on this deletes the autonomous system.

All the devices within an autonomous system are Internal BGP(IBGP) peers and a logical full mesh formed between these IBGP peers are displayed. These logical links are represented by a line. Similarly, all the devices across different autonomous system are External BGP (EBGP) peers. When you mouse a device, a cross mark () is displayed. Clicking on this deletes the device from the autonomous system.

Adding an Autonomous System

To add an autonomous system:

  1. Select a data center from the Datacenter View pane.
  2. Click Manage IP Connectivity under Tasks.
  3. Click Add Autonomous System.

    The Configure Autonomous System and Policy window is displayed.

  4. Enter a number to identify the autonomous system.

    A circle appears in the viewport showing the number you specified.

  5. Double-click within the circle.

    The Configure Autonomous System and Policy window is displayed.

  6. Click Import and click Export to import or to export the policy for the IBGP peers within the autonomous system.
  7. Click OK.

Adding Devices

To add devices to the autonomous systems:

  1. Click Add Devices.
  2. All the devices in a data center are listed in a Select Devices device panel on the left pane.
  3. Drag and drop the devices from this panel to autonomous system or to the canvas directly (outside of all autonomous systems).
  4. Click Done.

Creating Links

To create a link between two devices:

  1. Click the Add EBGP/IP Links button, and then click on one of the devices within the autonomous system between which you want to create the link.

    The pointer changes to a drawing cursor that enables you to draw a link between devices.

  2. Draw a link from the device to the device to which you want to create the link.

    The Link Details window is displayed.

  3. You can create links between EBGP peers, IBGP peers, or between a device inside an autonomous system and a device outside of autonomous system:

    • Enter the interface settings such as interface type, logical unit, and IP address, and click Done.

    • For EBGP peers, configure both the physical link and the routing policies and click Done. When you draw a link between two devices across different autonomous systems, the devices are treated as EBGP peers.

    • For IBGP peers, double-click the link and configure the interface settings for the link and the routing policies for each device in the link end points, and click Done. IBGP requires a full logical mesh linking all the peers. When you drag and drop a device to add it to the autonomous system, logical links are automatically drawn between the newly added device and all the other devices in the autonomous system.

In case of large networks, you cannot form full logical mesh between IBGP peers. Therefore, you can configure some of the devices as router reflectors. These devices have the capability to readvertise the IBGP packets to their clients. In an autonomous system, a logical full mesh forms between the router reflector and non-clients. When you mouse over a device in an autonomous system and if the device can be configured as a router reflector, router reflection configuration options are displayed for that device.

To add a route reflector:

  1. Double-click a device that has router reflection configuration options.

    The Configure Route Reflector window appears.

  2. Select Route Reflector.
  3. Select the clients.
  4. Click OK.

You can click Deploy and then click Run Now to immediately deploy the configuration. Or, you can click Deploy and then click Run Later to schedule the deployment.

Note

You can discard changes only for the entire data center and not for each device.

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