New Features

The following new features are introduced in NorthStar Release 4.3.0:

PCEP-Provisioned P2MP Groups

P2MP groups can now be provisioned using PCEP (as an alternative to NETCONF), which offers two key advantages:

• Real-time reporting

• Automatic rerouting of sub-LSPs around points of failure

The following functionality is supported in this release:

• Add PCEP P2MP groups

• Delete PCEP P2MP groups

• Modify the following PCEP P2MP group attributes:

  • Bandwidth

  • Setup

  • Hold

• Remove sub-LSPs via the Tunnel tab of the network information table

• Automatically reroute sub-LSPs around points of failure

• Use the Modify P2MP Group window to add or remove sub-LSPs, or modify certain parameters (bandwidth, setup priority, hold priority)

For PCEP-provisioning, configure the following Junos OS statements on the router:

For more information, see Provision and Manage P2MP Groups in the NorthStar Controller User Guide.

EPE

Egress Peer Engineering (EPE) allows users to steer egress traffic to peers external to the local network, by way of egress ASBRs. NorthStar Controller uses BGP-LS and the SIDs to the external EPE peers to learn the topology. Segment Routing is used for the transport LSPs.

In NorthStar 4.3, only manual steering of traffic is supported. NorthStar uses netflowd to create the per-prefix aggregation of traffic demands. Netflowd processes the traffic data and periodically identifies the Top N demands which, based on congestion, are the best candidates for steering. These demands are displayed in the network information table, Demand tab.

Traffic steering involves creating a colored SRTE LSP and then mapping that LSP to traffic demands via PRPD.

• The Junos OS Release must be 18.4R2 or later.

• Netflow must be configured on the router.

• For NorthStar Controller, the following must be enabled:

  • NETCONF

  • PRPD client

  • Netflow processes must be running on NorthStar

For more information, see NorthStar Egress Peer Engineering in the NorthStar Controller User Guide.

NorthStar Planner Web UI, Phase 1

We are introducing a web UI for NorthStar Planner that will, in time, be full-featured. For this release, we are providing both the existing Java client based Planner and Phase 1 of the web UI Planner. NorthStar Planner is not a standalone application and must be used together with NorthStar Controller.

Launch the web Planner from the NorthStar landing page by selecting Planner from the drop-down menu. The Java client based Planner is also available from the landing page by selecting Planner Desktop.

• Network Browser where the user can view saved and archived networks and select one to open. The Network Browser view is opened by default when the Planner is launched.

  Archived networks are generated in the NorthStar Controller and saved, after which, they are available in the NorthStar Planner under the Archived Networks tab.

• Topology view for the open network, with an interactive topology map, network information table, and left pane display options.

• Dashboard view which currently contains only the Devices widget. The Devices widget shows the relative number of devices of each type included in the network.

• Failure Simulation tool which allows you to run failure analysis using path provisioning that simulates the hardware’s implementation of bandwidth allocation and demand routing on the existing topology.

  Using this tool, you can design a simulation that uses a single, double, or triple exhaustive failure combination, using network element types of your choice.

• Report Manager which provides both configuration and simulation reports. Configuration reports are available after running device collection tasks in the NorthStar Controller. Simulation reports are available after running a simulation in NorthStar Planner.

For full documentation of the web Planner, see the NorthStar Planner Web UI User Guide.

Container LSP

A new task type, Container Normalization Task, is available in the NorthStar Controller UI Task Scheduler to enable periodic container LSP normalization. The task computes aggregated bandwidth for each container LSP and sends it to the NorthStar Path Computation Server (PCS). The PCS determines whether it needs to add or remove sub-LSPs belonging to the container LSP, based on its new aggregated bandwidth.

Other than requiring this task in the NorthStar UI, the container LSP feature is only accessible through the REST API.

For information about the container LSP feature, see the NorthStar REST API documentation.

BGP Monitoring Protocol

BGP Monitoring Protocol (BMP) is available in NorthStar 4.3 as an alternative to NTAD for topology acquisition. BMP is a standard protocol which is also supported by other vendors allowing NorthStar to connect directly to a third party router. The third party router needs to support BGP-LS and BMP, and receive topology via BGP-LS. It may or may not be configured as a route reflector. NorthStar can obtain the topology information from the BGP-LS data through BMP.

When using BMP, only traffic engineering entries (from the TED) are available. NTAD also provides IGP entries if the router is peering with the IGP area. Topology data learned via IGP is not available through BMP.

See Configuring Topology Acquisition for information on enabling BMP.