Step 2: Up and Running

This section walks you through the preparatory steps that a Super User or Network Admin must perform before onboarding a device and moving the device to production.

Add Network Resource Pools

A network resource pool defines values for network resources, such as IPv4 loopback addresses, interface IP addresses, and so on, that are assigned to the devices in your network during device onboarding and for provisioning services (L2VPN, L3VPN, and L2 circuit).

You can create a network resource pool in Routing Director in one of the following ways:

By configuring the resource pool in the Routing Director GUI.
By uploading JSON files to Routing Director.
By using REST APIs.

This section guides you through the steps to add network resource pools from the Routing Director GUI. For information about adding resource pools by using JSON files or REST APIs, see Add Resource Pools.

To configure network resource pools in the Routing Director GUI:

Click Orchestration > Services > Resource Instances in the navigation menu.

The Resource Instances page appears.
Click the + (Add) icon above the Resource Instances table.
The Add New Resource Instance page appears.
In the Add New Resource Instance page:
- Enter a name for the resource instance in the Instance Name field. For example, vpn-resource.
- Enter the name of the customer for whom you are creating the resource instance in the Customer field. For example, for-abc-corp.
  
  The default name is network-operator.
- Select the type of resource that you want to create from the Resource Design field.
  
  For device onboarding, you must create L3-Addr, L2-Addr, and Routing resource pools. Start by selecting any one of the resource designs (for example, select L3-Addr to create layer 3 IP address pools).
Click Create.

The resource instance is created and the Modify Resource-Instance-Name page appears. The Modify Resource-Instance-Name page lists an editor with the parameters that you can configure for the resource. For example, for the L3-Addr resource instance, configure the IPv4 prefixes and loopback addresses that can be assigned to the devices.

Alternatively, you can upload a JSON file populated with the resource values by using the Upload option on the top-right corner of the Resource Editor.

See Configure Resource Pools for more details.
Click Proceed.
The Compare Resource Definition page appears displaying the resources you have added.
Verify the resources you have added and then click Save and Commit.
Routing Director generates a service order to create the resources.
Repeat step 2 through step 6 to add the other two resource pools (for example, L2-Addr and Routing resources).

Add a Label

Labels can be used to identify devices of the same type or role and can be used as a reference in a device profile. For example, you can tag all provider edge devices with the label PE. Then, within a device profile, you can define that BGP sessions or MPLS LSPs should be established with any other device with the same label. When a provider edge device is onboarded using this profile, it gets tagged with label PE and automatically configured to peer with all the other devices also tagged with the label PE. At the same time, all these other devices also get configured to peer with this new device.

To add a label:

Navigate to Inventory > Devices > Device and Interface Profiles.
On the Devices and Interface Profiles page, click Add > Labels.
The Create Labels page appears.
On the Create Labels page, enter Plan Name (name for network implementation plan) and Label. For example, acx-onboarding-plan for the plan name and provider-edge-devices for label,
Click Save.
The label is created and listed on the Device and Interface Profiles page.

Add a Network Implementation Plan

To onboard a device, and enable health, connectivity, and compliance monitoring of the device after onboarding, you must create a network implementation plan that add the device to the plan. Network implementation plans define the configuration to be applied to a device or a group of devices during onboarding.

To add a network implementation plan:

Navigate to Inventory > Device Onboarding > Network Implementation Plan.
On the Network implementation Plan page, click + (Add) to create a network implementation plan.

The Create Network Implementation Plan page appears.
On the Create Network Implementation Plan page:
1. Enter a name for the plan.
2. Select one or more use cases that you want to configure on the device. The fields and tabs that appear on the Network Implementation Plan depend on the use cases you select here.
3. Add one or more default device profiles by clicking the Add new device profile. See Add a Device Profile for details
  
  Configurations in the default device profiles are applied to all the devices added to the plan.
4. Add one or more default interface profiles by clicking the Add new interface profile See Add an Interface Profile for details.
  
  Configurations in the default interface profiles are applied to all the interfaces added to the plan.
Click Next to add devices to the plan.
In the Devices section click + (Add).
On the General tab of the Add Device page, enter values for the hostname, IPv4 address, site, serial number, device vendor, and model, and optionally create a device profile for the device. See Add a Device Profile for details.

The serial number is used to map the device to this profile when it is added to the inventory during the onboarding process. The hostname, and IPv4 address that you enter here, along with all the other attributes included in the selected profiles are configured on the device during onboarding.
Click Next to go to the Physical Ports tab.
In the Logical Interfaces section:
1. If the interfaces of the device are listed under Logical Interfaces,
  1. Select one or more interfaces and click Set Managed to configure the interface during onboarding.
  2. Click the Edit icon to define the logical interface configuration. The Configure Interface-Name page appears.
  If the device interfaces are not listed under Logical Interfaces, Click the Add icon to configure the interface. The Configure Port page appears.
3. On the Configure Port page, enter the interface name and optionally create an interface profile.
  
  On the Configure Interface-Name page, optionally create one or more interface profiles to be applied to the interface during onboarding.
  
  See Add an Interface Profile for details.
4. If Infrastructure Configuration is selected as a use case, enter a description, IPv4 address with subnet mask, and IPv6 address with subnet mask for the interface in the Infrastructure Configuration section.
5. If Service Orchestration is also selected as a use case, configure the access parameters.
6. Click OK to close the Configure Port or Configure Interface-Name page.
7. Repeat steps 7.a through 7.e for all the interfaces that you want to configure during device onboarding.
8. (Optional) Configure aggregated Ethernet interfaces by referring to Add a Network Implementation Plan.
Click Done to return to the Devices tab of the Add Network Implementation plan page.
Repeat the steps 5 through 8 to include all the devices that you want to onboard by using the implementation plan.
Click Next on the Add Network Implementation Plan page.
The Links tab appears
Click + (Add) to add links between devices added to the plan.
Click Next to view a summary of the configuration.
If you want to modify the plan, you can click Edit and make the required changes.
Click Save.
The plan is created and appears on the Network Implementation Plan page.

For more information about adding a network implementation plan, see Add a Network Implementation Plan.

Install a Device

A field technician should install the device at the site. For information about installing Juniper devices, see the Hardware guide of the respective device at https://www.juniper.net/documentation/.

For installing Cisco Systems devices, refer to Cisco Systems documentation.

Onboard a Device

A superuser or network administrator can onboard a device by committing the outbound SSH commands to connect with Routing Director, on the device. This method of onboarding a device by committing the outbound SSH commands is also referred as "Adopting a Device".

You can onboard a device by any of the following methods:

Onboard a device by using ZTP.

In this method, you commit the SSH configuration on the device during ZTP.
Onboard a device without ZTP.

In this method, you manually commit the SSH configuration on the device.

For information about how to onboard a device, see Add a Device to Routing Director.

Approve a Device for Service

After a device is onboarded, a user with the superuser or network administrator can move the device to production and provision services on them.

To move a device to production:

Click Inventory > Device Onboarding > Onboarding Dashboard.
Filter the Ready for Service devices by selecting Ready for Service in the Operational State filter.
Click the Hostname link of the device to view the result of the automated tests that are performed on the Device-name page.
Analyze the results of the tests and view the alerts raised for the device.

If no critical or major issues occur, you can move the device to production.
Click Put into Service to move the device to production.
Routing Director changes the status of the device to In Service and moves the device to production. You can monitor the device for any alerts or alarms from the Device-Name (Observability > Troubleshoot Devices > Device-Name) page.

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