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Stage Devices

Stage Device Overview

Devices must have interface maps associated with them before they can have system IDs assigned to them. See the previous section for details. When a device is assigned to a blueprint, it performs discovery configuration. During this phase all interfaces are changed to L3-only mode allowing interfaces to be up. There is no BGP configuration, no routing expectations, nothing that can influence the network. A device in discovery mode is benign; it does not participate in the datacenter fabric, and it does not forward any packets through it. You can then perform critical validations of network health including viewing statistics for cabling, LLDP, transceivers and more. Any issues, such as miscabling or physical link errors, cause a telemetry alarm. You can address and correct the anomalies before deploying the device.

Note:

When resetting system IDs (serial number) Discovery-1 is re-applied. Before physically uninstalling the agent, it is good practice to fully erase the device configuration and uninstall the device agent.

Assign (Multiple) System IDs and Deploy Modes

Note:

You can also use AOS CLI to bulk-assign system IDs to devices either with a CSV text file or the blueprint set-serial-numbers command.
  1. From the blueprint, navigate to Staged > Physical > Build > Devices, and click the status indicator for Assigned System IDs (if the nodes list is not already displayed). Unassigned devices are indicated in yellow.
  2. Click the Change System IDs assignments button (below Assigned System IDs) and, for each node, select system IDs from the drop-down list. (If you don't see an expected serial number (system ID), you may still need to acknowledge the device (Devices > Managed Devices).)
  3. When you select a system ID, the deploy mode changes to Deploy by default. If you don't want to stage the device to be deployed yet, change the deploy mode here. When you're ready to deploy the device, return here to set the deploy mode back to Deploy.
  4. Click Update Assignments to stage the changes. Before the task is completed you can click Active Tasks at the bottom of the screen to see its progress.

Assign (Single) System ID

  1. From the blueprint, navigate to Staged > Physical > Build > Devices; if you don't see the nodes list, click the status indicator for Assigned System IDs.
  2. From the Assigned System IDs list, click the name of the node that you want to assign. Device details are displayed (deploy mode, serial number, hostname rendered, incremental and pristine config, as applicable).
    Note:

    You can also go to these device details by selecting a node name in the Selected Nodes drop-down list (left-middle).
  3. To assign a system ID, click the Edit button for S/N, select the system ID from the drop-down list, and click the Save button to stage the change. (If you don't see the expected serial number (system ID), you may still need to acknowledge the device (Devices > Managed Devices).
  4. To remove an existing S/N instead of assigning one, click the Edit button for S/N, then click the red square to stage the change.

Set Deploy Mode (Single Device)

Note:

You can also change one or more deploy modes in the same transaction from Staged > Physical > Nodes. See Set Deploy Mode (Multiple Devices) for more information.
  1. From the blueprint, navigate to Staged > Physical > Build > Devices; if you don't see the nodes list, click the status indicator for Assigned System IDs.
  2. Click a node name to see device details.
  3. Click the Edit button for Deploy Mode and select a deploy mode.

    • Deploy - Adds service configuration and puts the device fully in service.

    • Ready - Adds discovery 2 configuration (hostnames, interface descriptions, port speeds / breakouts). Changing from deploy to ready removes service configuration.

    • Drain - Takes a device out of service gracefully for maintenance. See Draining Device Traffic for more information.

      Note:

      While TCP sessions drain (which could take some time, especially for EVPN blueprints) BGP anomalies are expected. When configuration deployment is complete the temporary anomalies are resolved. To ensure switches are completely drained before undeploying them, you could instantiate the drain validation dashboard to monitor progress.

    • Undeploy - Removes Apstra-rendered configuration. If a device is carrying traffic it is best to first put the device into drain mode (and commit the change). When the device is completely drained, proceed to undeploy the device.

  4. Click the Save button to stage the change.
When you're ready to activate changes, Commit them from the Uncommitted tab.

Change Hostname - One Device

  1. From the blueprint, navigate to Staged > Physical > Build > Devices; if you don't see the nodes list, click the status indicator for Assigned System IDs.
  2. Click a node name to see device details.
  3. Click the Edit button for Hostname, change the name, and click the Save button to stage the change.
When you're ready to activate changes, Commit them from the Uncommitted tab.