Managed Devices

Apstra software uses device system agents to manage devices. These agents manage configuration, device-to-device communication and telemetry collection. You can use Apstra Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) to install agents and bring devices under Apstra management or you can use the device installer.

CAUTION:

A good understanding of the Apstra device configuration lifecycle is essential. Before working with devices in the Apstra environment, we strongly recommend that you fully understand how devices are configured from the moment they are on-boarded to the moment they are decommissioned.

From the left navigation menu in the Apstra GUI, navigate to Devices > Managed Devices to go to the table of those devices with installed agents.

The Managed Devices page is the hub for many device-related tasks, described in later sections.

Starting in Apstra 6.1, you can enable IPv6-based management for your devices. For more information, see Enabling IPv6-Based Management of the Apstra Cluster and Devices.

Click a management IP to go to details for its device, agent, pristine config and telemetry as shown below.

Device

The device detail view shows the user config, the device status and other facts about the device. From the device detail page you can edit and delete the device. You can also edit or delete a device from the table view or any of the other detail views (Agent, Pristine Config, Telemetry).

Here's an example of a managed NVIDIA GPU Server.

Agent

Apstra device system agents handle configuration management, device-to-server communication, and telemetry collection. If you're not using Apstra ZTP to bootstrap your devices (or if you have a one-off installation) you can use this device installer to automatically install and verify devices. Depending on the device NOS, you can install device agents onbox (agent is installed on the device) or offbox (agent is installed on the Apstra server and communicates with devices via API). For support information, see the Device Management section of the Apstra 5.1.0 Feature Matrix.

The device agent view shows the agent config, agent status, last job status, jobs history and telemetry status. From the agent detail page you can perform various tasks similar to tasks in the table view. For example, you can restore a device's pristine configuration by clicking the Revert to Pristine Config button (as of Apstra version 4.0.1) as long as the device is not assigned to a blueprint.

GPU Agents

Apstra 6.1 now shows which managed devices contain GPUs, how many GPUs are present in a device, and vendor information. 6.1 displays GPU details in managed device details for GPU hosts.

GPU count and vendor information is displayed under Facts.

You can also add the Device Information: GPU Count column to the Managed Devices table. Click the button with three dots (Table settings) and select the box for Device Information : GPU Count.

Pristine Config

The pristine config view shows the pre-Apstra configuration on the device. You can edit the pristine config manually or update it directly from the device. You can edit and delete the device. You can also edit or delete the device from the table view or any of the other detail views (Device, Agent, Telemetry).

Telemetry

The telemetry view shows telemetry for the device. For more information, see Telemetry Services.

This telemetery view shows telemetry for the GPU server,