Help us improve your experience.

Let us know what you think.

Do you have time for a two-minute survey?

 
 

Contrail Insights Auto Discovery of Network Devices from Contrail Networking

Juniper® Contrail Networking is a software-defined networking (SDN) platform based on the open-source network virtualization project, OpenContrail. The Contrail Networking platform automates and orchestrates the creation of highly scalable virtual networks.

Contrail Insights provides monitoring and orchestration for the Contrail Service. See Service Monitoring Ansible Variables for how to configure Contrail monitoring. See Contrail Monitoring for how Contrail monitoring works in Contrail Insights.

Network Device Discovery from Contrail

You can add network devices from the Contrail UI to Contrail and Contrail Insights has the capability to auto discovery all the network devices you added to Contrail. Contrail Insights will discovery all of the network devices' IP address, Chassis Type, and Connection Information.

Before Contrail Insights Version 3.1.9

To enable Contrail Insights monitoring on these added devices:

  1. From the Contrail Insights Dashboard, select Settings > Network Devices to edit the network devices discovered by Contrail Insights.

  2. Add Source SNMP, gRPC, or JTI and the corresponding configurations (such as credentials, sensors, MIBs, and so on) in the Contrail Insights Dashboard and Contrail Insights will automatically start monitoring those devices.

    Figure 1: Enable Network Monitoring on Added Network Devices Enable Network Monitoring on Added Network Devices

    By default, all the network devices discovered from Contrail are associated with Method Contrail. This means Contrail Insights will get the Chassis Type and Connection Information of devices from Contrail and honor the data from Contrail. If any of the devices' Connections get updated, Contrail Insights will automatically discover the newest Connection from Contrail and update it in Contrail Insights. However, you can also change the Method to USER or LLDP in the Contrail Insights Dashboard Settings page.

    Figure 2: Changing Method to LLDP Enabled or DisabledChanging Method to LLDP Enabled or Disabled

    If you change Method to LLDP Enabled in Contrail Insights, Contrail Insights will start running LLDP periodically on that device. Contrail Insights will build the Connection Information of this device on its own and will no longer get this device Connection Information from Contrail.

    If you change Method to LLDP Disabled in Contrail Insights, Contrail Insights will assume user will take care of the device Connection Information themselves. User can add, edit, or delete connections of this device from Contrail Insights Dashboard either in Settings page or Topology page. Contrail Insights will no longer get this device Connection Information from Contrail.

    In both LLDP and USER mode, deleting or updating this device in Contrail will no longer take effect on the device configuration on Contrail Insights.

Starting from Contrail Insights Version 3.1.9

To enable Contrail Insights monitoring on these added devices:

  1. From the Contrail Insights Dashboard, select Settings > Network Devices to edit the network devices discovered by Contrail Insights.

  2. Add Source SNMP, gRPC, or JTI and the corresponding configurations, such as credentials, sensors, MIBs, and so on) in the Contrail Insights Dashboard and Contrail Insights will automatically start monitoring those devices.

    Figure 3: Network Devices Discovered from Contrail Associated with Method LLDPNetwork Devices Discovered from Contrail Associated with Method LLDP

    By default, all the network devices discovered from Contrail are associated with Method LLDP. It means Contrail Insights will automatically discover the Connection between network devices and hosts. However, you can also change the Method to USER in Contrail Insights Dashboard Settings page so that you can edit the connection manually. Note that the Connection between network devices and hosts will be discovered only when the network devices are Juniper QFX series or EX series.

    Contrail Insights will still synchronize the device ChassisType and SNMP credentials with Contrail. Any update of these fields in Contrail will be reflected here. If you delete devices from Contrail, those deleted devices will also be removed from Contrail Insights.

    If you change the Method to LLDP Disabled in Contrail Insights, Contrail Insights will assume user will take care of the device Connection Information themselves. User can add, edit, or delete connections of this device from Contrail Insights Dashboard in the Settings page or Topology page.