New and Changed Features
The features listed in this section are new or changed as of Contrail Networking Release 1911. A brief description of each new feature is included.
Adding Leaf or Spine Devices to a Greenfield Fabric
Starting with Contrail Networking Release 1911, you can add new leaf or spine devices to expand an existing greenfield fabric. The feature is especially useful when you do not add all the required devices to the fabric on day one and want to add devices to the fabric at a later point. You can add new devices to a fabric by uploading a YAML file that contains the device information.
For more information, see Adding a Leaf or Spine Device to an Existing Fabric Using ZTP.
Configuring AppFormix Flows from Contrail Command UI
Starting with Contrail Networking Release 1910, AppFormix flow is integrated in the Contrail Command UI. You can create and attach telemetry profiles to devices in a Contrail-managed datacenter fabric and view telemetry information for those devices. Contrail Command now acts as a single pane of glass where you can access the features of both Contrail Networking and AppFormix, providing you a unified telemetry experience.
For more information, see AppFormix Flows in Contrail Command.
Support for Google Cloud Platform
Starting with Contrail Networking Release 1911, you can configure and monitor cloud environments created in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using Contrail Command. To provision a GCP environment in Contrail Command, navigate to the Multi Cloud > Create page and select GCP from the Type of Cloud list.
For more information, see Deploying Contrail Multicloud with Contrail Command.
Support for Packer
Starting with Contrail Networking Release 1911, a Contrail Command plugin allows Packer to provision images from cloud service providers for use with Contrail Networking. The Packer tool automates the image creation process to create reusable, provisioned images that install more quickly and more reliably than images that are created in non-automated environments.
The Packer tool automatically operates in Contrail Command; no user configuration is required or possible. For more information on Packer, see Why Use Packer?.
Device Functional Groups and Grouping Fabric Devices
Starting with Contrail Networking Release 1911, for certain operations, like OS version upgrade and role assignment, you can assign properties to a user-defined group of devices called device functional groups (DFGs). These properties are applied while provisioning fabric devices using Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) or during device Return Material Authorization (RMA). Device functional groups are assigned to devices in the fabric_ztp.yml file under Device Info used during fabric creation in the UI.
You can view existing groups on the Device Function Groups tab of the Infrastructure > Fabrics page. To create a new group, click Create on the top right corner of the page. For more information, see Grouping Fabric Devices and Roles Using Device Functional Groups.
Support for Increased vRouter Next Hop Limit and Monitoring Next Hop and MPLS Labels Usage
Starting with Contrail Networking Release 1911, the next hop value in the vRouter is increased to 32 bits. By default, the vRouter creates 512K next hops and it supports up to 1 million next hops. In release 1911, you can also configure a watermark limit in vRouter agent configuration file, which enables you to monitor the usage and availability of next hops and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) labels. In earlier releases, Contrail vRouter supported 16 bits next hop value, which enabled it to create a maximum of only 65,536 next hops.
For more information, see Contrail vRouter Next Hop Configuration.
Support for ZTP in HA Cluster
Contrail Networking Release 1911 supports High Availability (HA) cluster to manage fabrics. With the introduction of this high availability scenario, the DHCP server (dnsmasq) runs only during the zero-touch-provisioning (greenfield onboarding) process. After the fabric onboarding process is complete, the config files that are generated by the device manager and that are applied to dnsmasq, are deleted. After the files are deleted, the dnsmasq will not serve any more clients on the ZTP network. Starting in release 1911, lease file records are maintained in an external storage called Cassandra database.
For more information, see Using HA Cluster to Manage Fabric.