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Service Orchestration Overview

Service orchestration is the process of designing, configuring, validating, deploying, and monitoring a network service; for example, Layer 3 VPN (L3VPN) service. From the service orchestration perspective, a network service is any point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, or multipoint-to-multipoint connection. Paragon Automation provides an automated framework that manages the entire life cycle of a network service, right from design to deprovisioning the service from the network.

Service orchestration in Paragon Automation is model-driven and intent-based. That is, a network administrator can use service designs available in the service catalog to provision a service. A service design defines how to create the service. You can create service instances using a service design. A service instance defines the sites, devices, connections, and other parameters of the service. To provision the service instance, a service order is created, which starts the service provisioning workflow. The workflow allocates the resources (such as access circuit, route target, route distinguisher, and so on) that satisfy the requirements of the service, produces a network-centric view of the service, and deploys the service in the network.

You can provision network services using the Paragon Automation GUI, or programmatically by using REST API. Superusers can also provision services using the service orchestration CMGD CLI.

Paragon Automation provides the following service and resource designs to onboard devices to the network and to provision network services on the onboarded devices:

  • Infrastructure service design to onboard and deploy devices to the network.

  • L3VPN service design to provision and monitor L3VPN services in the network.

  • E-LAN EVPN CSM or E-Line EVPN VPWS CSM service design to provision and monitor EVPN services in the network.

  • E-Line L2circuit NSM service design to provision and monitor L2 circuit services in the network.

  • Routing and Layer 3 resource designs to configure network resource pools for infrastructure services.

  • Layer 2 resource design to configure network resource pools for EVPN services.

  • Topology resource design to configure topology resource pools for L3VPN, EVPN, and EVPN-VPWS services.

  • VPN-resources resource design to configure VPN resource pools for L3VPN, EVPN, and L2 circuit services.

The service and resource designs are preinstalled when you install Paragon Automation.

Service Orchestration in Paragon Automation consists of the following elements:

  • Service Catalog─A service catalog is a collection of predefined service designs that are available for the organization. Service designs define how to create a service.

  • Service Designs─Service orchestration in Paragon Automation is model-driven, that is, service orchestration is carried out through predefined service designs, which contain the specifications for a type of service.

  • Service Instance─A service instance is a specific instance of a service design created for a customer. For example, a named instance of an L3VPN service created for a specific customer. Service instances define the sites, devices, connections, and other parameters of the service.

  • Resource Designs─ A resource design is a special type of service design whose only purpose is to produce resources (such as access circuits, route targets, and so on) which are consumed by network services. Resource designs generally do not affect the configuration of the network devices.

  • Resource Instance─A resource instance is a specific instance of a resource design that defines the configurations for a resource pool required to provision a service in the network.

  • Placement─Process of allocating network resources for provisioning a service instance.

  • Service Order─Process of creating, modifying, or deleting a service instance. A service instance is implemented through a service order. The provisioning status of the service instance can be accessed through the service order.

  • Workflow─A workflow is a sequence of tasks that Paragon Automation executes to provision a service. You can monitor workflows and access logs that help you troubleshoot failed service orders.

To view a list of devices that support service provisioning, see Supported Devices and OS Versions.

Note:

You can provision services on greenfield and brownfield devices.

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