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Device Life-Cycle Management Overview

Device life-cycle management (LCM) in Routing Director is divided into various tasks that you perform as Day -2, Day -1, Day 0, Day 1, and Day 2 activities. The tasks are divided so that you follow a structured process to onboard, manage, and offboard devices. The activities for managing a device life cycle are divided as:

Onboard a Device

You can use Routing Director to onboard:

  • New devices that you procure for your network (greenfield devices).

    You onboard greenfield devices by using a network implementation plan, which includes the management configurations (IP address, hostname, and so on) and infrastructure configurations (routing protocol configurations). Routing Director applies the following configurations on a device by using a network implementation plan:

    • Basic device-level configurations (for example, IP address configurations, hostname, and software image to be used) and routing protocols (for example, IS-IS, OSPF, BGP, RSVP, LDP, and PCEP).

    • Configuration for links with neighboring devices. The neighboring devices are devices that are a part of the same network implementation plan.

    • Configuration for performing health checks, connectivity checks, and running trust scans.

    These configurations are applied when you onboard a device to Routing Director either through the field tech UI or by committing outbound SSH commands on the device.

  • Devices that exist in your network (brownfield devices).

    You onboard brownfield devices by committing outbound SSH commands for connecting with Routing Director, on the device. Routing Director provides the SSH commands that you can copy and commit on the device. The onboarding of a device by committing the outbound SSH commands is referred to as adopting a device.

See Device Onboarding Overview.

Manage and Monitor a Device

After you onboard a device, you can manage a device's inventory, apply licenses, backup and restore device configurations, upgrade software, reboot the device, and access the device CLI. See Device Onboarding Workflow.

While Routing Director provides automated solutions for managing configurations, device monitoring, and periodic Trust scans for greenfield devices, Routing Director also provides the conventional device LCM solutions for brownfield devices.

For a greenfield device, to upgrade software, you update the software version to be applied on the device in the device profile or the network implementation plan used to onboard the device. Similarly, links and basic configurations that were committed on a device by using the network implementation plan can be updated by editing the network implementation plan and profiles used to onboard the device. You can also use configuration templates to apply advanced configurations on the device.

Note:

After onboarding, you can upgrade the software on a greenfield device by using the Software Upgrade option (Observability > Health > Troubleshoot Devices > More > Upgrade) as well, without having to update the network implementation plan.

In addition, Routing Director executes a predetermined set of tasks (based on the configurations in the plan and profiles) for automatic monitoring and operations of the greenfield devices right from when the device is onboarded. For example, when you enable BGP or RSVP protocols in the profiles, Routing Director monitors the functioning of the BGP and RSVP protocols and displays any alerts or alarms related to the functioning of the protocols, right after the device is onboarded.

Routing Director GUI provides an integrated view of all the information about a device. On the Device-Name page (Inventory > Onboarding Dashboard > Device-Hostname), you can view general details, connectivity details, results of trust scans, and key performance indicators (KPIs), and assess the functioning of the device. You can also upgrade software and perform a backup of the device configurations from the same page.

For brownfield devices, Routing Director provides options for software upgrade, adding licenses, applying configurations by using configuration templates, and backing up configurations under the Observability > Health > Troubleshoot Devices menu.

Decommission a Device

When you want to decommission (offboard) a greenfield device, you can:

  • Use the network implementation plan that you are using to manage a device to decommission the device. See Offboard a Network Implementation Plan.

    When you use a network implementation plan to offboard, device configurations are deleted, but the outbound SSH configuration is retained. You must delete the outbound SSH configuration for Routing Director to disconnect from the device. See Release a Device.

  • Use the Release option to delete the outbound SSH configuration so that Routing Director disconnects from the device, See Release a Device.

    In this case, the other configurations committed on the device are retained. You must access the device CLI and manually delete the configurations.

To decommission a brownfield device, you simply use the Release option in Routing Director to delete the outbound SSH configuration on the device. See Release a Device.

Benefits of Device Life Cycle Management

  • Provides an automated solution for managing the life cycle of new devices procured for a network.

  • The profiles and network implementation plan that are used to onboard and manage multiple devices considerably reduce the time and effort taken to onboard and manage devices. For example, to upgrade software running on five devices, you can simply edit the software version in the network implementation plan used for onboarding the devices and publish the plan. Routing Director updates the software on the devices to the version you mention in the plan.

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