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Paragon Automation Portfolio Installation Overview

Juniper® Paragon™ Automation Portfolio is a cloud-ready solution for network planning, configuration, provisioning, traffic engineering, monitoring, and life-cycle management. This solution brings advanced visualization capabilities and analytics to network management and monitoring. Paragon Automation offers base platform support for Juniper Networks devices and some third-party devices.

This guide describes how to install Paragon Automation and is intended for network operators and administrators who install, configure, and manage the network infrastructure. You deploy Paragon Automation as the following set of on-premises (customer managed) microservices-based applications:

  • Paragon Insights (previously known as HealthBot)

  • Paragon Planner (previously known as NorthStar Planner)

  • Paragon Pathfinder (previously known as NorthStar Controller)

When you install Paragon Automation, you can install these three applications at the same time. After installation is complete, you can use these applications only if you have the software licenses installed.

Paragon Automation can integrate with Anuta Networks ATOM platform, which supports EMS capabilities, to provide an improved WAN automation solution. Anuta ATOM is an external application that provides automated WAN assurance for L2VPN and L3VPN services. For more information, see Integration with Anuta ATOM Overview.

Figure 1: Paragon Automation Portfolio Paragon Automation Portfolio

Communication between the different components of Paragon Automation, and between Paragon Automation and the managed devices as well as the network administrator, happens through a control plane network. The control plane network can be the same as the management network (over interfaces such as fxp0 in devices running Junos OS), or any other non-management network (over interfaces such as ge-0/0/0 in devices running Junos OS). This communication includes protocols and services such as Path Computation Element Protocol (PCEP), BGP Link State (BGP-LS), HTTPS (Web UI), system logging (syslog), SNMP, and NETCONF.

Figure 2: Communication Paths Communication Paths

Paragon Automation Deployment Architecture

You can install Paragon Automation applications on a Kubernetes cluster, which you can access over a control plane network through a Web UI. Figure 3 illustrates typical Paragon Automation Deployment architectures and their communication protocols.

Figure 3: Deployment Architecture Deployment Architecture Deployment Architecture

The Paragon Automation Kubernetes cluster is a collection of microservices that interact with one another through APIs. The Kubernetes cluster comprises multiple nodes that are configured with different roles. For more information about roles, see Cluster Node Roles .

Figure 4: Kubernetes Cluster Kubernetes Cluster

Paragon Automation Installation

You use Ansible playbooks to automate the installation of Paragon Automation software. The playbooks install the required software on all the cluster nodes. These Ansible playbooks are packaged in a Docker image, and executed on a separate dedicated host (control host). The control host must have Docker installed and must be able to mount local directories into a Docker container. You must have a dedicated machine functioning as the control host.
Figure 5: Installation Overview Installation Overview

To install Paragon Automation, you:

  • Download an installation bundle to the control host.

  • Create and customize the required installation and configuration files.

  • Run the installer on the control host.

The installation is controlled through several variables that are defined in the installation and configuration files created during the installation process. Based on these files, the Ansible playbooks deploy the Kubernetes cluster.

This guide explains how to:

  • Install and upgrade Paragon Automation.

  • Uninstall Paragon Automation.

  • Add and remove nodes.

  • Back up and restore a configuration.

  • Migrate data from your existing setup to Paragon Automation.

  • Perform common installation troubleshooting tasks.

Related Documentation