Table Of Contents
Overview
Welcome to the Cisco Active Network Abstraction Installation Guide.
This manual will walk you through a typical Cisco Active Network Abstraction (Cisco ANA) installation. This chapter describes the components in Cisco ANA, and provides a brief explanation of the Cisco ANA architecture.
This chapter contains the following sections:
Cisco ANA Components
Cisco ANA comprises the following components:
Cisco ANA Servers
Cisco ANA uses two server types, each performing different activities:
Cisco ANA Gateway
The Cisco ANA Gateway is the gateway through which all clients, including any OSS/BSS applications as well as the Cisco ANA clients, can access the system. The gateway is an extended Cisco ANA unit. (See Cisco ANA Unit.) It enforces access control and security for all connections and manages client sessions. In addition it functions as a repository for storing configuration, network and system events and alarms.
Another important function of the gateway is to map network resources to the business context. This enables Cisco ANA to contain information that is not directly contained in the network (such as VPNs and subscribers) and display it to northbound applications.
Cisco ANA Unit
The unit is a key element of Cisco ANA system. Units are networked together to create a modular, scalable, high-performance, distributed network knowledge engine for discovery, assurance and activation. Multiple units cover the entire network as a single complete entity.
The main purpose of Cisco ANA units is to host the autonomous VNEs (see Autonomous VNEs.) The units are interconnected to form a fabric of VNEs that can communicate with other VNEs regardless of which unit they are running on. Each unit can host thousands of autonomous VNE processes (depending on the server system size). The units also allow for optimal VNE distribution, ensuring geographic proximity between the VNE and its managed NE.
Cisco ANA includes a clustered N+m high-availability mechanism. Unit availability is established in the gateway, running a protection manager process, which continuously monitors all the units in the network. After the protection manager detects a unit that is malfunctioning, it automatically signals one of the m servers in its cluster to load the configuration of the faulty unit (from the system registry), taking over all its managed NEs. The switchover to the redundant standby unit does not result in any loss of information in the system, as all the information is auto-discovered from the network, and no persistent storage synchronization is required. When a unit is configured, it can be designated as being an active or a standby unit.
For more information about high availability refer to the Cisco Active Network Abstraction High Availability User Guide.
Cisco ANA Clients
Cisco ANA provides a suite of client GUI applications to manage the network:
•
Cisco ANA NetworkVision—The main GUI for Cisco ANA applications. It provides complete visualization of the managed network and services, and supports fault and configuration functionality. It is also the launching point for all related tools such as the PathTracer, Command Builder, and Soft Properties Manager. For more information refer to the Cisco Active Network Abstraction NetworkVision User Guide.
•
•
•
Note
Note
You can disable the automatic client update, see Disabling the Automatic Client Update, page 8-4 for details.
Autonomous VNEs
The autonomous VNEs are software entities that run as a completely autonomous process within the Cisco ANA units. Each VNE is assigned to manage a single network element (NE) instance using whatever southbound management interfaces the NE implements (for example, SNMP or Telnet). The autonomous VNEs are the entities that maintain a live model of each NE and of the entire network.
As the VNE loads, it starts investigating the NE and automatically builds a live model of the NE, including its physical and logical inventory, its configuration and its status. Following the device investigation, the VNEs begin to negotiate with peer VNEs, which represent the peer NEs determining the connectivity and topology at different layers. This model of the network topology, device state, and device inventory is constantly being updated by the VNEs, which track every change that occurs in the NE or in the network.
Messaging between VNEs is used for running different end-to-end flows in order to provide information for root-cause and impact analysis, service path tracing, and more.
Autonomous Virtual Machines
Cisco ANA units are divided into AVMs (Autonomous Virtual Machines). These AVMs are Java processes that provide the necessary distribution support platform for running and monitoring multiple VNEs. AVMs and VNEs should reside on a Cisco ANA unit (as a common configuration) but they can also reside on a Cisco ANA gateway.
Some types of AVMs run on the server, but do not run VNEs. These AVMs have reserved ID numbers (AVM 0-100) and these cannot be used. In addition, there are other reserved AVM ID numbers. The following AVMs have special roles assigned to them:
•
•
•
•
•
Cisco ANA Manage
Cisco ANA Manage is the GUI tool used for performing various system administration activities for simple system control. It provides an interface to manage the following components:
•
•
•
–
–
–
–
–
•
•
•
•
Cisco ANA Architecture
The Cisco ANA platform comprises the following functional layers:
•
•
•
The Cisco ANA platform architectural diagram is displayed below.
Figure 1-1 Cisco ANA Architecture
