Overview
Objective
Schedule and automate maintenance workflows with minimal network interruption and most efficient results.
Challenge
Maintenance activities typically require system downtime and temporary disruption of services. Keeping downtime and disruption to a minimum is critical but challenging. Therefore, maintenance activities must take place during a carefully calculated optimal time slot, usually when activity is at its lowest.
Solution
Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Cisco Crosswork Health Insights are optional add-on applications that provide the functionality needed to automate the scheduling and execution of maintenance tasks. Planning the optimal time for maintenance activities can be done successfully using Cisco WAE Design to simulate “what-if” scenarios based on timed topology snapshots exported from Cisco Crosswork Network Controller using APIs.
How Does it Work?
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Using the Crosswork Network Controller APIs, you can create topology snapshots (plan files) which capture and represent topology state at a given point in time, including the IGP topology as well as interface level statistics (traffic load). For impact analysis purposes, these snapshots should be representative of a time period to be evaluated for an upcoming maintenance activity. For example, if you are planning a router upgrade at midnight on a Monday, you would take snapshots from several Mondays at midnight to evaluate typical traffic loads at this time. You can export these plan files to a central storage repository, where a library of topology plan files can be stored for a specified period of time.
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Cisco WAE Design allows you to explore “what-if” scenarios relevant to the planning of the maintenance window. For example, in the case of upgrading a router, Cisco WAE Design can simulate the resulting traffic load on the remaining devices after traffic is diverted from the device being upgraded. You can also explore the impact of deploying tactical traffic engineering policies to further optimize the topology during the maintenance window. For more information, contact your Cisco Customer Experience representative.
Additional Resources
Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Health Insights User Guide
Cisco WAE Design documentation
Cisco Crosswork Network Automation API Documentation on Cisco Devnet