Release Notes for Crosswork Network Controller, Release 7.2.0

Platform Infrastructure

A resilient and scalable platform on which all Cisco Crosswork components can be deployed. The infrastructure is based on a cluster architecture to ensure extensibility, scalability, and high availability.

For installation, configuration, and administration procedures, refer to:

Optimization Engine

Provides closed-loop tracking of the network state and real-time network optimization in response to changes in the network state, allowing operators to effectively maximize network capacity utilization and increase service velocity.

Provides traffic engineering visualization of SR-MPLS, SRv6, and RSVP-TE policies.

For more information, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Traffic Engineering and Optimization guide.

Service Health

Overlays a service-level view of the environment and allows operators to monitor the health of services (for example, L2/L3 VPN) based on rules established by the operator.

For more information, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Service Health Monitoring guide.

Health Insights

Performs real-time Key Performance Indicator (KPI) monitoring, alerting, and troubleshooting. It builds dynamic detection and analytics modules, allowing operators to monitor and alert network events based on user-defined logic.

For more information, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Closed-Loop Network Automation guide.

Change Automation

Automates the process of deploying changes to the network.

For more information, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Closed-Loop Network Automation guide.

Topology visualization

Provides intent-driven provisioning and visualization of L2VPN and L3VPN services, enabling operators to define, monitor, and maintain service-level agreements (SLAs) through an intuitive UI or APIs. Delivers comprehensive insights into network topology, traffic paths, and underlay transport policies, facilitating management and optimization of complex service deployments. Supports real-time analysis and proactive adjustments to ensure alignment with intent-based network objectives, while supporting network slicing at the OSI transport layer to optimize service management and meet intent-based requirements.

For more information, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Administration Guide.

Data Gateway

A secure, common collection platform for gathering network data from multi-vendor devices that supports multiple data collection protocols, including MDT, SNMP, CLI, standards-based gNMI (dial-in), and syslog.

For more information, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Administration Guide.

Element Management Functions

Provides essential element management functions including Zero Touch Device onboarding, detailed inventory visualization, device fault and metrics monitoring, software image management and device configuration management. This includes Day-1 parameterized underlay configuration and configuration backup and restoration. These essential functions are available across supported XR, XE and Nexus devices and help operator's role out a single pane of glass for device monitoring for their Cisco network.

For more information, see Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Device Lifecycle Management guide.

Crosswork Network Services Orchestrator

6.4.8.1

An orchestration platform that makes use of pluggable function packs to translate network-wide service intent into device-specific configuration. Cisco NSO provides flexible service orchestration and lifecycle management across physical network elements and cloud-based virtual network functions (VNFs), fulfilling the role of the Network Orchestrator (NFVO) within the ETSI architecture.

It provides complete support for physical and virtual network elements, with a consistent operational model across both. It can orchestrate across multi-vendor environments and support multiple technology stacks, enabling extension of end-to-end automation to virtually any use case or device.

Note: Function Packs are required to support compatibility with certain applications.

Cisco Segment Routing Path Computation Element (SR-PCE)

25.4.1

An IOS-XR multi-domain stateful PCE supporting both segment routing (SR) and Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP). Cisco SR-PCE builds on the native Path Computation Engine (PCE) abilities within IOS-XR devices and provides the ability to collect topology and segment routing IDs through BGP-LS, calculate paths that adhere to service SLAs, and program them into the source router as an ordered list of segments.

Crosswork Network Controller Essentials

Crosswork Network Controller Advantage[1]

Crosswork Network Controller Premier[2]

Ease of setup, Ease of use

Single VM deployment support for the Premium Tier

Crosswork Network Controller Single VM Premium introduces a streamlined solution for customers with smaller network environments. This feature consolidates Crosswork Network Controller solution components into a single virtual machine (VM) form factor, delivering:

Ease of setup, Software reliability

Support for High Availability in a Single VM deployment

You can now enable Geo HA for both single VM and cluster deployments, across all subscription tiers. A dedicated virtual machine streamlines setup, and automated configuration keeps your data protected and continuously synchronized. This update gives you:

Ease of setup

Simplified Geo HA onboarding wizard

The new onboarding flow requires fewer inputs and automatically discovers peer clusters during setup even if you’ve predeclared them. This reduces manual steps and helps you get a reliable Geo HA configuration up and running with less effort.

Ease of use

UI color theme enhancement — dark mode

The Crosswork Network Controller dashboard and UI now support dark mode, offering an alternative theme that can be enabled for a more comfortable viewing experience in low-light environments. You can switch between the classic light theme and the new dark mode.

Ease of use

In-product listening for CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) surveys

Cisco products now feature integrated CSAT survey functionality. This allows users to provide immediate feedback via short surveys presented directly within the product interface.

All input is delivered straight to Cisco teams, which helps accelerate improvements and streamlines the feedback process compared to previous methods like email and web surveys.

Ease of use

Audit logging with source IP tracking

Component specific audit logs are collected by raising audit events that include the source IP address for user-initiated create, update, and delete operations. Administrators can use this to monitor which IP addresses are associated with user modifications made via the GUI or API.

Ease of use

Automated inventory import on Day-0

Day-0 inventory import is now automated for all installation types. Crosswork Network Controller collects the required cluster and node details during installation, securely handles passwords, and generates the Day-0 inventory file automatically.

Ease of use

Support for multiple segment lists in SR policies

Multiple Segment Lists (MSL) allow several detour paths to be defined within a single Segment Routing (SR) policy. Each segment list can be assigned a configurable weight, enabling precise and efficient traffic distribution and eliminating the need to deploy multiple parallel policies for traffic splitting.

Crosswork Network Controller now supports visualization of SR policies with existing MSL for devices that have the configuration to advertise these policies to the PCE using BGP Link State (BGP-LS). If devices are gRPC MSL compliant, LCM can deploy SR policies with MSL on these devices in automated mode. This capability simplifies network operations, provides better control over traffic flows, and ensures minimal disruption to existing ECMP traffic.

Devices intended for MSL policy deployment must be gRPC-enabled with protocol connectivity, have the required “grpc_msl” or “GRPC_MSL” tag, and the appropriate BGP configuration. Users cannot create or edit MSL policies directly from the Crosswork Network Controller UI or API. This feature is currently supported for XR devices only.

Ease of use

LCM operational history

Crosswork Network Controller now provides the ability to view Operational History for Local Congestion Mitigation (LCM) domains, allowing users to view detailed, time-stamped snapshots of key events such as Evaluation, Commit, Pause/Resume, and Mitigated/Degraded states. This enhancement provides a visual record of LCM actions, including associated policy proposals and solution states, significantly improving troubleshooting and operational insight. Historical records can be filtered by multiple criteria and are retained based on a configurable setting (default is 30 days).

Ease of use

Automated operation mode available for local congestion mitigation

You can now configure Automated Mode in the Local Congestion Mitigation (LCM) configuration page in the Crosswork Network Controller UI. This feature enables continuous, closed-loop detection and mitigation of network congestion in domains where all devices are fully GRPC MSL compliant. When enabled, the system monitors network congestion and automatically applies or removes congestion mitigation policies based on configured thresholds, reducing the need for manual intervention. Safeguards are included to detect excessive solution oscillation and pause automated actions if instability is detected, ensuring consistent network performance.

Devices intended for MSL policy deployment must have gRPC protocol connectivity enabled, the required “grpc_msl” or “GRPC_MSL” tag applied, and the appropriate BGP configuration. Automated operation mode can deploy only MSL policies and does not support PCE-initiated policies.

Ease of use

Deterministic demand matrix for domain-level SRv6 insights

Deterministic demand matrix enables detailed, per-domain visibility into traffic demands for SRv6 networks. By leveraging device-level SRv6 locator counters, this feature computes and displays traffic demands across IGP domains, supporting both operational monitoring and proactive traffic engineering. Users can visualize demand paths, filter by interface, and assess domain health directly from the Crosswork Network Controller UI.

Ease of use

Flex-algo discovery and visualization—SRLG exclusion support

Crosswork Network Controller enhances Flex-Algo capabilities by supporting shared risk link group (SRLG) exclusion constraints. Users can now define SRLGs and apply them to flex-algo topologies, enabling the exclusion of specific links from routing and visualization based on shared risk attributes. This feature is supported on all devices running Cisco IOS XR software version 25.1.x or later.

Software reliability

Loss metric for enhanced network visibility and troubleshooting

A new Loss metric provides detailed visibility into packet loss across core network links. Users can set customizable severity thresholds for loss values, enabling quick identification and resolution of degraded paths that impact services. The loss data is integrated into Traffic Engineering tunnel views and the history tab, offering improved operational insights and proactive network monitoring.

Ease of use

Automated notifications for SR policies affected by link failures

Crosswork Network Controller now supports notifications for SR policies whose IGP paths are impacted by link down events. When a network link goes down, the system checks which SR policies use that link in their IGP paths and sends RESTCONF notifications to any client or application that has subscribed to the notification stream, including the link identification and a list of impacted SR policies. For existing policies, these link down notifications are sent right away. For newly configured policies, it may take up to 10 minutes for notifications to be generated. This feature helps operators quickly identify issues and maintain SLA compliance.

Software reliability

Support for hardware timestamp to enhance gNMI throughput calculation

Throughput calculations for gNMI collection of CRC, interface, and LSP statistics now use the hardware-provided “last-read-time” from counters instead of the gNMI update timestamp. Previously, throughput calculations relied on the SNMP polling mechanism, which did not provide hardware timestamps and could result in less accurate values, especially at high bandwidths. This enhancement ensures precise duration measurements and accurate throughput reporting by eliminating errors in LCM calculation caused by SNMP polling delays. This feature applies only to IOS-XR platforms.

Ease of use

SRv6 visualization enhancements

This release introduces enhancements to SRv6 path visualization, specifically within VPN services. A new IGP Flex Algo Path tab is now available in the VPN service details, allowing you to visualize IGP paths for SRv6 services. You can select head-end and endpoint devices, with the system intelligently filtering available Flex Algo options to only those associated with the chosen devices.

The visualization displays both A-to-Z and Z-to-A paths, which are highlighted on the network map upon mouse-over, providing an intuitive understanding of traffic flow. You can also access detailed link and device information directly from the map. Furthermore, the interface supports displaying various metrics such as IGP, Traffic Engineering (TE), and delay, which are derived from routing configurations.

Software reliability

Enhanced ISIS single topology support for dual-stack networks

Crosswork Network Controller now supports ISIS Single Topology in addition to Multi-Topology. For Single Topology configurations, only global IPv6 addressing is supported; support for link-local IPv6 addressing is not included.

Ease of use

Support for filtering VPN services by monitoring type

You can now quickly identify the Heuristic Package enabled for a VPN service and if a service uses Basic, Advanced, or Customized monitoring without needing to drill down into individual service details.

A new Monitoring Type filter is available within the Service Health UI, allowing you to filter the VPN services table based on their assigned monitoring type. This is particularly valuable for debugging and troubleshooting in development and quality engineering environments.

Key advantages include the following:

Ease of use

Enhanced visibility and filtering for monitoring errors

Quickly identify and address monitoring errors within VPN services, directly from the Service Health UI. This eliminates the previous need to navigate to the Assurance Graph or health tab to find services with Monitoring Errors.

The VPN services table directly displays whether a service has encountered monitoring errors, providing immediate insight into its error state.

Key enhancements for monitoring error management:

◦    Identify a degraded service.

◦    Select Show monitoring error.

◦    Click View details to access the service details screen.

◦    View active symptoms and specific monitoring error details, including the root cause.

Ease of use

Source IP visibility in Service Health audit logs

Crosswork Network Controller now provides enhanced audit logging capabilities by including the Source IP address for changes made within the system.

Specifically for Service Health, audit logs will now capture the Source IP for actions such as importing custom Heuristic Packages, enabling or disabling service monitoring, and changing monitoring levels. This is beneficial for managing Heuristic Packages, as administrators can now clearly identify who initiated changes, such as modifying a system-defined package to a custom one.

This new logging capability provides a clear record of administrative actions, which was not previously available, and serves purely for auditing purposes without impacting system operation.

Ease of setup, Ease of use

Unified external Kafka and gRPC data source

Configure all Kafka and gRPC destinations through a single interface with intelligent source-aware settings that automatically validate configurations based on whether you're sending telemetry, events, or both. This consolidated approach streamlines certificate management, reduces configuration errors, and eliminates the complexity of managing destinations across multiple components—getting your data pipelines operational faster.

You can configure the data source from the data destinations UI. For more information about the configuration, see the Add or edit a data destination section in the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Administration Guide.

Ease of setup

Alternative certificate retrieval for Data Gateway deployments

The Crosswork Data Gateway deployment process now supports REST API as an alternative to SCP for controller certificate retrieval. You can specify a REST API URL in the deployment script via the ControllerSignCertChain parameter during initial deployment. Additionally, when re-importing controller.pem through the interactive menu, you can choose between SCP or REST API methods. This enhancement simplifies certificate management in environments where SCP is disabled or restricted, enables automated deployment workflows without SCP dependencies, and provides flexibility to select the most suitable method for your network configuration.

Ease of setup, Software reliability

Download installation images via management network

You can now download Data Gateway images through the management network when Crosswork is not reachable via the data network. This provides an alternative download path during data network connectivity issues, ensuring uninterrupted operations and greater flexibility in network-segmented environments or during maintenance windows.

Ease of use

Capture network device data instantly, without continuous monitoring

Crosswork Data Gateway now supports one-time data collection from network devices using industry-standard telemetry paths. Instead of running continuous monitoring that collects data around the clock, you can now request a single snapshot on demand that is ideal for quick troubleshooting, validation checks, or investigating specific issues. Simply configure a collection job for your target devices and the information you need (like interface statistics or system status) and receive an immediate one-time data capture without the overhead of persistent monitoring.

Ease of use

Enhanced audit logging with source IP tracking

Crosswork Data Gateway now records the source IP address for all configuration changes in Crosswork Network Controller, giving you better visibility of who is making changes and from where. All create, update, and delete operations including changes to HA pools, custom packages, resources, and destinations are automatically logged with the user's IP address. You can view these enhanced audit logs directly in the UI, making it easier to track changes, maintain security compliance, and troubleshooting issues across your environment.

Ease of use

Enhanced support for device reachability failure alarms

This feature provides protocol-based device availability alarms for all protocols except ICMP and gNMI, enabling faster detection of device failures.

Device reachability polling frequency is configurable via the UI and API, with a default interval of 10 minutes and a minimum interval of 5 minutes. This ensures that device failure alarms are generated and reflected with a 5-minute cadence check of downtime, surpassing the previous 10-minute cadence.

Upgrade, API experience

External Kafka destination management and subscription support

This feature provides enhanced external Kafka destination management and subscription support within Crosswork Network Controller. It includes improved Kafka integration and security capabilities, allowing you to manage Kafka destinations with unified certificate roles for mutual TLS authentication, use a single Kafka broker instance for multiple data types, and include Kafka message headers with the Crosswork Network Controller’s FQDN or management IP. It also expands support for streaming various reports and metrics to Kafka, along with enhanced API-based subscription management and UI monitoring.

This helps to securely and efficiently integrate Kafka as a data streaming platform for diverse network telemetry and event data.

You can set up external Kafka destinations in Crosswork Network Controller using IPv4, IPv6, FQDN or dual stack connectivity. Secure communication is supported through mutual TLS authentication, managed via the 'External destination' certificate role. You can manage the Kafka subscriptions via APIs and monitor them through the UI.

For unified Kafka and gRPC destination management, see the New software features for Data Gateway, Release 7.2.0 table section in this document.

Upgrade, API experience

Streaming and subscription enhancements to device performance monitoring

Performance monitoring data for various policies including Device health, Interface health, Optical SFP, Optical ZRP and Custom policies is streamed to external gRPC destinations. This enables integration with tools such as HCO. To support this, subscription APIs have been enhanced to manage performance monitoring subscriptions over gRPC.

gRPC streaming support is enabled for deployments with Crosswork Network Controller 7.2 and HCO 12.

Ease of use, API experience

Inventory parameter collection via REST API

This feature enables Crosswork Network Controller to collect detailed inventory parameters through a REST API. Users can trigger jobs that gather data such as physical inventory, interface details, Software Image Management (SWIM) information, and storage partition information.

It provides a streamlined, way to collect comprehensive device inventory data and supports integration with external systems by sending collected data to Kafka destinations for further analysis.

You can initiate inventory collection jobs via REST API calls. The collected parameters are then sent to configured external Kafka destinations.

For detailed API endpoints and sample payloads, refer to the Crosswork API documentation.

Upgrade

Enhanced inventory collection for large interface density ASR 9000 routers

The Crosswork Network Controller now supports enhanced inventory scale for Cisco ASR 9000 series routers. It can handle up to 48,000 interfaces per device using gNMI-based collection for interfaces, while SNMP and CLI are still used for other data types.

This improvement allows you to manage large-scale Cisco ASR 9000 deployments more effectively by supporting a higher number of interfaces per device. It ensures efficient and scalable inventory collection, which is critical for accurate network monitoring and management.

You can leverage this feature by deploying Cisco ASR 9000 routers and configuring the Crosswork Network Controller to collect interface data via gNMI.

A single Crosswork Network Controller instance can manage up to 110 vertical-scale devices, contributing to a total of approximately 1.2 million interfaces.

Upgrade

Automated third-party device synchronization

This feature enables automatic synchronization for third-party devices in the network. Third-party devices are defined as those whose software type is not one of the Cisco platforms such as IOS, IOS XR, IOS XE, NX-OS, or their variants.

Automatic synchronization ensures that data and configurations for non-Cisco devices are regularly updated and integrated into the network management system. This helps maintain accurate and current device information, improving overall network visibility and management.

The synchronization process is automatically triggered every hour for all third-party devices. You can adjust this synchronization interval using the available Crosswork Network Controller APIs to better fit your operational needs.

Upgrade

On-Demand device interface synchronization and real-time inventory updates

This feature allows the network inventory to manage and update interface and IP collection settings for topology and optimization purposes.

Crosswork Network Controller synchronizes device interface data with consuming applications through client-initiated, on-demand REST APIs. For devices with high interface density, such as Cisco ASR 9000 series routers, this information is processed in batches. You can utilize the network inventory’s REST APIs to trigger synchronization of device interface details with their applications whenever needed.

Software reliability

Notification system

The Alarm, Incompatibility, and Failure Notification feature keeps users proactively informed about operational issues or errors that arise during the use of the platform. By automatically detecting and alerting users to alarms, incompatibilities, and failures—such as problems in MOP execution, system bootstrap, or inventory refresh—this feature improves system transparency and enables users to respond quickly to potential disruptions. The notification mechanism ensures critical information is promptly communicated through the user interface, supporting a more reliable and manageable operational experience.

API experience

Support for audit log events

All external API requests are now logged to the respective microservice audit log.

Ease of use, Upgrade

Device Migration

Device migration is a pre-defined application that automated the transfer of service configurations from a source device to a target device, coordinating with neighboring devices for traffic rerouting and testing. All participating devices are managed within a single MOP instance to enable seamless coordination.

The Device Migration application with CWM Solutions delivers a framework for defining and automating migration MOPs. It empowers users to:

Ease of use

Inventory list supports basic device inventory functions

This release introduces enhanced inventory functionality within CWM Solutions, enabling users to view essential device details such as device name, IP address, hostname, software type, version, and device family. These details are collected, stored in the database, and made readily available for northbound requests. Basic device inventory functions are supported without triggering full device data collection jobs. Instead, minimal data is gathered using lightweight processes, supporting inventory management and workflow use cases. During software management operations, the system efficiently retrieves device information for inventory purposes.

Ease of use, API Experience

Software conformance report supports APIs

Fleet Upgrade software conformance reports can be created using GUI or APIs.

Ease of use

Image repository supports multiple options, including IOS XR GISO builds

Fleet Upgrade image repository supports multiple import options including automated downloads from vendor platforms, manual uploads from local filesystems, and building IOS XR GISO from ISO and software packages.

Ease of setup

Image repository supports proxy server configuration

Specification of the proxy server permits direct download of SMUs from Cisco.com.

Ease of use, API experience

Fleet Upgrade job control enhancements

The Fleet Upgrade GUI and APIs now provide unified management supporting two execution models to address diverse operational needs:

Ease of use

Generic MOP actions for custom MOP development

Fleet Upgrade now supports a library of generic MOP actions with common execution and pattern logic that users can re-use to develop custom MOPs.

Ease of use

Customized MOP configuration for job instances

Users can now adjust MOP activity configurations specific to each job schedule, allowing them to create and same custom MOPs even when not all configuration fields are complete, streamlining MOP creation.

Software reliability

Support for time zone selection during scheduling

This feature enhances scheduling flexibility and clarity for users. It allows users to view and select their preferred time zone when scheduling MOP and Conformance jobs. By default, the scheduling interface displays the user’s local time zone, making job timing more intuitive and reducing potential scheduling errors caused by time zone confusion.

Ease of use

Toggle Acceptable Failures

Traditionally, the "acceptable failures" setting defines the maximum number of permissible failures before a job is halted. This feature introduces an option to disable this limit, allowing jobs to continue until all targeted devices have been processed, regardless of failures encountered.

Ease of use

Golden Configuration template creation and management

Users can create, clone, edit and manage configuration templates that make it easy to configure devices and ensure compliance across the network, simplifying operations and improving issue visibility.

Ease of use

Use global, template-level and job variables with configuration

Template creators can define sets of variables similar to environment variables that are shared, re-usable and customizable across templates.

Software reliability

Golden Configuration template application

Users can select devices and apply templates to them, using variables, performing dry runs, scheduling future or recurring runs, and using custom MOPs that permit pre- and post-configuration activities beyond simple template application.

Ease of use

Configuration conformance detection

This specialized view provides operators with comprehensive oversight of devices that are either conformant or non-conformant with particular configurations and prioritize corrective action.

Streaming-based L2 and L3 link discovery

With this release, L2 and L3 link discovery transitions to a streaming-based model that utilizes the device inventory managed by Crosswork Network Controller. This change enables consuming applications to receive accurate, consistent, and real-time interface updates as soon as changes occur.

As part of this update, Crosswork Network Controller includes an ‘allowed-list’ mechanism to manage which interface types are streamed in the inventory. By default, a set of essential interface types is enabled and protected, with the flexibility to configure additional types as needed.

Deprecation of MDT-based data collection

Crosswork Network Controller is deprecating support for Model-Driven Telemetry (MDT)-based data collection. While the MDT configuration options remain visible in the GUI, data collection using MDT is no longer actively developed or enhanced. However, we will continue to support MDT during the deprecation period for users with existing deployments.

We strongly advise against using MDT for new deployments and recommend that users plan to transition to gNMI for all telemetry data collection needs. gNMI offers enhanced protocol capabilities, a richer feature set, better integration with modern network automation workflows, and ongoing development and support from Cisco.

Discontinuation of Amazon Web Services (AWS) external storage for Service Health historical data.

Service Health historically allowed configuration of external storage using an AWS cloud account to store monitoring data beyond the internal storage capacity. This external storage acted as a cloud-based archive while the internal storage functioned as a local cache.

Service Health no longer supports storing historical data on AWS. With this change, historical data retention is now limited to 50 GB internal storage capacity.  

To prevent access to older historical data, regularly observe the health of the monitored services.

Traffic with single IP pair fails to load balance across SR-MPLS policy segment lists

Traffic does not steer into SR-MPLS (Segment Routing MPLS) policies configured with multiple segment lists (MSL) when the traffic flow uses only one source IP address and one destination IP address. The traffic may use a different path than intended or fail to load balance across the available segment lists.

Use one of the following approaches:

VPN Service Health dashlet

When using the VPN Service Health dashlet, you may experience an intermittent delay of approximately 1-2 minutes in the synchronization of numbers and totals under specific conditions:

This may result in temporary mismatches between the Basic, Advanced, and Total counts during transitions. Waiting a few minutes to allow the numbers to synchronize fully is recommended. This behavior is expected and does not indicate a system error.

Service Health pods reconciliation

In certain scenarios, such as Geo HA switchover, Service Health pods that show an Alarm ID describing the requested start of reconciliation may not receive a corresponding Alarm ID describing its completion.

Conflicts in VPN TE Management policy deletion

When using the VPN TE Management feature, simultaneously creating or deleting multiple VPN services on the same device can result in commit queue conflicts. In some cases, TE policies associated with deleted VPN services may remain in an "In-Progress" state and fail to be removed. To avoid this issue, apply changes one at a time.

Services root key value constraints

When provisioning a service, the service’s root key value cannot contain spaces (such as when typing a Name or ID field entry in the UI). This only applies to the root level keys (top level) and not the nested sub-level keys.

This also applies to custom service model root level key values.

L3VPN services with probes remain in progress with TE Manager

When provisioning an L3VPN service with probes enabled and the TE Manager package installed, the service may remain in an "In-Progress" state and not push configuration to devices. The NSO plan status shows "not-reached" and no zombie services are observed.

Workaround: Manually mark the L3 TE assessment as completed using the following command in ncs_cli:

request cw-te-manager actions set-l3-te-assessment-completed service <service-name> nodes [<node1> <node2> <node3>]

Single VM deployment

When you change the device's Admin State from UNMANAGED to DOWN, the system automatically sets the state to UP because the auto-attach process attaches the device to the embedded collectors and modifies its Admin State from DOWN to UP.

If changing the state to DOWN is necessary, you must manually change the state from the Edit Devices page as a next step.

For information on editing the device information, see the Edit Devices section in Crosswork Network Controller 7.2 Device Lifecycle Management.

Critical alarms are not cleared after an upgrade

When Crosswork Network Controller is upgraded to the 7.1 release, critical alarms remain uncleared, despite the data gateway VMs being UP and operational.

Device-side issue – device image installation and configuration upgrade fail for Catalyst 8300, 8500, 9300, 9500 during Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) Plug and Play (PnP)

During the ZTP PnP process, while the image download and installation complete successfully, the device fails during the image-install phase. This results in a 404 error with the message: PnP Service Error 1803: "Source file not found."

The configuration upgrade fails during the ZTP PnP process, even when the correct configuration file is provided. The failure results in the error message: err=1416 (Invalid source config file for config upgrade).

Cisco Operating System

Note: This is an application-level compatibility.

Hypervisor and vCenter

Browsers

Crosswork Network Services Orchestrator

6.4.8.1

Cisco Network Element Driver (NED)

◦    CLI: 7.69

◦    NETCONF: 24.2.2, 24.3.2, 24.4.1, 25.1.x, 25.2.1

◦    CLI: 6.107

Note: Additional function packs may be required based on the applications and features being used. See the Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Installation Guide for details.

Cisco Segment Routing Path Computation Element (SR-PCE)

Cisco XRv9K 25.4.1

24.2.2

✔

✔

✘

✔

✔

✔

✔

24.3.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

24.3.2

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

24.4.1

✔

✘

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

24.4.2

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✘

25.1.x

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

25.2.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

25.2.2

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

25.3.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

25.4.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

17.3.8

✔

✔

✔

✘

✘

✘

✘

✔

17.9.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✘

✔

17.9.5

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

17.12.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✘

✔

17.12.3

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✘

✔

17.14.1

✘

✘

✘

✔

✔

✔

✘

✔

17.15.2

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✘

✔

17.15.4

✘

✔

✘

✘

✘

✘

✔

✘

17.16.1a

✘

✘

✘

✔

✔

✔

✘

✘

17.18.1

✘

✘

✘

✘

✔

✘

✘

✘

IOS-XR

24.2.2

✔

✔

✔

✔

24.3.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

24.3.2

✔

✔

✔

✔

24.4.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

24.4.2

✔

✔

✔

✔

25.1.x

✔

✔

✔

✔

25.2.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

25.2.2

✔

✔

✔

✔

25.3.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

25.4.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

IOS-XE[7][8]

17.3.8

✔

✔

✔

✔

17.9.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

17.9.5

✔

✔

✔

✔

17.12.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

17.12.3

✔

✔

✔

✔

17.14.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

17.15.2

✔

✔

✔

✔

17.15.4

✔

✔

✔

✔

17.16.1a

✔

✔

✔

✔

17.18.1

✔

✔

✔

✔

NX-OS[9]

10.2(4)

✔

✔

✔

✔

10.3(4)

✔

✔

✔

✔

IOS-XR

24.2.2, 24.3.1, 24.3.2, 24.4.1, 24.4.2, 25.1.x,  25.2.1, 25.2.2, 25.3.1, 25.4.1

Cisco ASR-9000 series (32 and 64-bit)[10]

✔

✔

✔[11]

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

Cisco NCS 5700 series[12]

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

Cisco 8000 series[13]

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

IOS-XE

17.3.8, 17.9.1, 17.9.5, 17.14.1, 17.15.4, 17.18.1

Cisco ASR 1000 series[14]

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

CSR 1000v

✔

✔

✘

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

CAT 8000 series[15]

✔

✔

✘

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

CAT 3000 series[16]

✔

✔

✘

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

CAT 9000 series[17]

✔

✔

✘

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

IOS

15.2.7

CAT 2000 series[18]

✔

✔

✘

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

NX-OS

10.2(4), 10.3(4)

Nexus 9000 series[19]

✔

✔

✘

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

IOS-XR 25.1.x, 25.2.1, 25.3.1

Cisco 8011

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

Cisco 8404, N540

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

Devices

25,000              

1000

 Total interfaces[20]

1,500,000[21]

100,000

Traffic Engineering policies and RSVP-TE tunnel

150,000

5000

Total L2 and L3 links

200,000

15000

VPN services (L2VPN and L3VPN)

300,000

10000

Bandwidth on Demand and SR Circuit-Style Manager

Up to 10,000 devices / 100,000 links / 3,000 devices per domain environment

 1000 devices

Release Notes for Cisco Crosswork Network Controller, Release 7.2.0

The current document.

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Installation Guide

Shared installation guide for all the Crosswork Network Controller components and their common infrastructure. The guide covers:

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Administration Guide

Shared administration guide for all the Cisco Crosswork components and their common infrastructure. The guide covers:

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Device Lifecycle Management

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Traffic Engineering and Optimization

Provides information on how to visualize and configure traffic engineering in Crosswork Network Controller.

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Network Bandwidth Management

Provides information on how to use Crosswork Network Controller feature packs. Feature packs are tools that tackle congestion mitigation and the management of SR-TE policies to find and maintain intent based bandwidth requirements.

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Service Health Monitoring

Provides information on monitoring the health of L2VPN and L3VPN services. It provides insights into analyzing and troubleshooting degraded services, as well as visualizing service health status and logical dependency trees.

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Closed-Loop Network Automation

Provides information on real-time Key Performance Indicator (KPI) monitoring, alerting, and troubleshooting. It also provides information on the automated process of deploying changes to the network.

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0 Solution Workflow Guide

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2 Golden Configuration User Guide

Provides information on how to use Cisco Network Controller Golden Configuration templates to simplify and automate network device configuration.  Also, describes how to create, edit, clone, and delete configuration templates. These templates allow network operators to define device configurations in their original, human-readable formats while enabling automation and consistency across multiple devices.

Open Source Used in Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0

Lists of licenses and notices for open source software used in Crosswork Network Controller 7.2.0.

Crosswork Network Controller APIs

Advanced users can extend the Cisco Crosswork functionality using the APIs. API documentation is available on Cisco Devnet.

Configure and Apply Custom Templates 

Describes custom templates and provides information on how to create and load the custom templates.

Cisco NSO Transport SDN Function Pack Bundle 7.2.0 User Guide

Describes how to configure and use the Transport SDN function packs.

Cisco NSO Transport SDN Function Pack Bundle 7.2.0 Installation Guide

Provides information to install Cisco NSO Transport SDN Function Pack Bundle.

Cisco Network Services Orchestrator DLM Service Pack 7.2.0 Installation Guide

Describes how to install the DLM service pack on Cisco NSO and configure the Cisco NSO sync policy.

Cisco Crosswork NSO Telemetry Traffic Collector Function Pack 7.2.0 Installation Guide

Provides information to install and configure the Telemetry Traffic Collector function pack.

Cisco Crosswork Change Automation NSO Function Pack 7.2.0 Installation Guide

Describes how to download, install, and configure the Cisco Crosswork Change Automation function pack on Cisco NSO.

Cisco NSO Auto Discovery Installation and User Guide 7.2.0

Describes how to configure and use the auto-discovery tool.