Cisco Crosswork Optimization Engine is part of the Cisco Crosswork Network Automation suite of products. Cisco Crosswork Optimization Engine provides real-time network optimization allowing operators to effectively maximize network utilization as well as increase service velocity.

Crosswork Optimization Engine provides the following:

• A topology map that gives valuable real-time visualization of devices, links, link utilization, and Segment Routing (SR) policies in the network.

• A UI that allows for easy manageability of SR policies. Crosswork Optimization Engine enables the network operator to perform the following tasks:

  • Provision SR policies and modify or remove them using an intuitive workflow

  • Continuously track SR policy dynamic path computations to maintain SLA objectives

  • Preview an SR policy before deploying it to the network

• Crosswork Optimization Engine function packs (with correct licensing) that provide closed-loop optimization to define the optimization intent, implement the intent, and continuously monitor, track, and react to maintain the original intent.

• A framework that enables other function packs that can be developed in the field to support additional use cases that are not available out of the box. By leveraging SDKs and APIs, network operators can build additional function packs to support more optimization workflows.

Crosswork Optimization Engine uses the combination of telemetry and Cisco Segment Routing Path Computation Element (SR-PCE) to analyze and compute optimal SR policy paths.

Cisco SR-PCE (formerly Cisco XR Traffic Controller (XTC)) runs on the Cisco IOS XR operating system. SR-PCE provides stateful PCE functionality that helps control and move SR policies to optimize the network. PCE describes a set of procedures by which a Path Computation Client (PCC) can report and delegate control of head-end tunnels sourced from the PCC to a PCE peer. The PCC and PCE establish a Path Computation Element Communication Protocol (PCEP) connection that SR-PCE uses to push updates to the network.

Crosswork Optimization Engine discovers all devices that are part of the IGP domain including those that do not establish PCEP peering with SR-PCE. However, PCEP peering is required to deploy SR policies to the device.

This guide is for experienced network administrators who want to use Cisco Crosswork Optimization Engine in their network. This guide assumes that you are familiar with the following topics:

• Networking technologies and protocols (BGP-LS, IGP (OSPF and IS-IS), PCEP, model-driven telemetry, and so on)

• Cisco IOS XR Traffic Controller (XTC) or Segment Routing Path Computation Element (SR-PCE) functionality

• Segment routing (SR) and SR policy provisioning