September 27, 2023

Cisco IOS XR Version 7.9.2 (SR-PCE and PCC) support has been added. For more details, see Compatibility Information.

SR Circuit Style Manager (CSM)

CSM is a new feature pack that provides a bandwidth-aware Path Computation Element (PCE) to compute Circuit Style SR-TE policy paths that you can visualize in your network. Circuit Style enables segment routed transport tailored for circuit-oriented services over a packet based network through the use of bi-directional, co-routed, path protected SR-TE policies. Circuit Style SR-TE policies are typically used for high priority services, such as crucial monetary transactions or important live video feed, which require committed bandwidth with fast and fail-safe connections. CSM ensures dynamic Circuit Style SR-TE policies are provisioned along paths that meet strict bandwidth requirements while at the same time respecting any additional user configured constraints such as latency minimization and disjointness.

Centralized bandwidth accounting in the CSM feature pack allows the user to monitor resource reservation levels and quickly identify hot spots where available bandwidth in the circuit style bandwidth pool is low. The ability to visualize Circuit Style SR-TE policies in your network topology enables easy verification of Circuit Style SR-TE policy configurations, details, and path states. With a few clicks you can view Active and Protect paths, operational status, reserved bandwidth pool size and monitor path failover behavior for individual Circuit Style SR-TE policies.

Segment Routing Tree Segment Identifier (Tree-SID)

In addition to being able to visualize Tree-SID policies, you now have the ability to provision static Tree-SID policies in the UI (Traffic Engineering or Services & Traffic Engineering > Tree-SID tab > Create).

Traffic Engineering Dashboard

• In the Policies and Tunnels Under Traffic Threshold Range dashlet (Traffic Engineering or Services & Traffic Engineering > TE Dashboard), you can now define a traffic threshold range with a minimum and maximum value.

• On certain dashlets in the TE Dashboard there is a new 1H time range and a new calendar icon. You can use the new calendar icon to set a date and time range.

  
  
  

Home Dashboard

Ability to add or remove TE dashlets.

SRv6

You can now visualize PCC-initiated SRv6 explicit policies including the segment list information.

IPv4 Unnumbered Interface

IPv4 unnumbered interfaces allow you to enable IP processing on a serial interface without assigning it an explicit IP address. The IP unnumbered interface can "borrow" the IP address of another interface already configured on the router, which conserves network and address space.

IPv4 unnumbered interface information (when available) is now displayed as either an index or a combination of the TE Router ID and the index in device, link, and topology details. For example:

You can also view unnumbered interface information in the segment list of SR Policy Candidate Path information.

UI and Topology

• You can now search within the topology map. This feature allows you to quickly locate devices based on the following criteria:

  • Civic Location (for example, San Jose)

  • Host/Device name (for example, NAT-01)

  • IP address (for example, 121.10.10.1.1)

• Import and Export geographical objects using Keyhole Markup Language (KML) format:

  • Using the Crosswork Network Controller UI, you can import and export KML files to exam, change, or add device geographical information and see the updates in the UI map. For example, you may use the export function to download your device’s data in KML format to your system, exam and/or change the device details, and upload it into a map generator (such as Google Maps) to view your updated device information and coordinates outside of Crosswork Network Controller. You can then use the import function to upload the updated, or browse for a new, KML file back into Crosswork Network Controller. If changes were made, they will now appear in the geographical map after it refreshes. When using the import function, Crosswork Network Controller also provides a sample KML template. The sample KML template provides information on where to identify devices and their coordinates, an optional device name, and the IP address (IPv4 or IPv6) of a device with corresponding coordinates. This template can be used on your system before importing back into Crosswork Network Controller.

• Enhanced L2 link information:

  • The Link Type text in the Link Details Summary page now indicates discovery method: L2 Ethernet (CDP) or L2 Ethernet (LLDP). Link discovery can be configured in Administration > System Settings tab > Topology: Discovery.

  • Utilization information (virtual interfaces display rate only)

  • Updated utilization tooltip

• The Dashboard now includes Circuit Style, Hop Count, and an Unknown category details

• A History view has been added to the Traffic Engineering page

• Two new columns are added to the Link Details table: Delay and Jitter

• New search icon added in the topology screen

• Enhanced device group feature

• New import and export feature using KML format is added in the topology screen

• Various table enhancements (inline buttons, borders, hover states, show/hide columns, and so on)

• Enhanced filtering in columns and added a check box in drop-down popovers to allow multiple selections

• Updated titles for consistency for parameters, pages, and menus

Bandwidth Optimization

This feature pack has been removed.

Alarms and Events

• New and updated alarms and events for the following:

  • Tree-SID policy state and path changes.

  • Several topology changes (for example: ISIS or OSPF link down, LLDP or CDP link down, node deletion, duplicate IP address detection, and so on)

  • Changes in LSP operational states (for example: state down, deleted, and updated)

• Ability to track and clear alarms.

IP source address logs

The source IP addresses can now be captured in audit log files (Administration > AAA > Settings > Source IP). Captures the last source IP address that initiated an operation. For more information on audit logs, see the See the "Manage System Health" chapter (under Collect Audit Information) in the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 5.0 Administration Guide.

High Availability (HA)

The following components support a two instances running on different nodes, functioning in active-active mode with one minute failover:

• optima-pce-dispatcher

• optima-traffic-mapper

• optima-restconf-v2

• optima-ui-service

The following components support a two instances running on different nodes, functioning in active-warm standby mode with one minute failover:

• optima-lcm

• optima-csm

Crosswork Optimization Engine PCE and Cisco IOS XR feature parity

• PCE now supports all four protection types in Crosswork:

  • protected-only (new for this release)

  • unprotected-preferred (new for this release)

  • protected-preferred

  • unprotected-only

• The backend process of selecting a PCE for a PCE-initiated disjoint path has been simplified to enhance performance

gNMI interface data collection

Interface state and statistics collection over gNMI is supported (Administration > System Settings tab > Data Collection: Interfaces). See the "Manage System Access and Security" chapter (under Configure System Settings > Configure the Interface Data Collection) in the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 5.0 Administration Guide.

APIs

The following API features are new or have been updated:

• Get all Tree-SID policies

• Get single Tree-SID policy (based on unique key)

• Create, update, and delete notifications

• Dashboard API​

• IGP path API returns an ordered list of interfaces from source to destination node

• RESTCONF northbound support for RSVP-TE tunnels:

  • RSVP-TE topology (already supported)

  • RSVP-TE tunnels update notifications (operational data)

  • RSVP-TE tunnels model for operational data

  • RSVP-TE tunnels update notifications (configuration data)

  • RSVP-TE PCE-initiated provisioning (create/modify/delete)

  • RSVP-TE tunnel preview (dryrun)

• Provisioning UI extensions

• Optimization and Prediction Model Remote Procedure Call (OPM RPC) service hardening

For more information, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Automation API Documentation on Cisco DevNet.

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller Information Center

New documentation portal with direct links to topics within functional areas.

Cisco Crosswork Optimization Engine 5.0 Release Notes

This document

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 5.0 Installation Guide

Shared installation guide for all the Cisco Crosswork applications and their common infrastructure. Covers:

• System requirements

• Installation prerequisites

• Installation instructions

• Upgrade instructions

Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 5.0 Administration Guide

Shared administration guide for all the Cisco Crosswork applications and their common infrastructure. Covers:

• Managing clusters and data gateway

• Data collection

• High availability

• Backup and restore

• Onboard and manage devices

• Zero touch provisioning

• Set up maps

• Managing users, access and security

• Maintain system health

Cisco Crosswork Optimization Engine 5.0 User Guide

• Getting started

• Setting up and monitoring the network

• Monitoring SR-TE (SRv6 and SR-MPLS) policies and RSVP-TE tunnels

• Provisioning SR-MPLS policies and RSVP-TE tunnels

• Mitigating network congestion

• Defining and maintaining intent-based bandwidth requirements

Open Source Software Used in Cisco Crosswork Optimization Engine

Lists of licenses and notices for open source software used in Cisco Crosswork Optimization Engine.

API Documentation

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