Cisco Network Services Orchestrator

(NSO)
What is Cisco NSO ?

• Cisco NSO is an orchestration platform for hybrid networks

Source: NSO basic training from Cisco IT 101

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Cisco NSO core concepts?

• NETCONF/YANG
• YANG : The modelling language used to manage devices and services
• NETCONF : Protocol that manage the communication between a manager and an
agent

• FASTMAP : Covers the complete service life-cycle: creating, changing and deleting the
service

• The Configuration Database (CDB)

• Network Element Drivers

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Cisco NSO main features

• Model driven : Everything is modeled with YANG

• Transactional : It supports rollbacks and reverts

• Multi-vendor : NSO supports many NEDs for differents vendors

Cisco NSO Current version

• Currently installed version in TT : Cisco NSO 4.2.3

• Last version of Cisco NSO : 5.4.1.1

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NSO PoC
• NSO installation :
• Local install
• System install

• Local install :
• NSO 5.3 installer : https://developer.cisco.com/fileMedia/download/da6e8ed4-0b65-357a-9cf3-c1b3357a2ad4/
• Machine requirements :
• Software : Linux system with Java and Apache Ant pre-installed
• Hardware : For a small lab (less than 10 devices) we need a single vCPU and 8GB of RAM

• Network Element Drivers :

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• Creating an Instance of NSO :
• NSO Local Install unpacks and prepares the system to run NSO, but it doesn't actually start it up
• ncs-setup –package ….. –dest ….
• In the NSO directory setup we find:
• ncs.conf : NSO configuration file
• packages/ : Directory that contains the NEDs
• logs/ : Directory that contains the logs from NSO
• ncs : To start the NSO instance
• Once the NSO instance is started we can start by :
• Setting up Device Authentication
• Adding devices to Cisco NSO
• Grouping Devices Together
• Updating device configuration
• Creating services packages

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Learning ressources
• NSO on Learning Labs :
https://developer.cisco.com/learning/tracks/get_started_with_nso

• NSO on GitHub : https://github.com/nso-developer

• NSO Sandboxes : https://dcloud2-lon.cisco.com/content/catalogue?

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