NCSNetwork Automation Software for Service Providers
NCS OverviewTail-f’s Network Control System (NCS) is a
breakthrough software solution for provisioning
services and configuring network devices.
NCS is a central point of management for the
entire network and a framework for developing
network automation applications. Users of NCS
range from network engineers using turnkey
provisioning applications developed with NCS
to OSS developers building scalable, agile
management systems that bring services to
market faster and more reliably.
Network Abstraction EngineNCS provides a network abstraction layer
between OSS platforms and multi-vendor
networking equipment that enables service
providers to realize the benefits of Software-
abstraction engine, NCS provides true network
automation while solving the practical issues of
deployment by easily integrating with both OSS
platforms and a wide range of network devices.
Service Provisioning Challenges
advanced networking services are more
complex to provision, often requiring changes
to multiple devices and large numbers of
changes often need to be made in lockstep as
even the failure of a single change can disrupt
service and be very difficult to diagnose and
recover from.
Limitations with Existing ApproachesCurrent service provisioning and network
management configuration systems limit the
ability of service providers to speed the delivery
of new services and provide an excellent
frequently dependent on manual processes,
adapter-based software and ad hoc scripts.
These approaches are inflexible, prone to error,
existing systems include:
activating service orders due to inflexibility
in the service structure
to fragile provisioning and activation
technologies
due to lack of consistency across service
and network inventories
administration costs due to largely
manual and time-consuming processes
for repetitive tasks
out of synchronization
Figure 1
NCS
Network
Engineer OSS/BSS
Juniper Cisco
Brocade
Ericsson
F5 Huawei ALU
Other
Interface to Inventories, Subnetwork Managers
IOS, IOS-XR
and NX-OS
WEB UICLI
OSSService Orchestration
WorkflowOrder Management
PerformanceManagement
Systems
Configuration Database
(CDB)
Cisco andCisco-like CLIs Other ProtocolsSNMP
REST, SOAP
and others
Juniper and Other
NETCONF Devices
NETCONF
Service Manager YANG Service
Models
ServiceApplications
YANG Device Models
Device Manager
NCS Engine*
NETCONF
REST
MTOSI
MonitoringAlarm Systems
SNMP
Service Logic
Java
JavaScript
*The NCS Engine supports: Configuration Validation Transaction Management Rollback Management Session Management Authentication Role-Based Access Control Audit Trailing High Availability Self-Management
Alarm Manager
Performance ManagerYANG Service
Models
ServiceApplications
NETCONF
REST
MTOSI
SNMP
Figure 2NCS Architecture
NCS FunctionalityNCS is a network abstraction engine that
provides a central point of management for
the entire network and a framework for rapidly
developing network automation applications.
NCS includes the following core functions:
dynamically maps services to the
device layer
reduces the amount of code required for
bi-directional service-to-device mapping
and validation
configuration deployment
models and configuration
Single CLI for All Network DevicesNCS provides a single network-wide interface
services and devices. All management
interfaces are auto-rendered from common
data models of both network elements and
development time, this ensures consistent
capabilities are exposed across all interfaces.
network engineers no longer need to learn and
maintain multiple vendor-specific interfaces
and scripts for repetitive tasks across several
devices. The burden of updating scripts to
reflect changes in software versions and
variations in features across vendors is
significantly reduced by NCS’ validation and
versioning capabilities. As a result, networks
can be provisioned more efficiently, and
network engineers can spend their time on
more strategic tasks.
Full Transaction ManagementNCS-based applications have built-in
transaction and rollback management
ensuring fail-safe deployment of service and
device changes. Configuration changes are
made in atomic distributed transactions where
either all changes take place or failed partial
changes can also be rolled back using a
single command. NCS prevents violations of
integrity constraints or network policies.
Powerful Device and Service OperationsNCS can perform a wide range of built-in
device and service operations with just a
editing the configuration from another
device or a master configuration
device groups
sync with the NCS datastore
the NCS datastore and configurations
on the devices
service changes or creations affect
device configurations
Rapid Model-driven Development The time to develop first iterations of network
automation systems is reduced from months
to weeks using NCS. NCS leverages a
common data modeling language (YANG –
RFC 6020) to define services and network
devices and auto-renders management
interfaces from the same model. Fastmap,
a patent pending mapping engine, largely
eliminates the significant coding efforts
traditionally associated with the process of
translating service modifications or deletions
into detailed configuration changes. NCS
provides fail-safe device configuration for
Cisco, Juniper, and SNMP-based network
devices with zero code integration.
Speedy Delivery of ServicesNCS automates service provisioning
and reduces delays caused by manual
administration and backlogs in systems
development. NCS automatically calculates
what device configuration changes correspond
to the service operation and then deploys
those configuration changes. New services and
devices are quickly provisioned by cloning and
editing existing devices and services.
With NCS, the time to introduce new services
is reduced from months to weeks, and the
time to activate orders is reduced from weeks
to days or minutes.
Reduce Costly Network OutagesConfiguration errors, a common cause of
network outages, are increasingly difficult
to diagnose and recover from as networks
grow in size and complexity. NCS helps
improve customer satisfaction and retention
by reducing network outages and return to
service time through the following capabilities:
management
configuration changes that result in errors
service and configuration relationships
device configurations detect and resolve
configuration discrepancies quickly
Trouble-free ScalingNCS’ architecture and integrated in-memory
datastore are designed to scale to the
transaction volumes required by very large
networks. Other NCS capabilities that enable
provisioning systems to scale include:
and inventory views
resulting from service retirements
service providers benefit from the latest
functionality from networking equipment
vendors
devices that have not yet been installed
states, which are a common cause of
network and service degradation
which services are affected if a device
fails or its configuration is changed
Flexible Deployment OptionsNCS is a powerful network abstraction engine
that easily integrates with both OSS platforms
and multi-vendor networks. The following are
examples of customized service provisioning
and configuration management applications
that were rapidly developed using NCS:
Korgmakargränd 2
Sweden
North American
USA
www.tail-f.com
Tail-f Systems is the leading provider of
configuration management and network
automation software. Seven of the ten largest
global networking equipment providers are Tail-f
Systems’ customers.
software to build on-device management
and with differentiated capabilities. Service
Providers use Tail-f’s software to quickly build
scalable, agile management systems and benefit
by bringing network services to market faster