Skip to Content
Information
Important This version of the product has reached end of support. The documentation is available for your convenience. However, you must be logged in to access it. You will not be able to leave comments.

Management of network resources in pods and containers

When a pod is created, network resources that are needed for containers to be created on the pod are defined. These network resources include address pools (subnets) and VLAN pools. Address pools are reserved from an IP Address Management (IPAM) system.

When a pod is deleted, the address pools that had been allocated to it are released back to the IPAM system.

The IPAM system can either be a module built into TrueSight Network Automation or an external system for which a TrueSight Orchestration adapter has been written. Currently, Vital QIP and Infoblox are the only external systems for which an adapter is delivered out-of-the-box.

When a container is created, the resources (VLANs and address pools) necessary to configure it are acquired from the underlying pod, and are used to configure the network devices in the pod appropriately for the Virtual Data Center (VDC) being represented. IPAM is used to acquire infrastructure addresses from those address pools. Starting with version 8.8.00, resources are acquired in the order in which they are defined in the container blueprint, unless conditions are defined for them. In previous versions, resources are acquired in a random order.

When a container is deleted, the configurations of the devices in the container are deleted. The infrastructure addresses that the container used are released back to IPAM, and the VLANs and address pools are released back to the pod.

When a server is added to a container, IPAM is used to acquire addresses for its Network Interface Controllers (NICs) from address pools within the container. When the server is removed, the addresses that the server used are released back to IPAM.

The instructions for creating a pod of a particular type are captured in a pod blueprint. The pod blueprint is hardware-independent and can be used to create multiple pod instances; each on different sets of equipment. The instructions in the pod blueprint are used in conjunction with input from the TrueSight Network Automation administrator (for example, to select particular devices and resource pool boundaries required) to create each new pod instance by using a UI wizard.

Currently, pod blueprints must be created outside of TrueSight Network Automation as XML documents, then imported into TrueSight Network Automation from the command line.

Instructions on how to create a container of a particular type are captured in a container blueprint. The blueprint is hardware-independent and can be used to create multiple container instances, on different pods, as long as those pods are compatible with the types of devices and resources needed.

The instructions in the container blueprint are used in conjunction with a selected pod to create each new container instance by using a web services call.

Currently, container blueprints must be created outside of TrueSight Network Automation as XML documents, then imported into TrueSight Network Automation from the command line.

Related topics

Enabling-the-Virtual-Data-Center
Managing-the-Virtual-Data-Center

 

 

Tip: For faster searching, add an asterisk to the end of your partial query. Example: cert*

TrueSight Network Automation 8.9