Step 2: Up and Running

Edit the device profile for each device that you added and configure the fields related to Path Computation Element (PCE) protocol (PCEP), NETCONF, and (optionally) parameters related to telemetry.

Note:

These configurations will be used by Paragon Pathfinder and Paragon Insights.

1. On the Devices page (Configuration > Devices), select the device, and click the Edit (pencil) icon.

   The Edit Device-Name page appears.

2. Configure the parameters related to PCEP in the Protocols > PCEP section.
   • Specify which PCEP version to use from the Version list:
     • Select Non-RFC, which is the default option, to run in non-RFC 8231/8281 compliance mode.

       You can use this option for devices running Junos OS versions 15.x through versions 19.x.

     • Select RFC Compliant to run in RFC 8231/8281 compliance mode. You can use this option for any vendor's devices that conform to RFC 8231/8281. For example, Juniper devices running Junos OS versions 19.x and later.
     • Select 3rd party PCC for older versions of Cisco devices.
   • In the IP Address field, enter the IP address used by the device to connect to Paragon Automation for managing LSPs.

   • Enter the MD5 key to secure PCEP sessions between Paragon Pathfinder and the device. You must configure the same key on the router as well.

3. Configure the NETCONF parameters in the Protocols > Netconf section.
   • Enabled: Click the toggle button to enable NETCONF on the device.
   • Bulk Commit: Click the toggle button to enable NETCONF bulk commit. If you enable bulk commit, you can provision multiple LSPs in a single commit instead of using multiple commits.
     Note:

     • When you use point to multipoint (P2MP) LSPs on Juniper devices, you must enable bulk commit to enable support for P2MP LSP provisioning on the devices.
     • In other cases, enabling bulk commit is optional, and you can use bulk commit if you want to improve provisioning efficiency.

   • In the Retry Count field, enter the number of attempts to establish a NETCONF connection with the device.

   • iAgent/Netconf Port: Enter the port number (on the device) to be used for NETCONF. This port should not be used for any other service.

     The default port number is 830 for Juniper Networks devices and 22 for other devices.

4. (Optional) If you want Pathfinder to receive telemetry data from devices, configure the system identifier (for Junos Telemetry Interface [JTI]) and the management IP address in the Device ID Details section.
   Note:

   For the JTI system identifier, use the format device-host-name:jti-ip-address, where:

   • device-host-name is the hostname of the device.
   • jti-ip-address is the IP address (local-address statement) that is configured for the export profile in Junos OS.

   For information on identifying the jti-ip-address, see export-profile (Junos Telemetry Interface).

5. Click OK to save your changes.

For details on configuring device parameters, see Edit Devices.

Configure Paragon Pathfinder to acquire network topology and provision add LSPs. You can use Paragon Pathfinder features if you have installed the required license.

1. Add the devices to the controller device group:
   1. On the Device Group Configuration page (Configuration > Device Groups), select the controller device group, and click the Edit (pencil) icon.

      The Edit Device Group page appears.

   2. In the Devices field, select the devices that Paragon Automation previously discovered, and then save and deploy the changes.

   For details, see Edit a Device Group.

2. Run the device collection task:
   1. On the Task Scheduler page (Administration > Task Scheduler), click the Add (+) icon.

      The Create New Task wizard appears.

   2. In Step 1 of the wizard, specify the following and click Next.
      • In the Name field, enter a name for the task.
      • From the Task Group list, select Collection Tasks.
      • From the Task Type list, select Device Collection.
   3. In Step 2 of the wizard, select the devices that you want to include in device collection, specify the task and collection options, and click Next. By default, all devices are included.
   4. In Step 3 of the wizard, specify the schedule and recurrence for the task.
   5. Click Finish.

      The device collection task is added. You're returned to the Task Scheduler page.

      For details, see Add a Device Collection Task.

3. Configure topology acquisition as follows:
   1. Enable MPLS, RSVP, and the interior gateway protocol (IGP) (IS-IS or OSPF) traffic engineering on the devices (from the device CLI) using the sample configurations provided:
      • Enable MPLS:
      • Configure a routing policy:
      • Enable RSVP:
      • Enable IS-IS:
      • Enable OSPF:

      For more information, see the Comma separated list of CRPD peers section of Install Paragon Automation on a Multinode Cluster.

   2. Enable BGP-LS on the devices, as shown in the following sample configuration:

      For more information on options to configure BGP-LS and additional details, see Install Paragon Automation on a Multinode Cluster.

   3. (Optional) Configure BGP-LS peers in Paragon Automation.
      Note:

      You need to perform this step only if you want to change the BGP-LS peers that you configured during the Paragon Automation installation process.

      Paragon Automation uses the Junos OS containerized routing protocol process (daemon) (cRPD) to establish BGP-LS sessions with devices in the network for topology acquisition. The cRPD container is part of the BGP Monitoring Protocol (BMP) pod running on one of the Paragon Automation worker nodes

      As part of the Paragon Automation installation, you configure the IP addresses of one or more BGP-LS peers and the autonomous system to which they belong. This information is added to the cRPD configuration automatically. If you need to modify this configuration, you can do it one of the following ways:

      Note:

      The following steps are provided at a high-level. For details, see the Modify cRPD Configuration.

      • Modify the BMP configuration file as follows:
        1. Open the BGP Monitoring Protocol (BMP) configuration file in an editor.
           Note:

           The BMP configuration file (kube-cfg.yml) is located in the /etc/kubernetes/po/bmp/ directory on the Paragon Automation primary node.

        2. Edit the configuration (for example, add the device IP addresses) in the BMP configuration file.
        3. Apply the modified configuration file.
        4. Connect to the cRPD container, and verify that the configuration changes are applied.
      • To connect to cRPD and edit the configuration:
        1. Connect to the cRPD container and enter configuration mode.
        2. (Optional) View the current BGP configuration and the autonomous system number.
        3. Modify the autonomous system number.
        4. Add a new neighbor.
        5. Commit the configuration changes.
   4. Verify the status of the BGP-LS sessions in one of the following ways:
      • Use the CLI on the router. For Juniper devices, run the show bgp summary command.
      • Connect to the cRPD container, and run the show bgp summary command.
   5. Verify that the BGP-LS routes are being advertised on the device, and that the routes are received by Paragon Automation. You can do this in one of the following ways:
      • Use the CLI on the router. For Juniper devices, run the show route advertising-protocol bgp ip-address-worker-node-cRPD command, where ip-address-worker-node-cRPD is the IP address of the Paragon Automation worker node on which cRPD is running.
      • Connect to the cRPD container and run the show route receive-protocol bgp bgp-ls-peer-address hidden command, where bgp-ls-peer-address is the IP address of the router that is sending the route advertisements to cRPD.
        Note:

        In cRPD, the routes are hidden because the next hop cannot be resolved. This is not a concern because cRPD will never be a part of the forwarding path and the BGP decision process is not used for path calculations. The topology information collected is passed on to the Paragon Automation topology server using BMP. The Path Computation Server (PCS) then uses this information to perform the path calculations.

4. Verify that the network topology is discovered, and that the topology is displayed in the Paragon Automation GUI. On the Topology page (Network > Topology):
   1. Check that the devices are displayed (with a router icon) on the topology map.
   2. On the Node tab (of the Network Information table), verify that the Type, IP Address, and Management IP (address) are displayed for each device.
5. For LSP management, configure PCEP and NETCONF on each device:
   1. Configure PCEP on the device using the following sample configuration:

      where pce1 is the unique PCE identifier, and Paragon-PCEP-Address is the virtual IP address of the Pathfinder PCE server configured during the Paragon Automation installation process.

   2. Ensure that you enable NETCONF:
      • In the device profiles in Paragon Automation, as explained in Configure Devices.
      • On the routers. On Juniper routers, you can enable NETCONF by using the following commands:
   3. Verify that PCEP and NETCONF sessions are established on the device. On Juniper devices, you can verify this by running the following commands:
6. On the Node tab (of the Network Information table), for each device, verify that the PCEP Status and NETCONF Status fields display Up.
7. Provision LSPs from the Tunnel tab of the Network Information table (on the Network > Topology page).

   For more information, see Add a Single Tunnel, Add Diverse Tunnels, and Add Multiple Tunnels.

Configure Paragon Insights to monitor and analyze your network configuration and telemetry data. You can use Paragon Insights features if you have installed the required license.

Figure 1 provides a high-level overview of the following concepts in Paragon Insights:

• How devices and device groups are related.
• How rules and playbooks are related.
• How devices and device groups, and rules and playbooks are associated with each other.

For more information, see the chapters on Playbooks and Rules in the Paragon Automation User Guide.

To get started with Paragon Insights:

1. Configure the devices that you're monitoring using Paragon Insights to stream telemetry data. For details, see Network Device Requirements.
2. Add the devices to a device group:
   1. On the Device Group Configuration page (Configuration > Device Groups), click the Add (+) icon.

      The Add Device Group page appears.

   2. Configure the fields to add a device group, and include the devices that Paragon Automation previously discovered to the device group.

      For details, see Add a Device Group.

3. (Optional) Review the pre-existing rules and playbooks.

   If required, you can:

   • Upload predefined rules, predefined playbooks, or both. You can download predefined rules and playbooks from the Paragon Insights GitHub repository.
   • Create rules, playbooks, or both.

   For details, see the Playbooks and Rules chapters in the Paragon Automation User Guide.

4. Apply one or more playbooks to the device group:
   1. On the Playbooks page (Configuration > Playbooks), click the paper airplane icon corresponding to the playbook that you want to apply.

      The Run Playbook: Playbook-Name page appears.

   2. Enter the name of the playbook instance.
   3. Select the device group to which you want to apply the playbook.
   4. (Optional) Enter the variables.
   5. (Optional) Select the date and time schedule at which you want the playbook to run.
   6. Click Save & Deploy.

      Paragon Insights runs the playbook instance, after a few seconds.

   7. Click the deployment status icon (on the Paragon Automation banner) to verify that the deployment was successful.

   For more information, see Manage Playbook Instances.

5. After the playbook instances have finished running, access the Network Health page (Monitoring > Network Health), and select the device group for which you want to monitor the health.

Tip:

Paragon Insights allows you to define entities called resources, which are used for root cause analysis (RCA) and for generating smart alerts. You can define resources at the network element level or at the network level. You can then configure resource properties, map a resource to Paragon Insights rules, and configure dependencies between resources. Paragon Insights then automatically identifies the resources that need to be discovered and maps the dependencies between the resource instances.

For details, see Understand Root Cause Analysis.

Configure Paragon Planner to plan your network and simulate scenarios. You can use Paragon Planner features if you have installed the required license.

1. If you haven't previously run a device collection task, which enables Pathfinder to obtain the configuration of network devices, run the task as explained in Step 2.
2. Use Paragon Pathfinder to create an archive directly from the live network.

   For details, see Add a Network Archive Task.

3. Access the Paragon Planner Desktop application:
   1. Ensure that the client PC from which you access the Paragon Planner desktop application has the following installed:
      • Java Runtime Environment (JRE): Depending on the operating system (OS) of the client PC, you must install a JRE or equivalent. For example, Azul Zulu (https://www.azul.com/downloads/?package=jdk) offers builds of Open Java Development Kit (OpenJDK) for both Windows and Mac OS.
      • Web Start: You can use Open Web Start (https://openwebstart.com/) as a replacement for Java Web Start. Alternatively, you can use Iced Tea on Windows (https://adoptopenjdk.net/icedtea-web.html).
   2. Access the Paragon Planner desktop application by:
      1. Downloading the Java Network Launch Protocol (JNLP) file by using the Paragon Automation GUI.
      2. Using the JNLP file to launch the Paragon Planner desktop application.
      3. Logging in using your Paragon Planner credentials.

      For details, see Access Paragon Planner Desktop Application.

4. Open or import one of the archives and device collections created in Pathfinder to create a network model for Planner. For details, see Router Data Extraction Overview.
5. Use the network model to run simulations in Paragon Planner.

For information about the tasks you can accomplish by using Paragon Planner, see the Paragon Planner Desktop Application User Guide.