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Step 2: Up and Running

Access the Apstra GUI

  1. From the latest web browser version of Google Chrome or Mozilla FireFox, enter the URL https://<apstra_server_ip> where <apstra_server_ip> is the IP address of the Apstra server (or a DNS name that resolves to the IP address of the Apstra server).

  2. If a security warning appears, click Advanced and Proceed to the site. The warning occurs because the SSL certificate that was generated during installation is self-signed. We recommend that you replace the SSL certificate with a signed one.

  3. From the log in page, enter the username and password. The username is admin and the password is the secure password that you created when configuring the Apstra server. The main Apstra GUI screen appears.


Design Your Network

The Apstra design process is highly intuitive because you base your design on physical building blocks such as ports, devices, and racks. When you create these building blocks and specify what ports are used, Apstra has all the information it needs to come up with a reference design for your fabric. Once your design elements, devices and resources are ready, you can start staging your network in a blueprint.

Apstra Design Elements

At first, you design your fabric using generic building blocks that don't have site-specific details or site-specific hardware. The output becomes a template that you later use in the build stage to create blueprints for all your data center locations. You'll use different design elements to build your network in a blueprint. Keep reading to learn about these elements.

Logical Devices

Logical devices are abstractions of physical devices. Logical devices allow you to create a mapping of the ports you want to use, their speed, and their roles. Vendor-specific information is not included; this lets you plan your network based on device capabilities alone before selecting hardware vendors and models. Logical devices are used in interface maps, rack types and rack-based templates.

Apstra ships with many predefined logical devices. You can view them through the logical devices design (global) catalog. From the left navigation menu, navigate to Design > Logical Devices. Go through the table to find ones that meet your specifications.


Interface Maps

Interface maps link logical devices to device profiles. Device profiles specify hardware model characteristics. By the time you check the design (global) catalog for interface maps, you'll need to know which models you'll be using. You assign interface maps when you build your network in the blueprint.

Apstra ships with many predefined interface maps. You can view them through the interface maps design (global) catalog. From the left navigation menu, navigate to Design > Interface Maps. Go through the table to find ones that match your devices.


Rack Types

Rack types are logical representations of physical racks. They define the type and number of leafs, access switches and/or generic systems (unmanaged systems) in racks. Rack types don't specify vendors, so you can design your racks before selecting hardware.

Apstra ships with many predefined rack types. You can view them in the rack type design (global) catalog: From the left navigation menu, navigate to Design > Rack Types. Go through the table to find ones that match your design.


Templates

Templates specify a network's policy and structure. Policies can include ASN allocation schemes for spines, overlay control protocol, spine-to-leaf link underlay type and other details. The structure includes rack types, spine details and more.

Apstra ships with many predefined templates. You can view them in the template design (global) catalog. From the left navigation menu, navigate to Design > Templates. Go through the table to find ones that match your design.


Install Device System Agents

Device system agents manage devices in the Apstra environment. They manage configuration, device-to-server communication, and telemetry collection. We'll use Juniper Junos devices with off-box agents for our example.
  1. Before creating the agent, install the following minimum required configuration on the Juniper Junos devices:
  2. From the left navigation menu in the Apstra GUI, navigate to Devices > Managed Devices and click Create Offbox Agent(s).
  3. Enter device management IP addresses.
  4. Select FULL CONTROL, then select Junos from the platform drop-down list.
  5. Enter a username and password.
  6. Click Create to create the agent and return to the managed devices summary view.
  7. Select the check boxes for the devices, then click the Acknowledge selected systems button (first one on the left).
  8. Click Confirm. The fields in the Acknowledged column change to green check marks indicating that those devices are now under Apstra management. You'll assign them to your blueprint later.

Create Resource Pools

You can create resource pools, then when you're staging your blueprint and you're ready to assign resources, you can specify which pool to use. Apstra will pull resources from the selected pool. You can create resource pools for ASNs, IPv4, IPv6 and VNIs. We'll show you the steps for creating IP pools. The steps for the other resource types are similar.
  1. From the left navigation menu, navigate to Resources > IP Pools and click Create IP Pool.
  2. Enter a name and valid subnet. To add another subnet, click Add a Subnet and enter the subnet.
  3. Click Create to create the resource pool and return to the summary view.

Build Your Network

When you've got your design elements, devices and resources ready, you can start staging your network in a blueprint. Let's create one now.

Create a Blueprint

  1. From the left navigation menu, click Blueprints, then click Create Blueprint.
  2. Type a name for the blueprint.
  3. Select Datacenter reference design.
  4. Select a template type (all, rack-based, pod-based, collapsed).
  5. Select a template from the Template drop-down list. A preview shows template parameters, a topology preview, network structure, external connectivity, and policies.
  6. Click Create to create the blueprint and return to the blueprint summary view. The summary view shows the overall status and health of your network. When you meet all the requirements for building the network, the build errors are resolved and you can deploy the network. We'll start by assigning resources.

Assign Resources

  1. From the blueprint summary view, click the blueprint name to go to the blueprint dashboard. After you deploy your blueprint, this dashboard will show details about the status and health of your networks.
  2. From the top navigation menu of the blueprint, click Staged. This is where you'll build your network. The Physical view appears by default, and the Resources tab in the Build panel is selected. Red status indicators mean that you need to assign resources.
  3. Click one of the red status indicators, then click the Update assignments button.
  4. Select a resource pool (that you created earlier), then click the Save button. The required number of resources are automatically assigned to the resource group from the selected pool. When the red status indicator turns green, the resources are assigned. Changes to the staged blueprint aren't pushed to the fabric until you commit your changes. We'll do that when we're done building the network.
  5. Continue assigning resources until all status indicators are green.

Assign Interface Maps

Now it's time to specify the characteristics for each of your nodes in the topology. You'll assign the actual devices in the next section.
  1. In the Build panel, click the Device Profiles tab.
  2. Click a red status indicator, then click the Change interface maps assignments button (looks like an edit button).
  3. Select the appropriate interface map for each node from the drop-down list, then click Update Assignments. When the red status indicator turns green, the interface maps have been assigned.
  4. Continue assigning interface maps until all the required status indicators are green.

Assign Devices

  1. In the Build panel, click the Devices tab.
  2. Click the status indicator for Assigned System IDs (if the nodes list is not already displayed). Unassigned devices are indicated in yellow.
  3. Click the Change System IDs assignments button (below Assigned System IDs) and, for each node, select system IDs (serial numbers) from the drop-down list.
  4. Click Update Assignments. When the red status indicator turns green, system IDs have been assigned.

Cable Up Devices

  1. Click Links (towards the left of the screen) to go to the cabling map.
  2. Review the calculated cabling map and cable up the physical devices according to the map. If you have a set of pre-cabled switches, ensure that you have configured interface maps according to the actual cabling so that calculated cabling matches the actual cabling.

Deploy the Network

When you've assigned everything that needs to be assigned and the blueprint is error-free, all status indicators are green. Let's deploy the blueprint to push the configuration to the assigned devices.
  1. From the top navigation menu, click Uncommitted to review staged changes. To see details of changes, click one of the names in the table.
  2. Click Commit to go to the dialog where you can add a description and commit changes.
  3. Add a description. When you need to roll back a blueprint to a previous revision, this description is the only information available regarding what has changed.
  4. Click Commit to push the staged changes to the active blueprint and create a revision.
Congratulations! Your physical network is up and running.