Fabric Overview
You can manage a set of devices, and physical network functions (PNF) in Contrail Networking as a fabric. A fabric is a set of data center devices, and PNFs that fall under the same data center administrator responsibility area. The fabric is linked to different role-based access control (RBAC) profiles for ease of administration and management.
You can provision greenfield devices and brownfield devices by using the Contrail Command user interface (UI).
| Greenfield devices | You can provision new devices to form an IP Clos network. These devices are connected to a management network that is provisioned before device onboarding. The greenfield fabric workflow then zero-touch-provisions all factory-default devices to form an operational IP Clos network with underlay connectivity. This greenfield fabric workflow includes playbooks that automate the fabric data model creation in the database, DHCP server configuration, generating device bootstrap configuration, uploading device bootstrap configuration to TFTP server, device discovery, node profile auto-assignment, device role assignment, and role-based auto configuration. |
| Brownfield devices | You can provision legacy devices or existing devices to form an IP Clos network. Unlike greenfield devices, brownfield devices are manually provisioned before device onboarding. The brownfield fabric workflow includes playbooks that automate the fabric data model creation in the database. You can perform basic device management functions such as image upgrade, device discovery, device underlay configuration, assign roles to devices, and view node profile information. |
You can use the Contrail Command UI to: