Integration with Anuta ATOM Overview

ATOM-Paragon Automation Integration Workflow

To integrate ATOM with Paragon Automation:

• Configure the Paragon Automation portal IP address in Paragon Automation.

  To configure the Paragon Automation portal IP address, navigate to Administration > Authentication > Portal Settings. Enter the IPv4 address for accessing the Paragon Automation GUI in the Authentication Settings page that appears and click Save.

• Register Paragon Automation with Keycloak so that ATOM can be added as an external EMS application and identity provider in Paragon Automation; see Register Paragon Automation with Keycloak.

• Add ATOM as an identity provider in Paragon Automation; see Add Anuta ATOM as an Identity Provider.

  Adding ATOM as an identity provider allows single sign-on of ATOM users in to Paragon Automation. During the single sign-on by using ATOM credentials, ATOM handles user authentication while Paragon Automation handles authorization.

• Add ATOM as an external EMS application in Paragon Automation; see Add Anuta ATOM as an External EMS Application.

  Adding ATOM as an external EMS helps in integrating ATOM with the base component, Paragon Pathfinder, and Paragon Insights components of Paragon Automation.

How ATOM Works with Paragon Automation Components

When you add ATOM as an external EMS component in Paragon Automation:

• The device model connector service retrieves the devices discovered by ATOM and synchronizes the device configuration in its database. You can view the devices discovered by both ATOM and Paragon Automation on the Devices page of Paragon Automation.

  ATOM sends updates when a device is created, deleted, or modified to Paragon Automation so that the device list in Paragon Automation is synchronized with the network. Figure 1 shows the synchronization process for device details.

  Figure 1: Device Synchronization

• The Paragon Pathfinder component learns the network topology including all the nodes, links, and label-switched path (LSP) tunnels provisioned on the network. ATOM obtains this information about the LSP tunnels in the network from the Paragon Pathfinder component through REST APIs.

  ATOM uses the LSP tunnel information to provision the L3VPN services having different classes of service. If an LSP is not present for configuring an L3VPN with the required class of service, ATOM does not provision the service; instead, it waits for the required LSP to be configured. The service is provisioned after the LSP is configured.

  Note:

  ATOM does not configure the LSPs. It merely provides the details (for example, endpoints and bandwidth) for the LSP to be configured. The LSPs must be manually configured by using the Paragon Pathfinder component.

• ATOM integrates with the Paragon Insights component to create and to instantiate playbooks for monitoring the provisioned services.

  ATOM monitors the provisioned services for the following key performance indicators (KPIs):

  • interface states and errors towards the core edge

  • interface states and errors towards the customer edge

  • VPN state

  • BGP protocol errors

  For each service that is provisioned, ATOM creates a playbook instance for monitoring the service and adds the devices on which the service is provisioned to the playbook. Paragon Insights is configured to send notifications through Microsoft Teams, Slack, or e-mail when constraints, such as bandwidth and latency, for the service are not met.

Accessing ATOM from Paragon Automation

When you add ATOM as an identity provider in Paragon Automation, an ATOM user can use the single sign-on feature of Paragon Automation to sign in to Paragon Automation by using their ATOM credentials.

After logging in to Paragon Automation, an ATOM user can log in to ATOM by clicking the ATOM link on the left navigation bar. The user is taken to the ATOM portal, where the user can log in by using their ATOM credentials.

Benefits

Integrating Paragon Automation with ATOM provides the following benefits:

• The integration of ATOM with Paragon Automation leverages the traffic engineering (TE) features of Paragon Pathfinder to enable VPN to LSP steering.

• The L3VPN workflows present in ATOM helps in setting up L3 VPNs quickly without errors.

• ATOM configures the L3VPN monitoring playbooks to automate L3VPN assurance.

• The closed-loop automation capabilities of ATOM along with automation capabilities of Paragon Pathfinder and Paragon Insights provide network operators with increased service assurance and operational efficiency.