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Understand Resources and Dependencies
Paragon Insights monitors network resources — such as devices, interfaces, protocols, label switched paths — through rules deployed in the network. A rule can capture specific information about a key performance indicator (KPI) in a network and generate alerts when the KPI experiences an error event, but rules cannot decipher the root cause of the error event. You require a wider view to correlate an error event in one resource to a failure in another resource.
Paragon Insights tackles the need to connect events in a network through resources. A resource is a building block that creates a wider network view by forming single-level dependencies vis-à-vis other resources.
The following list has frequently used terms and concepts connected with resources:
| Resource | A resource is a specific component that constitute the network. For example, chassis, line card, protocols, system memory, interfaces, and so on. |
| Resource instances | Resources such as an interface, Flexible PIC Concentrators (FPC), router ids, or virtual private networks can have many instances. An instance is a specific realization of the resource. For example, an interface includes instances such as ge-0/0/1, et-1/0/0, xe-2/0/1, and so on. |
| Property | Properties define characteristics of a resource. A property is comparable to fields in rules. For example, neighbor-id and maximum transmission unit (MTU) are characteristics of routing-options resource and interface resource, respectively. |
| Key properties in resources | A key property uniquely identifies all instances of a resource. For example, interface-name property uniquely identifies interface resource instance with name ge-0/0/0 from other instances. MTU cannot be a unique property. |
| Resource dependency | Defines the relationship between two resources. |
| Dependent resource | In a resource dependency, a dependent resource is the one that depends on another resource. In a single-level resource dependency, a dependent resource is a child resource of another resource. |
| Dependency resources | In a resource dependency, a dependency resource is the one that impacts another resource. In a single-level resource dependency, a dependency resource is a parent resource of another resource. |
Resources
A resource can be part of a device or the network. Device resources can be an interface, line cards, chassis, OSPF, etc. Network resources are resources that span multiple devices in a network, such as IPSec tunnels, VPN, etc.
As with rules, you configure resources under the topic hierarchy in Paragon Insights. A resource and its properties are derived from rules. In this process, resources consolidate the following aspects in rule configurations.
A resource, such as interface, is configured in different rules depending on which aspect of interface the rule monitors.
Each rule has different field configuration for a resource property.
An interface name can be configured as interface-name in one rule and intf-name in another rule.
When you configure interface as a resource, you can choose the specific interface rules from which Paragon Insights detects instances of interface resource. The exact rules you select to identify a resource depend on your use case.
A resource property aggregates instances from referenced rules. When you configure a resource property, you can refer multiple rules where the field configurations are different for that property.
Resource Dependencies
Resource dependency defines the relationship between a dependent resource (child resource) and a dependency resource (parent resource). While configuring dependency, you begin with a dependent resource and refer dependency resources that the child resource depends on. A dependency configuration also has terms that contain the logic to map dependency between two resources.
There are three types of dependency based on the type of resources involved, as described in Table 1. You can define dependencies between resources in the same device (Local Device and Network), between resources in different devices (Other Device), between a network resource to another network resource (Other Network), and a network resource to a device resource (Other Device).
Local Device and Network |
Other Device |
Other Network |
|---|---|---|
Interface → line card |
Interface 1 (device 1) → interface 2 (device 2) |
virtual private network (VPN)→ interface 1 (device 1) |
Line card → chassis |
OSPF (device 1) → OSPF (device 2) |
VPN → IPSec tunnel |
You can configure multiple single-level dependencies for a resource. Consider the following chains of dependencies:
VPN → LSP → interface → Line card
VPN → interface → Line card
When you configure VPN as a resource, you can define VPN’s dependency on Label Switched Paths (LSPs) as one dependency and VPN’s dependency on interface as a second dependency. For LSP as a resource, you can define its dependency on interface. For interface as a resource, you can define its dependency on line card.
A dependency term logic can involve checking parts of a dependent resource property with parts of dependency resource's property, checking all instances of the dependency resource, checking all devices that have dependency resource instances, checking all or specific device groups, and checking all or specific network groups.
Paragon Insights supports matches-with and user-defined functions in the dependency condition.
As dependency configurations can involve complex operations, Paragon Insights also allows you to execute such operations in a function. The function returns a Boolean value that can be used to check dependency.
Use Cases
Resource and dependency configurations serve the following use cases:
| Root cause analysis | You can understand the root cause of a failure in your network. Refer the resource dependencies and use the relationship between resources to diagnose alerts generated by triggers in rules. |
| Smart alarms | Through smart alarms, Paragon Insights links several resources that have a failure to another resource that is the cause of the failure. |