Maynooth University’s move to intent-based networking, or bowling with the bumpers on!

The data centre network needed a refresh, having done its duty well for almost a decade. Our familiarity with Juniper hardware, a genuine love of Junos OS, and the stability of the ‘virtual chassis fabric’ design had us curious to see what was currently available. Enter Apstra! An intent-based networking application that both automates and validates data centre network design, deployment, and operation – and is (almost completely) vendor agnostic. It allows us to specify where we want to go in terms of a network outcome, and Apstra will handle the rest – from validation to anomaly detection, and even change management. Whether it’s initial design or day to day operations, we’re bowling with the bumpers on, and getting strikes.

Previously, firmware upgrades had required major outages – our entire datacentre had to be shut down (over 220 virtual/physical machines), updates applied and then everything brought back, and in a very particular order. This was an extremely time consuming process that inevitably had to be carried out overnight, with services from telephony to wireless authentication off the air for the duration. Now, with a leaf/spine architecture and EVPN technology interconnecting VXLAN networks, we can drain a particular box of connections, update it, and bring it back into the fold, all without outage - provided services are dual homed, of course!

Oversight of datacentre traffic and trends, detailed timelines of changes, comparison of committed versus uncommitted are all available in a clearly laid out interface, with easy to understand analytics. What had been two halves of our core router are now two border leaves, also managed in Apstra – and migration of our distribution layer could be carried out with mere seconds of downtime per router, if any at all. To ensure smooth future upgrades, the opportunity was also taken to change from OSPF to BGP.

With future integrations to include MIST (and more in the way of AI) the future is very bright, and a lot less nerve wracking. The days of misconfiguring an aggregate and bringing things down are a thing of the past, but nothing feels limited as a result. The command line is still available (for troubleshooting purposes) so any previous knowledge still applies. New hardware additions are only a generated blueprint away, with little in the way of headaches. Intent-based networking aims to bridge the gap between what is required and IT, allowing organizations to move faster and with confidence by automating network configuration and management. Maynooth University is the first third level institution in Ireland to have implemented this solution, and intent-based networking is a very welcome addition to our toolset.