This document provides information about Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0, including product overview, solution components, new features and functionality, compatibility information, and known issues and limitations.
Overview
Cisco Crosswork Network Controller is a transport SDN controller that empowers customers to simplify and automate intent-based network service provisioning, health monitoring, and optimization in a multi-vendor network environment with a common GUI and API. Crosswork Network Controller simplifies operational workflows by consolidating both the service lifecycle and device management functions in a single integrated solution.
The solution offers intent-based network automation to deliver critical service orchestration and fulfillment capabilities, network optimization, path computation, service health monitoring, device deployment and management, and anomaly detection. Using telemetry gathering and automated responses, Cisco Crosswork Network Controller delivers network optimization capabilities that would be nearly impossible to replicate even with a highly skilled and dedicated staff operating the network.
The fully integrated solution combines core capabilities from multiple innovative, industry-leading products, including Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO), Cisco Segment Routing Path Computation Element (SR-PCE), Crosswork Optimization Engine, and an evolving suite of applications operating on the Cisco Crosswork Infrastructure. Its unified user interface allows real-time visualization of the network topology and services and service and transport provisioning via a single pane of glass. Its feature-rich API allows operators to integrate the solution seamlessly with other applications they use to operate, monitor, and provision services on the network.
Primary Use Cases:
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Orchestrated service provisioning: Provisioning of layer 2 VPN (L2VPN) and layer 3 VPN (L3VPN) services with underlay transport policies to define, meet, and maintain service objectives using the UI or APIs. Using Segment Routing Flexible Algorithm (Flex-Algo) provisioning and visualizing to customize and compute IGP shortest paths over a network according to specified constraints.
For this use case, Cisco Crosswork Advantage must be installed.
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Real-time network and bandwidth optimization: Intent-based closed-loop optimization, congestion mitigation, and dynamic bandwidth management based on Segment Routing and RSVP-TE. Optimization of bandwidth resource utilization by setting utilization thresholds on links and calculating tactical alternate paths when thresholds are exceeded.
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Circuit Style Segment Routing Traffic Engineering (CS SR-TE) policy provisioning with network topology visualization:
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Straightforward verification of CS SR-TE policy configurations
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Visualization of CS SR-TE details, bi-directional active and candidate paths
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Operational status details
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Failover behavior monitoring for individual CS SR-TE policies
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A percentage of bandwidth reservation for each link in the network
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Manually triggered recalculations of existing CS SR-TE policy paths that may no longer be optimized due to network topology changes
For this use case, Cisco Crosswork Advantage must be installed.
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Local congestion management: Local Congestion Mitigation (LCM) provides localized mitigation recommendations within surrounding interfaces with the use of standard protocols. Data is gathered in real-time, and solutions are suggested when congestion is detected. LCM involves a “human-in-the-loop” approach, ensuring that the network operator has control over making changes. Additionally, LCM offers operators the choice to automate changes, enabling the system to implement changes to the network on its own. For this use case, Cisco Crosswork Advantage must be installed.
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Visualization of network and service topology and inventory: The topology UI, along with the various tables that can be accessed from it, allows you to easily assess the health of the network and drill down to see details about devices, links, and services.
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Performance-based closed-loop automation: Automated discovery and remediation of problems in the network by allowing Key Performance Indicator (KPI) customization and execution of pre-defined remediation tasks when a KPI threshold is breached. Health Insights and Change Automation functions must be installed for this use case.
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Planning, scheduling, and automating network maintenance tasks: Scheduling an appropriate maintenance window for a maintenance task after evaluating the potential impact of the task (using Crosswork Planning Design). Automating the execution of maintenance tasks (such as throughput checks, software upgrades, and SMU installs) using playbooks. For this use case, Health Insights and Change Automation functions must be installed.
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Secured zero-touch onboarding and provisioning of devices: Onboarding new IOS-XR devices and automatically provisioning Day0 configuration resulting in faster deployment of new hardware at lower operating costs. For this use case, Cisco Crosswork Essentials must be installed.
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Visualization of native Segment Routing (SR) paths: Using the traceroute SR-MPLS multipath command to get the actual paths between the source and the destination can be achieved using Path Query. A traceroute command runs on the source device for the destination TE-Router ID and assists in retrieving the paths. For this use case, Cisco Crosswork Advantage must be installed.
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Provision, visualize, and analyze tree segment identifier policies in multipath networks: Creating and visualizing static Tree-SID policies using the UI. Static mVPN Tree-SID policies, associated with existing or newly created L3VPN service models (SR MPLS point-to-multi-point), can be visualized and analyzed to manage and troubleshoot your multicast network efficiently. For this use case, Cisco Crosswork Advantage must be installed.
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Transport slice provisioning: Cisco Crosswork Network Controller offers direct support for network slicing at the OSI transport layer. Using this solution, network engineering experts can design slices around customer intents and add them to a catalog. Network line operators can assign the profile identified for a given customer to their endpoints and adjust the constraints according to the customer's requirements. Once the slice is provisioned, the path chosen can be visualized. Customers wishing for even greater insight can use Service Health to gather additional performance data about the service. For this use case, Cisco Crosswork Advantage must be installed.
Solution Components
Cisco Crosswork Network Controller components
|
Component |
Version |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Platform Infrastructure |
7.0 |
A resilient and scalable platform on which all Cisco Crosswork components can be deployed. The infrastructure is based on a cluster architecture to ensure extensibility, scalability, and high availability. For installation, configuration, and administration procedures, refer to the following documents: |
|
Optimization Engine |
7.0 |
Provides closed-loop tracking of the network state and real-time network optimization in response to changes in the network state, allowing operators to effectively maximize network capacity utilization and increase service velocity. Provides traffic engineering visualization of SR-MPLS, SRv6, and RSVP-TE policies. For more information, see Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Traffic Engineering and Optimization guide. |
|
Service Health |
7.0 |
Overlays a service-level view of the environment and allows operators to monitor the health of services (for example, L2/L3 VPN) based on rules established by the operator. For more information, see Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Service Health Monitoring guide. |
|
Health Insights |
7.0 |
Performs real-time Key Performance Indicator (KPI) monitoring, alerting, and troubleshooting. It builds dynamic detection and analytics modules, allowing operators to monitor and alert network events based on user-defined logic. For more information, see Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Closed-Loop Network Automation guide. |
|
Change Automation |
7.0 |
Automates the process of deploying changes to the network. For more information, see Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Closed-Loop Network Automation guide. |
|
Data Gateway |
7.0 |
A secure, common collection platform for gathering network data from multi-vendor devices that supports multiple data collection protocols, including MDT, SNMP, CLI, standards-based gNMI (dial-in), and syslog. For more information, see Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Administration guide. |
|
Element Management Functions |
7.0 |
A library of functions that provides deep inventory collection, device management, alarm management, and software image management. Zero Touch Provisioning with automatic onboarding of new IOS-XR and IOS-XE devices and provisioning of Day0 configuration, resulting in faster deployment of new hardware at a lower operating cost. For more information, see Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Device Lifecycle Management guide. |
Some of Cisco Crosswork Network Controller's functionality is enabled by the following products:
|
Products |
Version |
Description |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Cisco Network Services Orchestrator |
6.1.14 |
An orchestration platform that makes use of pluggable function packs to translate network-wide service intent into device-specific configuration. Cisco NSO provides flexible service orchestration and lifecycle management across physical network elements and cloud-based virtual network functions (VNFs), fulfilling the role of the Network Orchestrator (NFVO) within the ETSI architecture. It provides complete support for physical and virtual network elements, with a consistent operational model across both. It can orchestrate across multi-vendor environments and support multiple technology stacks, enabling extension of end-to-end automation to virtually any use case or device.
|
||
|
Cisco Segment Routing Path Computation Element (SR-PCE) |
24.2.1 |
An IOS-XR multi-domain stateful PCE supporting both segment routing (SR) and Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP). Cisco SR-PCE builds on the native Path Computation Engine (PCE) abilities within IOS-XR devices, and provides the ability to collect topology and segment routing IDs through BGP-LS, calculate paths that adhere to service SLAs, and program them into the source router as an ordered list of segments. |
Cisco Crosswork Network Controller Packages
Cisco Crosswork Network Controller is distributed as two downloadable software packages (Essentials and Advantage) with an additional add-on package.
|
Software Package |
Supported Functionality |
|---|---|
|
Cisco Crosswork Network Controller Essentials |
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Cisco Crosswork Network Controller Advantage |
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Cisco Crosswork Network Controller Add-on1 |
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What's New
The following tables list the primary new features and functionality introduced in Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0:
|
Feature |
What's New? |
|---|---|
|
AWS EC2 Support |
Support is available for deploying the following Cisco Crosswork Network Controller packages on the AWS EC2 platform.
New capabilities supported for AWS EC2 platform:
For information on deploying Crosswork Network Controller on AWS EC2, see Install Cisco Crosswork Network Controller on AWS EC2. For information on the Crosswork Network Controller administrative tasks on AWS EC2, see Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Administration Guide. |
|
Crosswork Network Controller deployed on a single VM |
This release introduces support for deploying the Crosswork Network Controller solution on a single VM. The solution is deployed using a unified package that includes Crosswork Infrastructure, Embedded Collectors, and Element Management Functions, enabling you to leverage device lifecycle management functionalities. However, functionalities like service provisioning and overlay are only available on the cluster-based installation. |
|
Geo redundancy |
This release introduces the asynchronous data replication for geo redundancy clusters (on-premise L3 multi-site). It is no longer necessary to move the cluster into maintenance mode for data synchronization. |
|
Dual stack support |
Support for deploying Crosswork Network Controller with a dual stack (IPv4 and IPv6) configuration. |
|
Installation enhancements |
|
|
System access and security infrastructure |
|
|
Feature |
What's New? |
|---|---|
|
Bandwidth on Demand (BWoD) feature pack |
You now have the option to have BWoD find a path with a specified Flexible Algorithm SID. The acceptable SID values are 0, 1, and 128-255. |
|
Alarms and Events |
Traffic engineering alarms and events have been added or updated to be more consistent with other Crosswork services. |
|
Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) |
Duplicate IP addresses on two interfaces in the same router are now supported when configured in a VRF table. |
|
Interface Index (IfIndex) |
Crosswork Network Controller now supports multiple IP addresses on a single IfIndex. |
|
Links with both IS-IS Level 1 and Level 2 adjacencies |
Crosswork Network Controller now discovers links with both ISIS Level 1 and Level 2 adjacencies. They are displayed on the topology map as dotted lines between devices. |
|
Cisco WAN Automation Engine (WAE) and Cisco Crosswork Planning plan file |
The plan file from Crosswork Network Controller now includes additional attributes: LSP MetricType, Dynamic, and applicable disjoint group information. A plan file is comprised of a series of tables that store information about a network, including topology, configuration information, traffic, failure state, and visual layout. For more information, see the Cisco Crosswork Solution Workflow Guide. |
|
Interface Names |
When Element Management Functions (EMF) is installed, Crosswork Network Controller now abstracts any non-standardized interface
name and populates the The Link Summary details page displays the following field changes:
|
|
Feature |
What's New? |
|---|---|
|
Enhanced topology visualization of large (more than 50 endpoints) VPNs |
Enhanced navigation, provisioning, and visualization of the service overlay and details for large L3 VPNs containing up to 20,000 endpoints (UNI/PE-CE interface). When a user selects a VPN service in the UI that is too large to display in full (since a maximum of 50 endpoints can only be displayed once), they can click Select endpoints and choose from a list of endpoints to visualize the service overlay and details. The list shows only the endpoints on devices in the current selected device group. The list also includes filters to narrow down the list of endpoints, making it easier to select. Preconditions and limitations:
|
|
Enhancements in the Topology UI - Links Visualization |
A new Links tab displays all links on the map and a global links table in the Devices tab shows link details and metrics. Key metrics like bandwidth utilization, packet errors, packet drops, delay, and jitter are now shown in both the map and details panels, with delay and jitter available when Service Health is installed and SR-PM is enabled. You can also customize link color and metric thresholds in the Topology map and view historical data for collected metrics on the Link Details page. |
|
Topology dashboard |
A new Topology dashlet has been added to the Dashboards page, offering details on L2 and L3 links along with their associated metrics. When you click the L2 or L3 links in the dashboard, you will be directed to the Topology UI, where the corresponding map is displayed in the left pane. The Devices and Links tabs in the right pane offer detailed information about the devices and links on the map. |
|
Feature |
What's New? |
|---|---|
|
Support for check-sync action play |
A new stock play, Perform Check Sync on the device, is available to achieve check-sync. You can use this Play prior to running other operations in the Playbook or as part of pre-maintenance. This Play checks the device sync status with NSO and performs a sync-from (pulling the present device config into NSO) only when needed, based on the Playbook's sync parameter value. It reduces the Playbook execution time and ensures the NSO configuration matches the device configuration.
|
|
Feature |
What's New? |
||
|---|---|---|---|
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Monitor Service Health using Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance |
Crosswork Network Controller can leverage external probes from Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance (formerly Accedian Skylight) to provide additional insights into the health of the L3 VPN services in the network.
|
||
|
L3 VPN service monitoring enhancements |
Service Health supports large-scale VPN visualization by monitoring L3VPN services at the node level and creating an Assurance graph for each service at either the node or endpoint level. If the graph contains more than 50 endpoints, Service Health indicates that the graph is too large to view and prompts you to use the Select Endpoints option to select and view up to 50 endpoints. |
||
|
Enhanced metrics and insights with SR-PM |
When Segment Routing Performance Measurement (SR-PM) is enabled on your devices, Service Health collects and processes additional metrics like Delay, Delay Variance, and Liveness to assess the performance of links and the health of TE policies. It also offers historical data and trends for these metrics, providing valuable insights into network performance and trends. |
||
|
Service Health dashboard |
A new Service Health Dashboard displays a consolidated view of L2 VPN and L3 VPN services. If an SLA for a service is breached, the UI clearly indicates the break, making detection of problems easier. |
|
Feature |
What's New? |
|---|---|
|
Support for dual-stack configurations |
Support for dual-stack configurations, enabling the system to establish connections using IPv4 and IPv6 protocols. This enables seamless, concurrent communication with various systems (such as NTP, DNS, and Syslog) and devices (SSH, SNMP, MDT) over IPv4 and IPv6. In dual-stack mode, IPv6 gets priority for all communication purposes. For information on configuring a dual stack when creating or editing a pool and adding destinations, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Administration Guide. |
|
New custom package to support different file formats |
Support to flexibly manage the custom packages. This feature unifies the previously available upload structures by standardizing the structure for both system and custom packages. Also, Crosswork Network Controller now supports upload of multiple custom packages more efficiently. The enhanced Crosswork Network Controller UI enables uploading common package as well as the new aggregate package. The aggregate package facilitates the combination and merging of various file formats into a single, unified package. You can use the the aggregate custom packages for Embedded Collectors and Crosswork Data Gateway in a cluster deployment. For information on adding and downloading aggregate packages, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Administration Guide. |
|
Deployable on VMware vCenter version 8.0 |
Support for installing Crosswork Data Gateway instances on VMware vCenter and ESXi version 8.0. For information on the installation of Crosswork Data Gateway on vCenter, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Installation Guide. |
|
Embedded Collectors (Single VM) |
To simplify deployment, the Crosswork Network Controller can be set up on a single VM, though this comes with a trade-off in terms of scale and availability. This deployment model minimizes the reliance on external components by incorporating an embedded collector, replacing the need for external Crosswork Data Gateway VMs. In this model, the data gateway is installed as a lightweight CAPP within the single VM, reducing the need for separate data gateway nodes and significantly decreasing the deployment footprint. The data gateway functions as Embedded Collectors within the Kubernetes pods. For information on installing Embedded Collectors, see Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Installation Guide. |
|
A new Interactive Console menu option to modify the controller's IP or FQDN for data gateway enrollment and geo redundancy features |
The interactive menu now has a new option that enables you to modify the controller's IP or FQDN in these scenarios:
For more information on changing the controller IP, see the Configure Controller IP for Crosswork Data Gateway section in the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Administration Guide. |
|
Feature |
What's New? |
|---|---|
|
Device Management |
The following new features allow for customized monitoring and management of network devices.
|
|
Software Image Management (SWIM) |
Improved management of device software images, enabling seamless deployment, upgrades, and downgrades across a two-version range. Additionally, it supports specialized firmware upgrades for Field Programmable Devices (FPD) to maintain devices with unique firmware needs efficiently. |
|
Monitoring Policies |
Monitoring policies help you control how Crosswork Network Controller monitors your network. You can create and customize different monitoring policies to monitor network-wide device information and manage your network health. Monitoring policies are available for:
|
|
Alert Management |
Improved alert management for a more comprehensive system notification experience. Enhancements include:
|
|
Zero Touch Provisioning |
For more information, see the Zero Touch Provisioning section in Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Device Lifecycle Management. |
|
Feature |
What's New? |
|---|---|
|
Documentation |
|
Compatibility Information
The following tables list the hardware and software versions that have been tested and are known to be compatible with Cisco Crosswork Network Controller.
Many Crosswork Network Controller features depend on the underlying router XR/XE versions and the SR-PCE software. In the below tables, you can review those that are supported and working in combination with software versions on router platforms and SR-PCE.
Cisco Crosswork Infrastructure Support
| Software | Supported Version(s) | ||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Cisco Operating System
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Hypervisor and vCenter |
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Browsers |
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Cisco Crosswork Data Gateway |
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Cisco Crosswork Network Services Orchestrator (Crosswork NSO) |
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Cisco Network Element Driver (NED)
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Cisco Segment Routing Path Computation Element (SR-PCE) |
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Device Management Support
Crosswork Network Controller is multivendor capable, leveraging open industry standard mechanisms and protocols such as BGP-LS, SNMP, gNMI, PCEP, segment routing, and NETCONF/YANG to communicate with network devices in a multivendor environment. See more details in the Crosswork Network Controller Solution Workflow Guide.
The following table details the Cisco device management support for IOS versions, SR-PCE, and Cisco devices.
We recommend that the SR-PCE version you use be equal to or higher than the PCC software version. PCC Cisco IOS XR 24.2.1 is recommended and has been validated to work with 7.0 features. Other listed PCC versions are supported, but may not support all features because of PCC version limitations.
 Note |
For detailed information on supported devices for Element Management Functions, refer to Crosswork Network Controller Supported Devices. |
|
Cisco IOS XR |
Cisco ASR 9901 (64-bit) |
Cisco XRv 90002 | Cisco 8000 series | Cisco NCS 5500/5700 series |
Cisco NCS 540 series3 |
Cisco NCS 560 series |
Cisco 8011 Series Fixed 1RU |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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7.5.2 |
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7.6.1 |
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7.7.1 |
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7.7.2 |
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7.8.1 + SMU (CSCwc93705) |
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7.8.2 |
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7.9.1 |
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7.9.2 |
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7.10.1 |
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7.10.2 |
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7.11.1 |
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7.11.2 |
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24.1.x |
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24.2.1 |
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24.2.11 (LNT) |
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Cisco IOS XE Version |
Cisco ASR 920 |
Cisco ASR 902 RSP 2 |
Cisco ASR 903 RSP 3 |
Cisco Catalyst 8000V Edge Software |
Cisco ASR 1002-HX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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17.9.1 |
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17.12.1 |
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17.12.3 |
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Note |
Segment Routing Traffic Matrix (SRTM) is only available in Cisco ASR 9000 devices. |
Cisco IOS Software Version Support
Important |
Element Management encompasses all the functionalities included in the Crosswork Network Controller Essentials package. For more detailed information, please refer to Crosswork Network Controller Supported Devices. |
|
Operating System |
Version |
Service Lifecycle Management |
Element Management 4 |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Service Provisioning |
Traffic Engineering/ Optimization |
Monitoring/ Assurance |
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IOS-XR |
7.5.2 |
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7.6.1 |
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7.7.1 |
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7.8.1 |
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7.8.2 |
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7.9.18
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7.9.210
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7.10.1 |
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7.10.2 |
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7.11.1 |
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7.11.2 |
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24.1.x |
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24.2.1 |
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24.2.11 (LNT) |
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IOS-XE 12 |
17.9.1 |
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17.12.1 |
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17.12.3 |
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Only Secure ZTP config download is supported.
Only Secure ZTP config download is supported.
As SMUs become available, this document will be updated.
Only Secure ZTP config download is supported.
As SMUs become available, this document will be updated.
Only Secure ZTP config download is supported.
Scale Support
To support large-scale deployment, the components that make up Cisco Crosswork Network Controller are built with workload and endpoint load balancing using the Crosswork infrastructure's cluster architecture.
|
Feature |
Scale Support |
|---|---|
|
Devices |
15,000 |
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Total Interfaces13 |
650,00014 |
|
Provision of SR-TE policies and RSVP-TE tunnel (PCE-initiated) |
100,000 |
|
IGP links |
200,000 |
|
VPN Services (L2VPN, L3VPN) |
150,000 |
Note |
Scale numbers will reduce if Layer 2 collection is enabled (for example, when LLDP, CDP, or LAG collection is enabled). |
Note |
The Crosswork Network Controller Essentials package requires a minimum of 3 Virtual Machines (VMs) and the Crosswork Network Controller Advantage package requires a minimum of 5 VMs. For more information, see the Crosswork Network Controller Installation Guide. |
Networking Technology Support for Traffic Engineering
The following is the networking support information for SR-PCE 24.2.1.
| Category |
Description |
Notes / Details |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Segment Routing (SR) |
SR-MPLS PCE initiated policies |
Policies that are provisioned or discovered by Crosswork Network Controller. |
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PCC initiated policies and ODN policies |
Policies that are discovered by Crosswork Network Controller. |
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Explicit path SR-TE policies |
Policies that are PCC initiated (SID list with labeled SID list with addresses), PCE reported, PCE initiated. Includes SRv6 TE discovery of PCC initiated policies. |
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Dynamic path SR-TE policies |
PCC computed, PCE reported, PCE delegated |
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Single consistent Segment Routing Global Block (SRGB) configured on routers throughout domain covered by Crosswork Network Controller |
— |
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Egress Peer Engineering (EPE) PeerAdjacency SIDs, PeerNode SIDs |
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Prefix SID |
Regular/Strict Node SIDs + FA. Includes SRv6 Locators. |
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Adjacency SID |
B-flag (protected/unprotected), P-flag (Persistent). Includes SRv6 Locators. |
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SR policy optimization objective min-metric (IGP, TE, and Latency) |
PCE initiated provisioning and PCC initiated discovery |
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SR policy path constraints (affinity and disjointness, protected segments) |
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Binding SID for explicit or dynamic policies |
Discovered for PCC initiated and PCE initiated policies. It is configurable for PCE initiated policies. |
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Profile ID (Discovered and configurable for PCE-init) |
Parameter used for applying features on PCC to PCE initiated policies. |
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Flexible Algorithm (Flex Algo) for SR-MPLS and SRv6 policies |
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Discovery and visualization of multiple candidate paths |
— |
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Binding SIDs as Segment List Hops for SR policies |
Discovery and visualization of PCC initiated policies. |
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Tree-SID |
Visualization and provisioning of PCE initiated policies. |
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SR policies with Loopback IPs (Prefixes) other than TE router ID for headend/endpoint and prefix SIDs in segment list |
Prefix (node) SIDs associated with specific IGP domain / area. |
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Maximum SID Depth (MSD) |
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Global Max Latency |
Configured on PCE and applied to all PCE delegated SRTE policies with a latency metric. |
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Inter-domain SRTE policies (inter-IGP domain, inter-AS) |
PCE delegated and Bandwidth on Demand policies. |
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Node SID reuse across different IGP domains |
Recommended to not reuse node SIDs in adjacent IP domains. Inter domain explicit path policies with a label-only hop that is a node SID used in adjacent domains may be unresolvable if hop after ABR hop. |
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Dynamic Circuit Style |
Path computation and bandwidth reservation through the Circuit Style feature pack. |
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SR-IGP |
Application-Specific Link Attribute (ASLA) Delay / TE metric |
Crosswork collects and uses ASLA delay and TE metric in Flex Algo topology computations and SRTE policy IGP paths. |
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SR-IGP |
Visualizing native SR-IGP path |
Path Query OAM feature to use traceroute on device to report actual SR-IGP multi-paths to destination node (SR-MPLS only) |
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RSVP |
PCE initiated tunnels (provisioned by or discovered by Crosswork Network Controller), PCC initiated tunnels discovered by Crosswork Network Controller |
— |
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ERO strict hops, ERO loose hops (PCC initiated only) |
— |
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FRR protection on Crosswork Network Controller provisioned tunnels |
— |
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Path optimization objective min-metric (IGP|TE|Latency) |
— |
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Path constraints (affinity, disjointness) |
Only 2 RSVP tunnels per disjoint group or sub-id | ||
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Binding Label (explicit | dynamic) |
— |
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Signaled Bandwidth |
— |
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Setup and Hold Priority |
— |
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|
Path Protection (partial support) |
Paths discovered as independent tunnels if multiple paths are up. Cisco XR only reports active path. Other vendors may report all active paths. |
||
|
PCEP |
PCEP Session discovery |
Each PCEP session a PCC has with a PCE along with its details is displayed as part of node details |
|
|
IPv4/IPv6 |
Dual Stack IPv4 or IPv6 |
Nodes can be IPv4, IPv6 or IPv4/IPv6 capable |
|
|
IPv4 |
Unnumbered Interfaces (partial) |
Topology discovery, SR policies with unnumbered IF hops discovery/provisioning, LCM policy support |
|
|
IPv6 |
IPv6 Link Local Interfaces |
Discovery of IPv6 link local interfaces as part of topology and as a hop in an SRv6 TE policy |
|
|
IPv6 Router ID |
Nodes with IPv6 and IPv6 Router ID only with support for SRv6 only |
|
Category |
Description |
Notes / Details |
|---|---|---|
|
Segment Routing (SR) |
Provisioning multiple candidate paths for PCE-initiated SR policies via Crosswork Network Controller |
— |
|
Per-Flow Policies (PFP) |
PFP (ODN or manually configured) not supported in PCEP. This PFP is the mapping of forward class to PDP with matching color and EP. Underlying PDP is reported as normal. |
|
|
Multiple segment lists per candidate path |
This configuration is not supported in Crosswork. These segment lists will not be discovered if configured on a PCC. High level requirements:
|
|
|
Anycast SIDs |
— |
|
|
SR policy provisioned (SR-PCE initiated) with IPv6 endpoints or hops |
— |
|
|
SR-MPLS policy optimization objective min-metric with margin |
Not supported for policies provisioned by Crosswork Network Controller. Margin is not discovered for PCC initiated policies. |
|
|
SR-MPLS policy constraints (resource exclusion or metric bound) |
Not supported for policies provisioned by Crosswork Network Controller. Constraints are not discovered for PCC initiated policies. |
|
|
Heterogeneous SRGBs |
Different SRGBs configured on nodes are not supported. SRGB must be configured to ensure proper discovery and visualization of SR policy paths. |
|
|
Egress Peer Engineering (EPE) Peer Set SIDs |
No discovery |
|
|
Routers that are not SR-capable |
All nodes assumed SR capable when computing SR policy IGP paths. LCM and BWoD SR policy path computation will not exclude non-SR capable nodes in IGP path. |
|
|
SRv6 |
PCE initiated provisioning of SRv6 policies is not supported. |
— |
|
Traffic collection on SRv6 policies is not currently supported. |
Requires telemetry (gNMI) for policy counters (no SNMP support) |
|
|
IGP |
ISIS Overload bit |
Affects IGP paths for all policies and PCE path computation (BWoD, LCM). PCE reports but does not process. |
|
OSPF MADJ Interfaces |
No support for discovering OSPF Multi-area adjacencies |
|
|
Multiple IGP instances on same interface |
Single interface that participates in multiple IGP instances are not supported. |
|
|
RSVP |
Configuring loose hop Explicit Route Object (ERO) in Crosswork |
Only strict hops can be configured. If strict hops are not configured for every hop along the path and those hops are not remote interface IPs or loopbacks, unexpected behavior may occur |
|
Named tunnels configured on PCCs |
Required for Juniper RSVP HEs |
|
|
Tunnels with Loopback IPs other than TE router ID for headend/endpoint and path hops |
— |
|
|
Display of active FRR protected path in UI |
Crosswork Network Controller will discover FRR tunnels which are displayed in UI but will not associate an actively protected tunnel with the FRR tunnel. Path in UI will not include FRR protected path when protection is active. |
|
|
P2MP tunnels |
— |
|
|
Path protected RSVP LSPs |
No association between paths discovered. |
|
|
LDP |
Local Congestion Mitigation (LCM) in Mixed SR/LDP networks |
LCM will not work in a mixed SR/LDP network with PEs that are LDP only. LDP traffic destined to the LDP-only egress PE attempted to be steered into Autoroute LCM tactical polices will be blackholed |
|
IPv4 |
IPv4 Unnumbered Interfaces |
BWoD, Circuit Style Support, and RSVP |
|
IPv4/IPv6 |
Secondary IP addresses for interfaces |
Not supported. Unpredictable behavior if discovered. |
|
IPv4/IPv6 |
Overlapping IP addresses in different IGP domains |
IP addresses for IGP interfaces and nodes (router-ids) are assumed to be unique across all domains |
|
IPv6 |
IPv6 Router ID |
SR and RSVP not supported (SRv6 only) |
Important Notes
Take into consideration the following important information before starting to use Crosswork Network Controller 7.0:
-
Topology visualization:
-
Bandwidth utilization information is only available for physical interfaces and is not available for logical interfaces.
-
-
Crosswork Infrastructure:
-
It is recommended to deploy Crosswork Network Controller on a highly available cluster with shared storage.
-
Managed devices, VM host, VMs, and all integrated components should use the same NTP source to avoid time synchronization issues.
-
Confirm that the DNS and NTP servers are properly configured and reachable on the network the Crosswork Network Controller cluster will be using.
-
Cisco recommends using Terminal Access-Control System Plus (TACACS+), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) or Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to track access and prevent unauthorized usage of Crosswork Network Controller capabilities.
-
During configuration, note the Crosswork Network Controller UI and CLI user names and passwords. Due to added security, the only way to recover the administrator password is to re-install the software.
-
In situations where it is expected to work with SR-PCE (for L3 topology discovery), we recommend the use of dual SR-PCEs in an HA configuration.
-
Use CSV files to quickly import and on-board device, credential, and provider information.
-
-
Obtaining geomaps for topology map renditions:
To render geographical topology maps, if you do not have access to the map provider's website, you must download geo map files for the areas in the world you want displayed.
Crosswork Network Controller allows you to obtain downloadable geographical maps (geomaps) based on their specific topology mapping needs. If your environment allows contact with the map provider website we specify in Crosswork, you do not need to download the map files. If your environment does not allow outside access, you will need to download the map files for the areas where your network requires coverage.
-
Service provisioning:
The Cisco Network Services Orchestrator sample function packs are provided as a starting point for service provisioning functionality in Crosswork Network Controller. While the samples can be used “as is” in some limited network configurations, they are intended to demonstrate the extensible design of Crosswork Network Controller. Answers to common questions can be found here and Cisco Customer Experience representatives can answer general questions about the samples. Support for customization of the samples for your specific use cases can be arranged through your Cisco account team.
Note |
For licensing and ordering information, work with your Cisco Partner or Cisco Sales representative to review the options described in the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller Ordering Guide. |
Known Issues and Limitations
The table below shows known issues and limitations that should be taken into account before starting to work with Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0.x.
|
Feature |
Limitation |
|---|---|
|
Fault and Alarm Synchronization |
While geo redundancy enables a switch-over to an active cluster, it's important to take into account the timing of backups. Given the interval between the last backup and the restoration process, there is a loss of some alarm data from the devices. This is due to the time lag since the last backup was completed and restored. |
|
Geo redundancy (with astack functionality) |
If switchover is performed on a cluster on which Service Health is installed, the EOS data may contain partial metrics data (with intermittent gaps in the data metric sequence) for up to 24 hours. |
|
Feature |
Limitation |
|---|---|
|
Transport Slice Provisioning |
If the Monitoring Status for a Slice is enabled via API and the Slice is subsequently edited through the UI, the Monitoring Status is removed from the service and will need to be re-enabled if required. |
|
TE Dashboard |
Traffic Utilization is not supported on Tree-SID and SRv6 policies. |
|
You cannot view the IGP path on the historical data when an event is selected. |
|
|
The metric type for BWoD policies is not visible on the TE Dashboard. |
|
|
Hop count metric and BWoD type are not shown in the TE Dashboard under metric/policy type. |
|
|
State and Path change events are not visible in the Historic tab of a policy until you zoom in by 5 to 6 clicks. |
|
|
IPv4 Unnumbered Interfaces |
Bandwidth on Demand and SR Circuit Style Manager feature packs will not factor in IPv4 unnumbered interfaces. |
|
Tree-SID policies are not supported. |
|
|
RSVP-TE PCE-initiated tunnels are not supported. |
|
|
Tree-SID |
Only static Tree-SID policies can be created via the UI. Also, you can only update and delete static Tree-SID policies that have been created via the UI. |
|
Tree-SID policies are only supported on devices running Cisco IOS XR software. |
|
|
PCE HA is not supported if the static Tree-SID policy was configured manually on the device (not via the UI). |
|
|
Tree-SID policies are not deleted from the UI when the SR-PCE in HA mode is down. |
|
|
IPv4 Unnumbered interfaces are not supported. |
|
|
Tree-SID policies are not supported in Label Switch Multicast (LSM) routing. In cases where LSM is enabled, IGP updates and traffic utilization data are not supported. |
|
|
LCM will not operate in portions of the network carrying Tree-SID LSPs. |
|
|
On Cisco 8000 Series Routers, only static Tree-SID policies with leaf role are supported. |
|
|
Tree-SID policy details do not show IPv6 router ID or SRv6 core information. |
|
|
SR-MPLS |
In the SR-MPLS provisioning screen and while previewing an SR-MPLS policy with an IPv6 address, a parsing error is displayed instead of the correct error message: "Request Failed. Endpoint address is IPv6, IPv6 provisioning is not supported yet." |
|
Updating the SID constraint on an existing policy is not allowed by the SR-PCE. The modification screen gives a successful update message, instead of a warning message that it is not allowed. |
|
|
APIs |
The Topology API cannot discover and report IPv6 Link-Local style links. |
|
The Dashboard Export API cannot export CSV files to an external location. It can only export to /mnt/cw_glusterfs/bricks/rscoean/export. |
|
|
BWoD |
BWoD is disabled when the SR Policy Traffic field has 'Measured' selected and the Policy Violation field has 'Strict' selected. |
|
Feature |
Limitation |
|---|---|
|
Upgrade |
|
|
Feature |
Limitation |
|---|---|
|
Large VPN Service |
If you are creating a large VPN service using the Crosswork Network Controller UI and the service creation times-out and becomes stuck in-progress, Cisco recommends you delete the large VPN service using the Crosswork Network Controller UI or the NSO CLI. If the large VPN service is deleted using the NSO CFS UI, it will still be visible in the Crosswork Network Controller UI. |
|
Commit times for L3 VPNs with over 250 VPN nodes and 1,250 endpoints may take 10 minutes or more. |
|
|
L2VPN service with RSVP-TE tunnel attached |
With an L2VPN service, the RSVP-TE can be attached by either tunnel ID (te-tunnel-id) or tunnel service name (ietf-te-service). If the RSVP-TE tunnel is attached by tunnel service name, when you navigate to VPN Services > Service details > Summary tab, the Resources section will display clickable links for additional RSVP-TE tunnel information. If the RSVP-TE tunnel is attached by tunnel ID, when you navigate to VPN Services > Service details > Summary tab, the Resources section will remain empty and no clickable links with additional RSVP-TE tunnel information will appear. |
|
VPN Service Provisioning |
Service configuration data copied from Crosswork Network Controller VPN Services UI page cannot be used as a template for service provisioning from the Provisioning UI page. The Provisioning UI page has sample JSON/XML payload for each service type and should be used for service lifecycle management. |
|
Feature |
Limitation |
|---|---|
|
Upgrade |
When Crosswork Network Controller 6.0 is upgraded to 7.0, critical alarms remain uncleared, despite the data gateway VMs being UP and operational. |
|
Feature |
Limitation |
|---|---|
|
Single VM Deployment |
When you change the device's Admin State from UNMANAGED to DOWN, the system automatically sets the state to UP because the auto-attach process attaches the device to the embedded collectors and modifies its Admin State from DOWN to UP. If changing the state to DOWN is necessary, you must manually change the state from the Edit Devices page as a next step. For information on editing the device information, see the Edit Devices section in Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Device Lifecycle Management. |
|
Detailed Inventory |
The detailed inventory view in topology:
|
|
Detailed inventory sync in topology view:
|
|
|
Alarms and Events |
When an event is created for the first time, the previous severity for the event is set to CLEARED because there is no historical data. For subsequent occurrences of the same event, the previous severity is updated based on the last recorded severity of that event. This allows the system to track changes in event severity over time. |
|
In a cluster setup, you may encounter a call creation failure message for NATs, specifically for the gnmi/fault-iosxr-alarm-manager tagged alarm in IOS XR devices. This issue occurs when Kubernetes simultaneously creates multiple event processing instances. However, this error does not affect any other functionality. |
|
|
Alarm Severity is not updated on repeated events. When an alarm is created in response to an incoming event, it initially reflects the event's severity (e.g., Major). However, if subsequent events of the same type continue to arrive with the same severity, the alarm severity is not updated and may reflect a previous state such as 'Cleared.' This behavior is intentional and designed to avoid unnecessary alarm updates. |
Product Documentation
An Information Portal is now available for Crosswork Network Controller 7.0. Information is categorized per functional area, making it easy to find and easy to access.
You can also access documentation for all Cisco Crosswork products at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/cloud-systems-management/crosswork-network-automation/tsd-products-support-series-home.html
The following documents are provided for Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0.
|
Document |
What is Included |
|---|---|
| Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Release Notes |
The current document |
| Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Installation Guide |
Shared installation guide for all the Cisco Crosswork applications and their common infrastructure. Covers:
|
| Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Administration Guide |
Shared administration guide for all the Cisco Crosswork applications and their common infrastructure. Covers:
|
| Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Solution Workflow Guide |
|
| Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Closed-Loop Network Automation |
Provides information on real-time Key Performance Indicator (KPI) monitoring, alerting, and troubleshooting. It also provides information on the automated process of deploying changes to the network. |
| Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Service Health Monitoring |
Provides information on monitoring the health of L2VPN and L3VPN services. It provides insights into analyzing and troubleshooting degraded services, as well as visualizing service health status and logical dependency trees. |
|
Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Traffic Engineering and Optimization |
Provides information on how to visualize and configure traffic engineering in Crosswork Network Controller. |
|
Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Network Bandwidth Management |
Provides information on how to use Crosswork Network Controller feature packs. Feature packs are tools that tackle congestion mitigation and the management of SR-TE policies to find and maintain intent based bandwidth requirements. |
|
Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Device Lifecycle Management |
|
| Open Source Used in Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 |
Lists of licenses and notices for open source software used in Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.0.x. |
|
API Documentation |
Advanced users can extend the Cisco Crosswork functionality using the APIs. API documentation is available on Cisco Devnet. |
Function Pack Documentation
-
Cisco NSO Transport SDN Function Pack Bundle 7.0.0 User Guide
-
Cisco NSO Transport SDN Function Pack Bundle 7.0.0 Installation Guide
-
Cisco Network Services Orchestrator DLM Service Pack 7.0.0 Installation Guide
-
Cisco Crosswork NSO Telemetry Traffic Collector Function Pack 7.0.0 Installation Guide
-
Cisco Crosswork Change Automation NSO Function Pack 7.0.0 Installation Guide
Bugs
If you encounter problems while working with Cisco Crosswork, check this list of open bugs. Each bug ID in the list links to a more detailed description and workaround. You can use the Cisco Bug Search Tool to search for bugs.
-
Go to the Cisco Bug Search Tool.
-
Enter your registered Cisco.com username and password, and click Log In.
The Bug Search page opens.
Note
-
To search for all Cisco Crosswork bugs, from the Product list select Cloud and Systems Management > Routing and Switching Management > Cisco Crosswork Network Automation and enter additional criteria (such as bug ID, problem description, a feature, or a product name) in the Search For field. Examples: "Optimization Engine" or "CSCwc62479"
-
When the search results are displayed, use the filter tools to narrow the results. You can filter the bugs by status, severity, and so on.
Note |
To export the results to a spreadsheet, click Export Results to Excel. |
Security
Cisco takes great strides to ensure that all our products conform to the latest industry recommendations. We firmly believe that security is an end-to-end commitment and are here to help secure your entire environment. Please work with your Cisco account team to review the security profile of your network.
For details on how we validate our products, see Cisco Secure Products and Solutions and Cisco Security Advisories.
If you have questions or concerns regarding the security of any Cisco products, please open a case with the Cisco Customer Experience team and include details about the tool being used and any vulnerabilities it reports.
Accessibility Features
For a list of accessibility features in Cisco Crosswork Network Controller, visit https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/accessibility/voluntary-product-accessibility-templates.html (VPAT) website, or contact accessibility@cisco.com.
All product documents except for some images, graphics, and charts are accessible. If you would like to receive the product documentation in audio format, braille, or large print, contact accessibility@cisco.com.
Support & Downloads
The Cisco Support and Downloads website provides online resources to download documentation, software, and tools. Use these resources to install and configure the software and to troubleshoot and resolve technical issues with Cisco products and technologies.
Access to most tools on the Cisco Support and Downloads website requires a Cisco.com user ID and password.
For more information:
Obtain Additional Information
Information about Cisco products, services, technologies, and networking solutions is available from various online sources.
-
Sign up for Cisco email newsletters and other communications at:
-
Visit the Cisco Customer Experience website for the latest technical, advanced, and remote services to increase the operational reliability of your network. Go to:
-
Obtain general networking, training, and certification titles from Cisco Press publishers at:
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