Overview
Objective
Schedule and automate maintenance workflows with minimal network interruption and most efficient results.
Challenge
Maintenance activities typically require system downtime and temporary disruption of services. Keeping downtime and disruption to a minimum is critical but challenging. Therefore, maintenance activities occur during a carefully calculated optimal time slot, usually when activity is at its lowest.
Solution
Change Automation and Health Insights provide the functionality needed to automate the scheduling and execution of maintenance tasks (see Crosswork Network Controller 7.0 Closed-Loop Network Automation Guide for further information on Change Automation and Health Insights). Planning the optimal time for maintenance activities can be done successfully using Cisco WAE Design to simulate “what-if” scenarios based on timed topology snapshots exported from Crosswork Network Controller using APIs.
![]() Note |
Cisco WAN Automation Engine (WAE) is now also known as Crosswork Planning. |
How does it work?
![](/c/dam/en/us/td/i/400001-500000/470001-480000/472001-473000/472814.png)
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Using Crosswork Network Controller APIs, you can create topology snapshots (plan files) that capture and represent the topology state at a given time, including the IGP topology and interface level statistics (traffic load). For impact analysis purposes, these snapshots should represent a time period to be evaluated for an upcoming maintenance activity. For example, if you are planning a router upgrade at midnight on a Monday, you would take snapshots from several Mondays at midnight to evaluate typical traffic loads. You can export these plan files to a central storage repository, where a library of topology plan files can be stored for a specified period.
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Cisco WAE Design allows you to explore “what-if” scenarios relevant to maintenance window planning. For example, if a router is upgraded, Cisco WAE Design can simulate the resulting traffic load on the remaining devices after traffic is diverted from the upgraded device. You can also explore the impact of deploying tactical traffic engineering policies to further optimize the topology during the maintenance window. For more information, contact your Cisco Customer Experience representative.
Additional resources
Cisco WAE Design documentation
Cisco Crosswork Network Automation API Documentation on Cisco Devnet