Apstra AOS Product Overview
Apstra AOS (Apstra Operating System) is a cutting-edge, turnkey automation solution designed to simplify and automate the entire lifecycle of data center network operations. Developed by Apstra, now part of Juniper Networks, this platform is tailored to address the complexities of modern data center environments.
Key Functionality
- Intent-Based Networking: Apstra AOS operates on the principle of intent-based networking, where users specify the desired network topology, VLANs, capacity, redundancy requirements, and access rules. The system then translates these intentions into device-specific configurations, ensuring compliance and continuous validation.
- Multivendor Support: AOS is hardware- and device OS-vendor agnostic, allowing it to integrate seamlessly with various vendors and technologies. This makes it an ideal solution for both single-vendor and multivendor environments.
- Real-Time Validation and Monitoring: The system provides continuous real-time validation, enabling users to instantly pinpoint and resolve issues across all infrastructure silos. This is achieved through a distributed architecture where small agents are deployed on switches to monitor and report back to the AOS server in real-time.
- Automated Deployment and Configuration: Apstra AOS automates the deployment of configurations on multiple elements, even those with different vendor- and technology-specific APIs. This includes real-time multi-config deployment and the generation of expectations based on a reference design, ensuring that the actual state of the network aligns with the intended state.
- Intent Time Voyager Capability: A notable feature introduced in AOS 3.2 is the Intent Time Voyager capability, which allows network engineers to recover the entire data center fabric state, configuration, and continuous validation to a specific point in time. This significantly reduces the Mean Time To Recovery (MTTR) from network outages.
- Scale-Out Services: The platform supports intra and inter data center scale-out services, enabling businesses to easily scale their services within or across data centers. This includes automation of EVPN DCI and VXLAN overlay across PODs in a 5-stage L3 Clos fabric.
- Integration and Analytics: Apstra AOS integrates with Apstra Cloud Services for AI operations (AIOps) and application assurance. It also allows telemetry and analytics data to be streamed to external data stores for further analysis, providing actionable insights into network health and service assurance.
Key Features
- Singular View and Interdependencies: AOS provides a unified view into the relationships and interdependencies of millions of data center elements, simplifying the management of complex networks.
- Closed-Loop Automation: The system ensures closed-loop automation and assurance, continuously self-validating and resolving issues to maintain compliance with the specified intent.
- Customizable Dashboards and Probes: AOS 3.2 offers customizable dashboards, probes, and widgets, providing faster insights into the health and service assurance of network fabrics.
- Open Source Support: The platform includes expanded support for enterprise-class open source solutions like Open Compute Project (OCP) SONiC, allowing network engineers to safely integrate newer OSS offerings into their toolkit.
In summary, Apstra AOS is a powerful automation solution that streamlines the design, deployment, and operation of data center networks. Its intent-based approach, real-time validation, and multivendor support make it an indispensable tool for ensuring reliability, scalability, and efficiency in modern data center environments.