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Network fabric management overview

MetalSoft is capable of automatically deploying complex network configurations on a multitude of switch brands including Cisco, Juniper, Dell, Cumulus, HP, and others.

Intent-based approach

Section titled “Intent-based approach”

The approach that MetalSoft Fabric Manager takes is “intent-based” in the sense that the “consumer” fully describes the desired network “services” and topology and the system then translates those into actual switch and OS configurations, based on “admin” or “provider”-defined “policies”. This approach helps network admins offload some of the day-to-day operational changes to other users or systems and enables cloud-like consumption of physical infrastructure.

The user defines the “intent” via the Infrastructure Designer, the CLI, Terraform, Ansible, or the API.

Vendor abstraction

Section titled “Vendor abstraction”

Another important concept in MetalSoft is vendor and sometimes technology abstraction. MetalSoft operates largely with cross-vendor concepts such as a “distributed link aggregation” instead of vendor-specific terms such as MLAG or VLT.

The advantage of this approach is that the network operators can safely use multiple vendors at the same time, make transitions between them, etc., ultimately improving the cost-effectiveness of the data center.

Concepts

Section titled “Concepts”

MetalSoft uses several important concepts:

  • Fabrics These capture the behaviour and settings of a group of endpoints. Fabrics typically configure the switches and other devices they “manage” but may also be “unmanaged” in the sense that they track IP and VLAN allocation to endpoints but do not actually configure anything on network equipment such as switches. There are multiple types of fabrics: Ethernet, Infiniband, and Fiberchannel.

  • Infrastructures

    This is a multi-tenancy construct similar to a “VPC” in which you define a tenant-specific network blueprint. It defines a security boundary and informs the system not just about endpoint and logical network ownership but also about when to allocate separate VLANs or VNIs and when not.

  • Logical Networks

    Logical Networks are an abstract concept on top of a Fabric that reflects the intent of connecting endpoints, servers, VMs, storage drives, etc. to each other or with the outside world.

    The implementation of a logical network depends on the underlying Fabric and other configurations. For example, in the case of Ethernet fabrics it typically maps to a separate OSI Layer 2 network, usually implemented with a different VLAN ID and one or more IPv4 and IPv6 subnets out of which MetalSoft allocates IPs to the connected endpoints.

    Users typically create Logical networks from Logical Network Profiles.

  • Logical Network Profiles

    Logical Network Profiles act as templates for creating Logical Networks. Instead of creating a logical network for each user, admins define a Logical Network Profile and then users create networks based on this template, without further admin intervention. Admins create a network profile on a specific fabric. Different fabric types have different network profiles.

    An ethernet network profile can have:

    1. a VLAN entry for which a VLAN ID can be manually or automatically allocated from the range specified on the underlying fabric’s settings.
    2. a VNI can also be specified which can be either manually or automatically allocated from the range specified in the fabric settings.
    3. a set of IPv4 subnets from which IPs are allocated to endpoints (if multiple subnets are specified, MetalSoft allocates an IP from each).
    4. a set of IPv6 subnets from which IPs are allocated to endpoints (if multiple subnets are specified, MetalSoft allocates an IP from each).
    5. An external connection. If specified, MetalSoft connects the logical network to the external connection.
    6. A zone allocation strategy that controls how zones are distributed across the fabric.

    An infiniband network profile can have:

    1. A pkey that can be either manually or automatically set from the range of PKEYS configured on the Fabric.

    A fibrechannel network profile can have:

    1. A FCID that can be either manually or automatically set from the range of FCIDs configured on the Fabric.

  • Subnets

    Subnets are IPv4 or IPv6 prefixes from which MetalSoft allocates either individual IPs or other smaller subnets to satisfy the need for IPs of a particular logical network in the context of an infrastructure. MetalSoft allocates multiple subnets if the subnet pools are listed in the network profile’s VLAN/VNI entries.

  • Endpoints

    Endpoints define a network device connected to one or more ports in the network.

  • Connection You customize a connection between an endpoint and a logical network via the settings on a connection. This defines:

    1. Tagged/untagged
    2. Redundancy mode: active-backup, active-active
    3. Implementation type: link-aggregation, distributed-link-aggregation (MLAG, MCLAG, VLT, etc.), ECMP
    4. MTU
    5. Whether the connection provides the default route

  • Route Domains

    Route Domains provide L3 isolation between tenants or across sites by managing VRF, L3 VLAN, and L3 VNI allocation as a single unit. They support VRF Lite, MPLS L3VPN, and EVPN L3VPN architectures.

  • Sites

    A site is basically a physical location, usually a single datacenter. A site can have one or more Fabrics.