OS Upgrade Version 2 using NSO

[imrbaig]

Do you need to upgrade the OS on your infrastructure devices?

If the answer to this question is “yes” then you may have an easy solution through NSO (Network Service Orchestrator). Cisco Advanced Services has developed a pre-packaged NSO-based OS Upgrade service, that can perform Software upgrades on infrastructure devices.

What are the supported Platforms?

Currently Cisco IOS (Cat 3560, Cat 4900), NX-OS (Nexus 5k), IOS-XE, ASA and STAR-OS (ASR5k) have been validated. More platforms (including multivendor OS) will be validated in future releases.

Available Features:

1. Open architecture: Generic upgrade platform to support user-configurable upgrade process for any device family.
2. Batch upgrades:  Can upgrade multiple devices in parallel using individual upgrade threads per device.
3. Multi path upgrade: Ability to upgrade device(s) from any given source version to any given target version e.g from version A->B->C.
4. Staging Images: Can copy relevant images(s) to device(s) before upgrade maintenance window.
5. Regional Image server selection: Ability to select relevant images server(FTP, TFTP, SCP, SFTP etc) based on device region.
6. Configuration Caveats Handling: Can handle configuration issues which may arise during upgrade e.g config loss, pre/post upgrade config modifications etc.
7. Pre-upgrade Validation-rules: User can define a set of validation rules to perform health-checks on the device prior to upgrade.
8. Plan of upgrade: User can define the upgrade process with a sequence of commands to execute with success / failure criteria.
9. Pre / Post Checks: User can define the commands, which can be executed before & after the upgrade to identify any difference in device configs.
10. Lazy Upgrade: Runs the upgrade process on the device only when it is required. It skips the upgrade action if the device is already on target OS.
11. Critical BUG Check: validate if there is a critical bug(s) that is associated with the target image. BUG table is maintained within NSO CDB.
12. Upgrade Report: Generates side-by-side HTML color-coded report highlighting the difference between pre & post health-checks.

For further information please contact the Cisco Advanced Services team, Syed Ziaullah (sziaulla@cisco.com), Solution Architect, Manish Jain (manisjai@cisco.com), Director Software Integration and Orchestration.

Note: Please login to this site if you cannot play the video

[Sidney de Reuck]

Where can we get this Service ? I checked on the Cisco Software page(https://software.cisco.com) and at GitHub (https://github.com/NSO-developer), but couldn't track down where to download this service ??

[imrbaig]

Thanks for contacting. This package is part of paid engagement.

For further information please contact the Cisco Advanced Services team, Syed Ziaullah (sziaulla@cisco.com), Solution Architect, Manish Jain (manisjai@cisco.com), Director Software Integration and Orchestration.

[randreetta]

such a tool requires a lot of work under the hood, unless you just provide a 'skeleton' of things to be called, for pre-checks, post-checks, and upgrade processes that needs to be developed by the customer. Something that changes and needs to be maintained during time (add some other costs). That's the common base for all NSO services: all the added value is provided by the java/python scripts, thus by programmers.

'Easy automation' and costs savings are just for marketing people, reality is much different.

[imrbaig]

Thanks randreetta for your comments. Basically this package provides framework which can be leveraged so network engineers do not need to have any programming skills to perform device upgrades.

Manual device os-upgrade process needs MOP creation & validation (based on existing os on device and recommended future os etc.). Upgrade MOP includes steps(pre-check/post-check/upgrade process, multi path upgrade if device on older version, HA etc) that needs to be taken to reach target os version. This package also provides sample MOPs which can be extended without any programming skills. Basically this package help automate the upgrade process for an organization.