Abstract: A key challenge when adopting a multi-cloud strategy is to achieve a solution that is fully automated, highly secure and quality assured. A core component in the multi-cloud is the cloud exchange that interconnects end-users securely to applications in various cloud locations, across virtual networks and virtual functions. This is where Cisco's Secure Agile Exchange (SAE) provides a unique offering.    This session explains how Cisco SAE works together with Netrounds to achieve automated active assurance of newly created network services and virtual service chains. The live demo will show an innovative assurance solution with Cisco NSO deploying Netrounds Active Test Agents as part of service chains running on Cisco SAE.   Netrounds on SAE enables advanced and automated sectionalisation of the virtualised data plane and ensures that new services are delivered right the first time, and that they remain right all the time during their life cycle.   Speakers: -  Sujay Murthy – Cisco NSO Application Team/SAE - Jonas Krogell, Technical Product Manager Netrounds ... View more

Abstract:  Softbank has deployed SDN gateway service with NSO from 2016 and has completed a major NSO version upgrade in 2018. In this presentation Softbank share their NSO use case and their experience of SDN service development as well as their SDN NFV Initiative.   Speakers: Hironori Nakano, Director, Solution Service Department Kentaro Momeya, Softbank, Network Engineer ... View more

Abstract: How the introduction of Cisco NSO as a network tool finally drove the whole transformation of Orange International Wholesale transformation to the final benefit of the customer.   Speaker:Cédric Bonnet, Head of Wholesale IP Services Engineering department ... View more

Optimize your NSO Developer Days experience and check out the Agenda Details and Social Events! Any Questions? Reach out to the event team at nso-devdays@cisco.com   ... View more

Live webinar, June 5th, 2019 8:00 AM PT/11:00 AM ET/15:00 GMT   Cisco NSO continues to be the premier infrastructure automation platform. In April, we are releasing some of biggest updates to date with a focus on scale, sophistication and scope of automaton capabilities. This session will discuss the key features being released in NSO 5 along with other updates in the NSO ecosystem including new function pack capabilities and new standards work.   Register Here ... View more

I just checked and there are still a few rooms available! It is a great location and the same building as Developer Days! The offer ends May 17 and the reservation code is valid for dates between June 16-June 23.   How to make a hotel room reservation at Scandic Grand Central? Can only be booked through brand web sites www.scandichotels.com and Scandic Call centers +46 8 517 517 00 Reservation code is "BCIS160619" More information here   Have not registered yet? Tickets are limited so secure your place now. Registration closes June 10! //NSO Event team ... View more

ORCHESTRATION & AUTOMATION Cisco NSO 5 Update Live webinar, April 3rd, 2019 8:00 AM PT/11:00 AM ET/15:00 GMT Cisco NSO continues to be the premier infrastructure automation platform. In April, we are releasing some of biggest updates to date with a focus on scale, sophistication and scope of automaton capabilities. This session will discuss the key features being released in NSO 5 along with other updates in the NSO ecosystem including new function pack capabilities and new standards work.   Register here! ... View more

Spring is knocking on the door and early bird is reaching its end! We are working on the agenda details and update the webpage as we progress, and sessions are locked down. I am delighted to see that so many of you are interested to share your automation story using NSO and it makes me feel very confident that we will be able to repeat last year’s success!     We have now opened up the registration for the hands-on labs. Due to a limited number of seats, we apply first come first served. If you have already registered to the event and want to sign up for the labs, just visit www.cisco.com/go/nso2019/ and update your registration.   Lab RFM In this lab, we develop a basic Reactive Fastmap service application. Reactive Fastmap applications differ from ordinary Fastmap applications by allowing a service to be activated (but not deactivated) in multiple stages. This is useful, for example, if the application needs to allocate an IP-address from another system, or if the application needs to spin up a virtual machine before configuring it. This is an intermediate lab; you need to be comfortable building an ordinary service application.     Lab NSO in and on Kubernetes In the first half of this lab, we build a k8s deployment of NSO from the ground up. We will start packaging NSO in a docker container, from there we will gradually build up to having Helm charts that can deploy NSO in a k8s cluster. In the second half, we will turn things upside down. We will use NSO to orchestrate deployment and "day-n" configuration of an example cloud-native application running in k8s via NSO integration with Helm. This is an intermediate lab; You need to be comfortable with container concepts.     Lab Nano In this lab, we develop a basic Nano service application. Nano service applications differ from Fastmap applications by allowing a service to be both activated and deactivated in multiple stages. This is useful, for example, if the application needs to allocate and return a license for the virtual machine it spins up and down. This is an advanced lab; you need to be comfortable building a Reactive Fastmap service application.   Looking forward to seeing you in Stockholm in June! //NSO team ... View more

NSO Developer Days is back! Check out our new web page:  https://cisco.com/go/nso2019 Registration is open for external attendees!  Cisco internal attendees and speakers need to register through special invites.     ... View more

Every once in a while I get a craving to install and run some NSO examples just to keep my basic knowledge at a bare minimum. This time I responded to an ask to test out our updated NSO getting started guide. Downloading and installing is seldom an issue and now it was smooth as it’s is free for evaluation and the link is provided on DevNet. You can even Google it if you can’t find it! Following the step-by-step guide is really fun and you almost feel like a developer, which I was 20 years ago. This time though my problems started already when running the first examples with Netsims. First, I could not ssh into the CLI, but who cares when there are other ways in (ncs_cli -u admin), but when I couldn’t connect to the devices or do sync from I was stuck. I realized that it had to do with SSH in one way or another. I am not an expert in this area and suddenly recalled why I left engineering. Stubborn as I am, I tried too many times and after repeated failures I got angry. When my colleague asked me how the review process was going I had to admit my defeat and finally asked for help. Luckily, we have an internal channel and when I broadcasted by SSH shortcomings, I had an answer to my problems within 60 seconds! This fast response was due to several people contributing to the solution before me and I just got their conclusions in a nice summary. After a bit of fiddling with new key generation I was back on track! It turned out to be a shortcoming of the NSO installation program that failed to recognize the new key format in OpenSSH version that comes with Mojave!   Think about how much time and effort you can save by using collective intelligence in a community, but don’t forget that your contribution matters! Writing this blog post is my contribution!   The example I was running:  /examples.ncs/getting-started/using-ncs/1-simulated-ciso-ios The error message:  Unable to negotiate with 127.0.0.1 port 2024: no matching host key type found. Their offer:   The resolution: * ssh-keygen(1): write OpenSSH format private keys by default instead of using OpenSSL's PEM format. The OpenSSH format, supported in OpenSSH releases since 2014 and described in the PROTOCOL.key file in the source distribution, offers substantially better protection against offline password guessing and supports key comments in private keys. If necessary, it is possible to write old PEM-style keys by adding "-m PEM" to ssh-keygen's arguments when generating or updating a key.   So, generate new keys in your install directory (in both NSO and Netsim directories) with -m pem and you will be back to normal.   $NCS_DIR/etc/ncs/ssh/ $NCS_DIR/netsim/confd/etc/confd/ssh   NWAGERTH-M-L58X:ssh nwagerth$ ssh-keygen -m pem -f ssh_host_rsa_key Generating public/private rsa key pair. ssh_host_rsa_key already exists. Overwrite (y/n)? y Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Enter same passphrase again: Your identification has been saved in ssh_host_rsa_key. Your public key has been saved in ssh_host_rsa_key.pub. The key fingerprint is:   //Nicklas  ... View more

  Big thanks to all who attended and contributed to our second annual NSO Developer Connect in New York City. You all made it a truly great event! We literally had to remove the tables from the largest room at the Cisco Manhattan office to fit chairs for all of you. 41 NSO users from 19 different companies from both service providers and enterprise joined the open discussion together with 30 NSO experts from Cisco.   Every Automation Journey is unique but we have much in common stated John Clowers, who led the user experience sharing session with the help of an NSO expert panel. We do seem to agree on the most important things: It’s not only about selecting the God Tool, as one called out. Automation teams have to include networking and software skills. All stakeholders need to be involved Sometimes the devil is in the details, and sometimes you can’t see the forest for all the trees. It depends on how you look at things and we find it helpful to have these two metaphors in mind while navigating toward our goals. When starting up an NSO project it can be hard to see how to make the best of the different skills in the team. Kevin Corbin kicked off the day by giving some examples of what NSO means for the networking guy. One example was the big savings that can be made in the day-to-day work by using a single favorite CLI to all network devices, in contrast to learning many CLIs. Another advantage is that the NSO CLI is, in fact, an API, just like NETCONF! Kevin also talked about how Network Engineering is changing from an art of “figuring out what command to run on which device and when” to a structured process using Consistent Version Controlled Infrastructure deployed with Parallel & Automated Provisioning (e.g. NetDevOps). Can you see where we are going? Viktor Leijon continued from a software-centric point of view discussing how basic software practice can be used in Network Automation. Simple things like using version control, taking small incremental steps instead of giant leaps and automating your tests make a huge difference. Viktor has long experience from working side by side with Network Engineers and his interest in how we work has helped him understand how software practice is best used in networking. A very nice side effect of a model-based framework like NSO is that you can minimize the coding and automate the manual, boring work and focus on what makes your company unique. Which approach would you choose?   After lunch, we broke up into two tracks. The experienced technical track wanted to go deep and Sebastian Strollo and team did not let anyone down! With so much knowledge in the same room, no question was untouched, but there are always limits in what you can cover in a half day. For those of you looking for, even more, Stockholm and Developer Days is the place to visit in June of 2019!   While engineers were having fun, managers broke out together with Fredrik Swahn into a managerial track discussing people, process and the many aspects of leading change towards automation. The focus was to share experience, both good and bad. All projects are different and we have different levels of experience. What surprises me each time, is how sharing comes easy in small, informal environments regardless of where you come from. We don’t share company secrets but we share ways of working and learn from each other. Clearly, there is a great need for sharing. Once the discussion was going it was hard to stop. This is how we want the NSO community to work for you.   Shafi Ambattuparambil concluded the first day with adding some perspectives using the Red Whale metaphor to show the importance to do things right from start and build a sustainable solution that can be maintained and supported over time throughout the organization. It’s important to work together selecting the use cases and include all stakeholders. Cisco comes ready with CX Advisory Services to help connect the top-down approach with the bottom-up, drive change management when necessary and help teams secure the right business outcome.   Day 2 was new this year and is our commitment to meet your number one and number two request from previous events: More time for hands-on. More time for face to face meetings. Fredrik Jansson and John Mullooly guided over 20 people through labs learning how to use Ansible with NSO and Cisco vBranch Core Function Pack, while Ashok and the other solutions architects were coordinating one-on-one meetings. Every time I see these labs it strikes me how well contained they are and how easy it looks. You can even continue working in the Cisco dCloud lab at home!   Since NSO Developer Connect meetings are much about, experience sharing and connecting industry peers, they are very informal and difficult to summarize. To get the most out of it you simply have to attend. There is a certain kind of focus that rarely emerge when meetings become too big. This is a key differentiator to full three-day NSO Developer Days event in Stockholm which have all sessions recorded and attendees from all over the globe. But of course, if you want (according to the survey) more of everything we served at the NYC connect, then you have to attend both J.   Anyway, I am very happy that 86% of you considered the event to be a good use of time. Not a single one did think it was not worth coming AND it really made my day. Continuing the discussions in a more social environment in the evening was very pleasant after a long intense day and help continue the motion.    Below you find names, titles, and link to event presentations published on the NSO Developer Hub.   NSO Developer Connect Team: John Clowers, Sr SEM, Cisco Sales. Kevin Corbin, NetDevOps Engineer, Cisco Enterprise Sales. The Art of Networking Viktor Leijon, Technical Leader, NSO BU. NSO Onboarding Best Practice Sebastian Strollo, Principal Engineer NSO BU. NSO Deep Dive Tech Talk Fredrik Swhan, Product Owner, NSO BU. Managerial Track Shafi Ambattuparambil, Senior Solution Architect Cisco CX. Expert Panel and Automation Advisory Services Fredrik Jansson, Technical Leader, Tail-f BU NFVO Update and Labs John Mullooly, Distinguished SE, SP CTO (NFVO Update and Labs) Tomas Mellgren, Director of Engineering, Expert Panel Dan Sullivan, Technical Solutions Architect, Expert Panel   Ashok Sadasivian, Technical Solutions Architect, SP Sales, meet the engineer ... View more

Sebastian Strollo delivered this "Deep Dive Tech Tack" at NSO Developer Connect in NYC Main subjects: Transactions, the new feature Progress Trace and Understanding Sync.  ... View more

Shafi uses the Red Whale metaphor to show the importance to do things right from start and build a sustainable solution that can be maintained and supported over time throughout the organization. It’s important to work together selecting the use cases and include all stakeholders. Cisco comes ready with CX Advisory Services to help connect the top-down approach with the bottom-up, drive change management when necessary and help teams secure the right business outcome. ... View more