YANG: Coming soon to a router near you

It's about time the world had one: a proposal to pull the world of router configuration into the warm embrace of the popular YANG protocol. Reading the RFCs so you don't have to, this one caught the Vulture South eye, because given the scale of networks some sysadmins have to work with, it's the start of something big. Since …

[Anonymous Coward]

YANG loves YIN...

NETCONF & BEEP have also been around for ages.

Keywords aside, if this is of interest take a look at OpenStack's networking module, Cisco's Prime Infrastructure and EPIC-EM for ideas.

There's also a reason Juniper configs look the way they do too. ;-)

All the above (plus TR069) suffer from a difficult problem to solve well - while the network is distributed, a centralized controller makes a tempting target for extreme carnage.

It's a fun space to work (or play) in. A decent lab can be setup for not much $ using a hypervisor, VIRL and a developer account download of APIC-EM. Watch out for the EULA though!

[fibrefool]

Re: YANG loves YIN...

worth looking at OpenDaylight too as it's free and supports NETCONF/YANG southbound (as well as all the fancy "SDN" stuff like BGP-LS/PCE-P, OpenFlow, etc.), and both NETCONF/YANG and RESTCONF northbound. It also implements the OpenStack Neutron API so you can use it as the network provider in an OpenStack setup.

[tokyo-octopus]

Totally irrelevant to the content, but if anyone's wondering where the junction shown in the stock photo is, it's in the centre of Tokyo right here: https://goo.gl/maps/AbALpKn1cyR2

[Yes Me]

A pedant writes...

YANG isn't a protocol. It's a Data Modeling Language. Big difference.

[sean.fr]

Keep is standard, and simple

There will always be some fancy new thing that will solve problems you never knew you had. Anyone else deploy ATM? Loved traffic contracts. All gone now...

This fancy stuff creates vendor lock in. Buy boxes from at least two vendors. Keep the configs simple and base them on a limited number of roles Data Centre + Edge + Distribution + Core + remote office. Cut and paste is your friend. Can you replace each pizza box with a pizza box from another supplier?

Keep the management tools generic - SNMP - none of this autoconfig stuff. This fancy stuff all claims to let you configure 1000 vlans from two clicks your smart phone while on a skiing holiday. However there is always a hic. Did you every find a problem with a new firmware/patch, or type point instead of comma ? Bet you were glad you roles it out host by host and not let the Network Management Station push it to the whole network in one go.

Everyone has an IP network, and most of us have the same problems. The answers are on Youtube. Tempted to try Trill? Found it in Youtube? No, Your ready for YANG or TRILL or X when there are 50 videos on it.

[fibrefool]

Re: Keep is standard, and simple

Not sure that YANG is fancy stuff that "creates vendor lock in". Rather it's the opposite - fancy stuff that makes it easier to manage boxes from multiple vendors (though sure, the nirvana of common data-models is still a ways off - especially given the IETF/OpenConfig fight).

and as for SNMP... well let's just say it's great for monitoring devices if you don't mind the devices' CPUs grinding to a halt as dozens of different management stations poll various overlapping sets of MIBs (the YANG crew intend to fix that using "YANG push") but it's piss-poor for configuration management (hence all those expect scripts that SPs use to manage their devices).

and yes, we've passed the 50 videos mark on YouTube for YANG. Just try searching for e.g. "NETCONF YANG" or "OpenDaylight Project" and you'll see what I mean...