Node discovery procedure

A node is configured with a network element profile. A network element profile has all of the necessary information for node discovery, including the node NEID, NEIP, Vendor Identifier, chassis type, and MAC address. The network element profile can be added to an OSPF area in VPRN and when it is, the network element information is advertised using OSPF type 10 opaque LSA to the rest of the network. These discovery procedures are only available in VPRN.

An aggregation node (node closest to the NMS) gathers all of the network element information received using OSPF and converts this information into a MIB. The aggregation node also generates traps as necessary to update the NMS when the configure system network-element-discovery generate-traps command is configured. In addition to the traps, the NMS can walk the MIB table to update its new view of the network.

The node can be discovered using an IPv4 or IPv6 NEIP but the advertisement protocol is always OSPFv2; OSPFv3 is not supported. If the NMS wants to discover a node in an IPv6 network, both OSPFv2 and OSPFv3 must be enabled. OSPFv2 advertises the node information to the aggregation node to generate the traps and build the MIB table but OSPFv3 is used to provide the routing information needed to reach that node using an IPv6 network.

The minimum configuration required on the node so that it can be discovered includes:

As all discovery is done using the VPRN SAP, there is no need for GRT configuration.