Overview
Figure 1 gives an overview of the network management system. The resource inventory forms a cornerstone of the network management system and maintains inventory records for all elements installed in the network. Operation support systems (OSS) or the element itself feed the resource inventory with data. The resource inventory issues a domain event whenever the state of an inventory record has changed.
The DNS Naming Service subscribes all domain events that have an effect on the DNS name of an element and updates the DNS name accordingly. The DNS connector subscribes domain events related to DNS name changes and invokes the REST-API of the DNS infrastructure to update the DNS records. The focus of this document is the contract between the DNS Connector and the management system.
Terms and Definitions
Element
An element represents either a physical or a virtual resource in the network. For example, the switches forming the fabric are physical resources whereas a virtual machine on a compute node is a virtual resource. DNS records are created for elements, but not necessarily every element requires a DNS record.
Element Role
The element role describes the function of an element in the network. Leaf switch, Spine switch and OLT are examples of element roles.
PoD
The Point of Distribution aggregates all subscribers of a geographic region and connects them to the core network.
Resource Inventory
The resource inventory stores all elements, including their role, configuration, resources, capabilities, operational and administrative state. It also allows to group elements.
The resource inventory is fed by planning processes, which add planned elements to the inventory, and all active elements, which register themselves in the resource inventory and report configuration or operational state changes to the resource inventory.
Domain Event
A domain event describes a change that has taken place in the resource inventory. The domain event contains the information of what has changed as well as the identifiers needed to read additional information from the resource inventory.
Operation Support System (OSS)
The Operation Support System supports to control, monitor, manage and plan the network.
Management System
The management system allows the execution of management functions on the elements forming the network and to inspect configuration and operational state of an element.
DNS Naming Service
The DNS naming service assigns DNS names to all elements in the resource inventory that are supposed to have a DNS name.