Networks, sometimes it feels like you don’t even know them anymore. They’re an amalgam of different appliances across different vendors, who sometimes aren’t on very good speaking terms. Apstra is here to help fix that.
Apstra has a problem with the way networks are built and designed. They have a great metaphor, networks are life getting a bag of Lego without instruction, but being told what to make. Oh, no problem, this allows you to express your creativity right? WRONG, it needs to work exactly like the model you were building it on, otherwise you’ll have to constantly rebuild to correct. Apstra proposes giving you the blueprints to your network.
Their secret sauce is the Apstra Operating System (AOS), which serves as a layer to allow various vendors devices to just work within their system. Their individual features become services for AOS to exploit. It’s a really interesting approach.
Phil Gervasi saw their presentation at Networking Field Day, and he gives a deep dive into how this works in the piece below.
{networkphil} comments:
Apstra, Incorporated isn’t focused on new features, more advanced silicon, or some new widget. Instead, they’re offering a different way to look at networking. Apstra offers an early form of intent-driven networking that abstracts network programmability and allows network engineers to configure intent rather than device features. We expect the network to behave in a specific way, so we configure our intent accordingly. I was very excited to meet the Apstra team at Networking Field Day 13, and they didn’t disappoint.
The Problem: Network-Blindness
Read more at: Apstra: The Intent-Driven Cure for Network Blindness
