Apstra in a Whiteboard

As an occasional and very ordinary writer, I think this topic deserves a “direct from the source” approach. I am definitely using credits from my blank slate bucket. In other words, nothing I write would be better than reading from who explained in a whiteboard at Networking Field Day 19 so simple and easy to understand what the Apstra AOS (Apstra Operating System) is all about and its building blocks.

Besides doing a great whiteboard session, @_vCarly also published an outline of that very busy morning at Apstra’s NFD19 Experience. It is a detailed narrative that goes from the reference architecture made of the AOS server sitting at the orchestration (or management) layer and agents installed on each individual switch (supporting modern leaf-spine designs or extensible to other environments) to the building blocks: logical device, rack type, template, blueprint, interface map, device profile, resources, and managed devices. They are all interconnected and it makes more sense when delving into the whiteboard. There is no better way to get a clear understanding of Apstra other than watching the original video followed by her narrative.


On a side note, this is someone who I met in person for the first time, but who I have known for a while through videos as part of my initial Cisco ACI learning journey. I just wish my whiteboards were that decent and inspirational.

In addition to the whiteboard session, other highlights were around the ServiceNow integration delivered jointly with Network to Code, an overview and demo of Day 2 Operations via IBA (Intent-Based Analytics) with a write-up here as well, and a demo on AOS for additional context. The original videos are available at the Networking Field Day 19 portal.