Course Overview
This five-day course provides students with the foundational knowledge required to work with the Juniper Apstra Freeform reference design and to manage networks with Juniper Apstra software. This class expects that the attendees have the knowledge to use Jinja2 templates.
The course covers the overall concept of intent-based networking, the Juniper Apstra architecture, the high-level differences between the Data Center and Freeform reference designs, navigation of both the global and blueprint Apstra UI as well as introduce students to device profiles, installing device agents, device management (including ZTP of devices), role-based access control (RBAC), REST API, creating tags, creating resources, and enabling syslog. The course goes on to cover the Juniper Apstra freeform reference architecture including the designing, building, deploying, and automation of a network using configuration templates, property sets, and device context. After teaching you to use Juniper Apstra Freeform reference architecture to build a running network, the course reviews the operational tools for managing a system with Juniper Apstra including basic troubleshooting, deploy modes mode, adding and removing devices from a network, rolling back an entire network (Time Voyager), and using Intent-based Analytics (IBA).
Through demonstrations and hands-on labs, students will gain experience in configuring and monitoring an IP fabric using Juniper Apstra's Freeform features. This course is based on Juniper Apstra Release 4.1.2.
Who should attend
The primary audiences for this course include:
- Networking architects and operators, system engineers, DevOps and IT professionals
- Individuals responsible for configuring, monitoring, and troubleshooting modern networks of any size leveraging Junos hardware and Junos OS
Prerequisites
- Strong background in networking and data center designs
- Understanding of Clos IP fabric
- Routing protocol design, configuration, and performance
- Overlay/underlay routing designs
- Basic automation design and workflows
- An understanding of Junos device configuration via CLI
- Strong background in Jinja templating
- Basic automation tools like Python or Ansible
- Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) knowledge is recommended but not required
Course Objectives
- Describe what is meant by intent-based networking.
- Describe the Juniper Apstra architecture.
- Navigate the global Apstra UI.
- Describe device profiles.
- Create and use system agents to manage devices.
- Describe the difference between the data center and freeform reference designs.
- Navigate the blueprint UI (both DC and Freeform).
- Configure role-based access control (RBAC).
- Describe basic REST API functionality.
- Create resources.
- Create tags.
- Configure logging to a remote syslog server.
- Describe the benefits of the Freeform reference design.
- Discuss how templates are used for Junos automation.
- Create Jinja2 templates.
- Describe how to create a config template.
- Describe the minimum steps to deploy a Freeform blueprint.
- Perform the steps to create a running Freeform Blueprint.
- Describe the usage of device context and property sets.
- Explain the behavior of a central routing and bridging (CRB) DC.
- Describe the configuration of a CRB-based DC.
- Describe how to define intent for the CRB use case.
- Describe how to use the default config templates for the CRB use case.
- Describe how to enable basic routing in the CRB use case.
- Describe how to enable VXLAN networks in the CRB use case.
- Describe how to route between overlay VXLAN networks in the CRB use case.
- Perform day 2 operations by modifying device context.
- Perform day 2 operations by modifying config templates.
- Use the Graph Explorer to traverse the graph datastore.
- Describe the function of an IBA probe.
- Create an IBA probe
Course Content
- Course Introduction
- Intent-Based Networking
- Juniper Apstra Overview
- Apstra UI Walkthrough
- Device Profiles
- Device Management
- Data Center Reference Design Versus Freeform Reference Design
- Navigating the Blueprint UI
- Role-Based Access Control
- Introduction to the REST API
- Resources
- Tags
- Syslog
- Jinja Review
- Deploy a Freeform Blueprint
- Device Context and Property Sets
- CRB Use Case — Overview
- CRB Intent and Default Config Templates
- CRB Intent and Default Config Templates
- L2 Overlay Networking for CRB
- Layer 3 Overlay Networking for CRB
- Day 2 Operations
- Graph Explorer
- Intent-Based Analytics Overview
- Creating an IBA Probe