Network Configuration Rollback via Iterative Snapshot Validation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Network infrastructure devices often experience misconfiguration issues during maintenance and upgrades, leading to potential network failures, as existing techniques lack comprehensive methods for validating configuration changes and rolling back to stable states, especially in large and complex networks.
Innovation Solution
A centralized configuration database is used to store and manage snapshots of network configurations, allowing for validation and rollback to previous stable states by creating snapshots at regular intervals and using iterative validation techniques to ensure compatibility with firmware and hardware changes, thereby mitigating the risk of misconfiguration.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If configuration changes are applied to network infrastructure devices, then network maintenance and upgrades can be performed, but misconfiguration issues may occur leading to network failures
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates configuration snapshots before applying changes and validates configurations in advance using iterative validation techniques. This preliminary action allows the system to prepare rollback plans and detect potential misconfigurations before they cause network failures, thus maintaining productivity while protecting reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements automated rollback mechanisms that can restore previous configurations if validation fails or network issues occur. This beforehand cushioning ensures that if a misconfiguration is detected, the system can automatically revert to a known stable state, preventing network failures while allowing frequent maintenance operations.
2Reliability
If configuration snapshots are created at regular intervals, then rollback to previous stable states becomes possible, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically manages configuration snapshots and validation processes without requiring manual intervention. The iterative validation technique autonomously determines compatibility between configurations and firmware/hardware states, and the system self-manages the rollback process. This self-service approach enables reliable rollback capability while minimizing the operational complexity for administrators.
Solution Approach 2:
The system combines multiple functions into a unified configuration management framework: snapshot creation, iterative validation, compatibility checking, and automated rollback are merged into a single integrated system. This consolidation reduces the complexity that would otherwise arise from managing separate tools for each function.
3Reliability
If iterative validation techniques are used to ensure compatibility, then misconfiguration risk is reduced, but validation time and processing resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs iterative validation at specific periodic points during configuration changes rather than continuously. The validation occurs at key stages: before applying changes, after each configuration step, and before rollback. This periodic validation approach ensures configuration compatibility while reducing the total validation time compared to continuous validation.
Solution Approach 2:
The iterative validation technique performs validation at multiple stages, sometimes more than strictly necessary, to ensure comprehensive compatibility checking. This partial or excessive action approach ensures high reliability by catching potential issues early, while the system optimizes the number of validation cycles to balance thoroughness with time efficiency.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods to identify a plurality of different snapshot versions for a rollback to a previous configuration for subsets of network infrastructure devices is disclosed. A plurality of different network device configuration snapshots is identified and a set of snapshot checkpoints that each include a set of related parameter settings for each different network device are selected as a rollback configuration snapshot for that device. Each device may be associated with automated validation capabilities to validate a proposed rollback version. The computer system may iterate through a set of versions of snapshots and automatically initiate validation capabilities to validate a proposed rollback for the first logical grouping. Determination of a set of configurations may be based on a version control tag to restore a network to an operational state, never before seen in operation, that has a high degree of confidence, in part, because validation tests were successful.