Cisco cnBR Operations Lab
As MSOs move from conventional Cable Modem Termination Systems (CMTS) systems to virtual CMTS (vCMTS) systems, there is a fear that new skills will be needed to manage them. Traditionally the provisioning and management of these systems have been done through CLI methods; with the advent of vCMTS systems, this is no longer the case. Being software and API driven, these systems are provisioned and managed through a GUI front end. In the case of Cisco's Cloud Native Broadband Router (cnBR), this front end is Cisco's Operation's Hub (OPS HUB). This lab aims to show that while these operations differ from CLI provisioning, no new skill set is needed.
Hardware & Software
Hardware:
Operations HUB
Cisco UCS-C220-M5SX
- 2 x Intel Xeon Gold 5218R CPU
- 384 GB RAM
- 4 x 800GB SSD
- 2 x 240GB M.2 SSD
- 2 x Intel XL710-QDA2
cnBR-Core Servers
3 x Cisco UCS-C220-M5SX
- 2 x Intel Xeon Gold 5218R CPU
- 384 GB RAM
- 4 x 800GB SSD
- 2 x 240GB M.2 SSD
- 2 x Intel XL710-QDA2
Provisioning Server
Cisco UCS-C220-M5SX
- 2 x Intel Xeon Gold 5218R CPU
- 256 GB RAM
- 2 x 800GB SSD
- 2 x 240GB M.2 SSD
- 1 x Intel XL710-QDA2
SP-Router
- Cisco NCS-55A1-24H
CIN (Converged Interconnect Network)
- Cisco Nexus 3172PQ-10GE
Management Switch
- Cisco Catalyst 2960X-48LPD-L
Timing Server
- ADVA OSA 5420
Aggregation Switch
- Cisco Nexus 3232C
Remote Phy Device
- Cisco Remote PHY Shelf 7200
Modems
- 2 x Arris Touchstone CM8200A
CPE
- 2 x Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
Software:
- Cisco cnBR 21.2
- Cisco Prime Network Registrar 10.1.2
- VMWare VCenter 6.7.0.5
- VMWare ESXI 6.5 Update 3 (For Cisco OPS Hub)