Introduction

Cisco Elastic Services Controller (ESC) is a Virtual Network Functions Manager (VNFM), which performs lifecycle management of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs).

The Cisco Elastic Services Controller (ESC) promotes agility, flexibility, and programmability in Network Function Virtualization (NFV) environments, and offers comprehensive automated lifecycle management capabilities. By design, Cisco ESC is built as an open and a modular system. It provides a single point of control to manage all aspects of VNF lifecycle for generic virtual network functions (VNFs) in a dynamic environment. Drawing on industry standards and open APIs, you can control the full lifecycle of all of your virtualized resources, whether using Cisco or third-party VNFs, allowing you to choose best-of-breed industry solutions.

  • As part of the Cisco Orchestration Suite, ESC is packaged with Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) and Cisco NFV Orchestrator (NFVO) bundle. This is available within Cisco Solutions such as Cisco Managed Services Accelerator (MSX).

  • As a Specialized Virtual Network Function Manager (SVNFM), ESC tightly integrates with the Cisco Mobility VNFs.

  • ESC can also be utilized as a Generic Virtual Network Function Manager (GVNFM) to provide lifecycle management for both Cisco and third-party VNFs.

Supported Virtual Infrastructure Managers (VIM)

ESC supports lifecycle management of VNFs on OpenStack, VMware vCenter, vCloud Director, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and so on. For more details, see the Cisco Elastic Services Controller Install and Upgrade Guide.

New Features and Enhancements in 5.6

This section describes the features added in Cisco Elastic Services Controller Release 5.6:

Deprecated Features

Starting ESC Release 5.4, some of the functionalities are deprecated. The table below lists the deprecated functionalities, and the new functionalities replacing them in ESC:

Table 1. Deprecated Functionalities

Deprecated Functionality

New Functionality

New

in

Release

Deprecation

Notice

Retired in

(future)

Release
The following Cisco-specific extensions on which serve as placeholders for the definition of fixed addresses and static IP pools in the SOL001 VNFD:
nodes.nfv.Vdu.Compute
(vdu_profile.static_ip_address_pools)
Use 
InstantiateVnfRequest

for IP addressing requirements, using cpProtocolData data structures, as per the standards.

ESC 5.3

ESC 5.4

ESC 6.0
The Cisco-specific extensions on 
tosca.datatypes.nfv.
VnfHealOperationConfiguration
.

Moved to a standardised extension point:

cisco.datatypes.nfv.
VnfcAdditionalConfigurableProperties

ESC 5.4

ESC 5.4

ESC 6.0
The Cisco-specific extensions on 
tosca.nodes.nfv.Vdu.VirtualBlockStorage
to specify the external volume UUID in the resource_id.

Moved to a standardised data structure:

tosca.nodes.nfv.Vdu.VirtualBlockStorage.
virtual_block_storage_data.vdu_storage_requirements

ESC 5.4

ESC 5.4

ESC 6.0
Some of the Cisco-specific extensions on 
tosca.nodes.nfv.VduCp
.

All but allowed_address_pairs have

moved to standardised data structures on

tosca.nodes.nfv.VduCp.
virtual_network_interface_requirements

and

tosca.nodes.nfv.VnfVirtualLink.
virtual_link_protocol_data

ESC 5.4

ESC 5.4

ESC 6.0

The Cisco-specific extensions on tosca.policies.nfv.SecurityGroupRule to specify

an out-of-band Security Group.

Moved to a standardised data structure:

tosca.nodes.nfv.VduCp.
metadata.security_group

ESC 5.4

ESC 5.4

ESC 6.0

Starting with Cisco ESC Release 5.3, support for the following may end in any of the future releases without additional notice:

  • The deprecated VMware vCenter versions 5.5 and 6.0.

  • The deprecated VMware vCloud Director (vCD) version 8.2.

  • The deprecated D-MONA 1:1 mapping

For more information, see the release documents available at http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/cloud-systems-management/elastic-services-controller-esc/tsd-products-support-series-home.html.

Cisco Elastic Services Controller Bugs

For a complete list of open and resolved bugs for this release, use the Cisco Bug Search tool.

Open Bugs

The table below lists the open issues in the Cisco Elastic Services Controller 5.6 release.

Table 2. Open Bugs in Cisco Elastic Services Controller 5.6

Bug ID

Description

CSCvz18002 Changing OOB port using ChangeExtVnfConnectivity API req is not detaching old port
CSCvz83738 Retry Operation failed with java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No deployment details received

Resolved Bugs

The table below lists the resolved issues in the Cisco Elastic Services Controller 5.6 release.

Table 3. Resolved Bugs in Cisco Elastic Services Controller 5.6

Bug ID

Description

CSCvz00682 Unable to create external network though router_external property is set to true
CSCvy74955 Persistent volume update followed by VM recovery redeploy causes old volume to be reattached
CSCvy49845 ESC 5.4-86 Switchover does not generate status 5200 Trap
CSCvy83069 VIM authentication failure in ESC 5.4 or 5.5 after the restore from previous releases
CSCvz08156 ETSI Parser: YAML structures with empty values can produce null-pointer exceptions

Cisco Bug Search Tool

Bug Search Tool (BST), the online successor to Bug Toolkit, is designed to improve our customers' effectiveness in network risk management and device troubleshooting.

BST allows partners and customers to search for software bugs based on product, release, and keyword, and aggregates key data such as bug details, product, and version. The service has provision to filter bugs based on credentials to provide external and internal bug views for the search input.

To use the BST to search for a specific bug or to search for all bugs in a release:

Procedure

Step 1

Go to http://tools.cisco.com/bugsearch.

Step 2

At the Log In screen, enter your registered Cisco.com username and password; then, click Log In. The Bug Search page opens.

Note 

If you do not have a Cisco.com username and password, you can register for them at http://tools.cisco.com/RPF/register/register.do.

Step 3

To search for a specific bug, enter the bug ID in the Search For field and press Return.

Step 4

To search for bugs in the current release:

  1. In the Search For field, enter a keyword and press Return. (Leave the other fields empty).

  2. When the search results are displayed, use the filter tools to find the types of bugs you are looking for. You can search for bugs by modified date, status, severity, and so forth.
    Tip 

    To export the results to a spreadsheet, click the Export All to Spreadsheet link.

See Bug Search Tools & Resources on Cisco.com. For more details on the tool overview and functionalities, check out the help page, located at http://www.cisco.com/web/applicat/cbsshelp/help.html

Accessibility Features in Cisco ESC

For a list of accessibility features in Cisco ESC 5.6, see Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) on the Cisco website, or contact accessibility@cisco.com.

All product documents are accessible except for images, graphics, and some charts. If you would like to receive the product documentation in audio format, braille, or large print, contact accessibility@cisco.com.

Related Documentation

The following documents are available for Cisco Elastic Services Controller:

  • Cisco Elastic Services Controller User Guide

  • Cisco Elastic Services Controller Install and Upgrade Guide

  • Cisco Elastic Services Controller ETSI NFV MANO Guide

  • Cisco Elastic Services Controller Administration Guide

  • Cisco Elastic Services Controller Troubleshooting Guide

  • Cisco Elastic Services Controller NETCONF API Guide

  • Cisco Elastic Services Controller REST API Guide

  • Cisco Elastic Services Controller ETSI API Guide

  • Cisco Elastic Services Controller Deployment Attributes

You can access the documents at:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/cloud-systems-management/elastic-services-controller-esc/tsd-products-support-series-home.html.