Cisco Prime Provisioning 7.1 Release Notes
Installing PrimeProvisioning7.1
New Features and Enhancements in PrimeProvisioning7.1
Features Introduced in Prime Provisioning 6.8.1
Supporting NBI for IPv6 Address Pool
NBI Support for Automatically Assigning the IPv6 Addresses
Deprecating Config Audit Functionality
Supporting Trunk EFP for ASR920 UPE device
Extending E-Tree Functionality
Supporting SONET to SONET Provisioning
Features Introduced in Prime Provisioning 6.8.2
initdb Script Enhancements to Retain DCPL Values with Configured Values
Supporting Manual Allocation of IPv6 Address from IPv6 Address Pool
Extending VLAN-ID Range to Support BVI Interfaces with Values Range
Supporting EVPN-VPWS Attributes through a Customization XML File
Supporting EVPN-VPLS Attributes through a Customization XML File
Features Introduced in Prime Provisioning 7.0
Supporting Pseudowire Interface for EVC-Pseudowire Policies
Supporting Autopick Bridge Domain Name for L2 Services
Supporting BGP Additional Multipaths for ASR920 Devices
Supporting IP Helper Addresses for ASR 920 Devices
Supporting Auto RD Configuration
Supporting Modification of Site of Origin
Features Introduced in Prime Provisioning 7.1
Supporting Pseudowire Interface for EVC-Pseudowire Policies
Supporting Bridge Group in L2 EVC Services in VFI Management
Supporting BGP Additional Multipaths for ASR902 and ASR 903 Devices
Supporting IP Helper Addresses for ASR 902 and ASR 903 Devices
Supporting Autopick Bridge Domain Name for L3 Services
Device Picker Filter Option for Hub and Backup Hub
Supporting Bridge Group in L3 EVC Services in VFI Management
PrimeProvisioning7.1 Resolved and Open Bugs
Finding Known Problems in PrimeProvisioning7.1
Accessibility Features in Prime Provisioning
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request
All documentation, including this Cisco Prime Provisioning 7.1 Release Notes document and any or all parts of the Cisco Prime Provisioning 7.1 documentation set, might be upgraded over time. Therefore, we recommend you to access the Prime Provisioning 7.1 documentation set online at:
http://www.cisco.com/go/provisioning
You can also navigate to this documentation set by clicking Help on the Home Page of the Prime Provisioning 7.1 product.
The information in this release notes provides an overview of this release and helps you understand it at a high level. After reading the Cisco Prime Provisioning 7.1 Documentation Overview, please read this release note prior to reading any other documentation for Prime Provisioning 7.1.
URL’s for base information about Prime Provisioning 7.1, a product overview, and suggested reading order of these documents is given in Related Documentation.
This document includes the following sections:
Prime Provisioning is a management solution for network provisioning that enables the automation and scaling of complex, policy-driven network provisioning tasks to produce consistent and reliable service deployments. Prime Provisioning does this by planning, provisioning, and auditing services across core, aggregation, access, and consumer premises equipment devices.
Cisco Prime Provisioning enables fast deployment and time-to-market of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and Carrier Ethernet technologies. In addition, the Prime Provisioning Traffic Engineering Management (TEM) module is Cisco’s exclusive planning and provisioning tool for Cisco MPLS Traffic Engineering-enabled routers. MPLS Transport Profile (TP) provides service providers with a reliable packet-based technology that is based upon circuit-based transport networking, and hence is expected to align with current organizational processes and large-scale work procedures similar to other packet transport technologies.
The Cisco Prime Provisioning solution has management capabilities for MPLS VPN, L2VPN and Carrier Ethernet, MPLS TP, and MPLS Traffic Engineering. These capabilities that comprise Cisco Prime Provisioning can be used in a stand-alone manner or can be integrated with the Prime Carrier Management September 2018 suite.
Cisco Prime Provisioning 7.1 includes many new and enhancement features whose highlights are listed below:
– Support for L2VPN IOS-XE syntax in ASR-902 and ASR 903.
– Support for Bridge Group in L2 EVC services in VFI Management
– Support for BGP additional paths and ip helper address for L3VPN configuration for ASR 902 and ASR 903 devices, which is a new syntax support for ASR 902 and ASR 903 devices
– Support for L3 EVC services with autopick bridge domain name with new L3-X format.
– Support for Bridge Group in L3 EVC Services in VFI Management
– Support for Bundle Interface in Prime Provisioning
– L3VPN IOS-XE new syntax support in ASR 902 and ASR 903 devices
– EFP-Trunk support for ASR902 and ASR 903
– Supports device picker with filter option for Hub and Backup Hub selection
When purchasing Prime Provisioning you will be prompted to select either delivery by
If the version is not the latest, you are advised to upgrade. The latest Prime Provisioning 6.x version can be ordered for download by eDelivery (or DVD shipment) free of charge, provided that you have a Software and Services (SAS) contract. The minor upgrade can be ordered through the Product Upgrade Tool (PUT):
http://tools.cisco.com/gct/Upgrade/jsp/productUpgrade.jsp
Additionally, you are strongly advised to apply the latest available service patch. Prime Provisioning patches are available at http://software.cisco.com/download/navigator.html?mdfid=284127465&flowid=37682
For information about the installation process, see the Cisco Prime Provisioning Installation Guide 7.1.
After the Patch upgrade, certain host configuration properties are not retained. So, it is advisable to create a backup of all the DCPL settings, by running the following script.
$PRIMEF_HOME/bin/extractproperties.sh
Once you upgrade, run the following script to restore the DCPL settings.
This section describes features and enhancements added or modified in Prime Provisioning 7.1.
For system recommendations, refer to the Cisco Prime Provisioning Installation Guide 7.1, and for device and platform support, refer to Cisco Prime Provisioning Supported Devices. It includes the network devices and related software supported with Prime Provisioning 7.1. We recommend that you thoroughly review this list before even planning your installation, to be sure you have all the hardware and software needed for a successful installation.
Prime Provisioning 7.1 is based on Cisco Prime Provisioning 7.0.
Prime Provisioning 7.1 includes problems fixed since Cisco Prime Provisioning 7.0. See Prime Provisioning 7.1 Resolved and Open Bugs.
Note Cisco Prime Provisioning 7.1 is compatible with Cisco Prime Central 2.0. Make sure you upgrade Cisco Prime Central to version 2.0 before upgrading and integrating the current version of Prime Provisioning.
Note ● Prime Provisioning can be used as a standalone product or as a part of Prime Carrier Management September 2018. When installed as part of the suite, you can launch Prime Provisioning from the Prime Central portal. For more information about Prime Central, see the documentation for Cisco Prime Central.
Items specific to Prime Provisioning 7.1 include the new and changed information as documented in the following sections:
This section summarizes the general features that were added in Prime Provisioning 6.8.1.
From this release, NBI support has been extended for IPv6 Address pool. IPv6 Address pool is used by MPLS services while automatically assigning the IPv6 Addresses from the pool.
Below is a sample NBI XML highlighting the tags, attributes and values required for creation of a new IPV6 Address pool.
From this release, Prime Provisioning extended NBI support for automatically assigning the IPv6 Addresses for MPLS Services from the pool.
IPv6 Address allocation is supported only for Regular: PE-CE MPLS policy and services.
Below are the sample NBI XML snippets highlighting the tags, attributes and values required for automatically assigning the IPv6 Addresses from the pool during creation/modification of MPLS Policies.
Note To create an IPv6 addressing based MPLS-SR via NBI, the Policy must be created with IP numbering scheme as IPv6 Numbered.
From this release, Prime Provisioning deprecates the Config Audit functionality.
In Prime Provisioning, whenever an SR is deployed, configlets are pushed into the devices and config audit functionality compares the generated configlet against the one downloaded to the device.
During subsequent modification of SR, config audit only compares the additional/modified configlets which are pushed into the device. This doesn't serve any purpose as it doesn't check whether the initial configlets pushed into the devices are still available and valid.
Config Audit functionality can be reactivated using DCPL properties. If the value of the DCPL property is set to true, Prime Provisioning will not perform config audit. If the value is set to false, Prime Provisioning will perform config audit. The default value of DCPL property is true.
Note Once the DCPL property is set to false, Prime Provisioning need to be restarted to re-display the Config Audit in the Task Manager.
This section summarizes features that were added to enhance EVC services in Prime Provisioning 6.8.1.
In Prime Provisioning 6.8.1, a new attribute Enable Trunk EFP has been added in Service Request screens for UPE device, which gives flexibility to make many Layer 2 flow points within one interface. One interface can have only one trunk support and doesn’t provide support for switchport trunk. Enable Trunk EFP attribute supports flex. It appears in the screen only when the Links with L2 Access Nodes or Rings contain ASR920 device. It provides support only for ASR920 IOS device.
If Enable Trunk EFP check box is enabled user will get “ service instance trunk <id> ethernet and encapsulation dot1q add <id> / encapsulation dot1q remove <id> ” commands. If this check box is checked, Inner VLAN, Autopick Outer VLAN and Autopick Inner VLAN are not supported. For Rewrite Type only Pop is supported.
Note In SR modification, Encapsulation of VLAN Id does not support add and remove commands together due to XDE framework limitation. As a workaround, same can be achieved by using policy customization.
This is feature is supported through GUI, NBI and Physical Rings.
From Prime Provisioning 6.8.1, E-Tree role functionality has been extended to generate neighbor commands under vfi for hubs with E-Tree role as root or leaf for EVC services.
In accordance with this functionality, when the E-Tree role of the HUB node is set as ROOT, under vfi, neighbor commands gets generated for all the other hubs, and when the E-Tree role of the HUB node is set as LEAF, under vfi, neighbor commands gets generated for only the hub node with E-tree role as root.
Below are the sample configlets.
Example: HVPLS SR with E-Tree (2 HUBs_root, 2 HUBs_leaf)
From this release, Prime Provisioning extended SONET–SONET provision support for EVC TDM-CEM services which will allow users to select SONET as a controller at A-End and Z-End. Prior to this release users were able to select SONET as a controller only at Z-End. In accordance with this functionality for CEM Container Type, a new value SONET controller has been introduced in both Policy editor screen and Service Request editor screen to provision SONET to SONET connectivity.
Supported Attributes are, when Framing Type is SDH:
These attributes are available in SR Link attribute at SR level.
Below are the sample configlets.
Example 1: Service Options: SATop_UNFRAMED, CEM Container Type: SONET and Framing Type: SONET
Configlet #4, Job ID 81 (Created: 2016-11-11 02:55:04) vtg 7 t1 3 cem-group 201 unframed |
Configlet #3, Job ID 81 (Created: 2016-11-11 02:57:56) vtg 6 t1 3 cem-group 908 unframed |
Example 2: Service Options: CESoPN_TIMESLOT, CEM Container Type: SONET and Framing Type: SDH
All Application Programming Interface (API) features are explained in detail in the Cisco Prime Provisioning API Programmer Guide 7.0 and the accompanying Cisco Prime Provisioning API Programmer Reference 7.0.
New features added in Prime Provisioning are generally available via both the GUI and APIs. See the respective sections in this document for a description of new features under each service.
This section summarizes the general feature that were added in Prime Provisioning 6.8.2.
During Prime Provisioning upgrade, to retain the Dynamic Component Properties Library (DCPL) property values without a reset, use the following CLI commands:
The values are retained or updated in the Prime Provisioning repository based on the following criteria.
1. When the initdb.sh script is run without any argument, Prime Provisioning reads the DCPL properties from vpnsc.properties and updates them in the Prime Provisioning repository.
2. When the initdb.sh script is run with noreset argument, Prime Provisioning retains the DCPL values which are already configured.
3. When the initdb.sh script is run with some irrelevant argument other than the noreset argument, Prime Provisioning will display an error message; “The only supported argument for initdb.sh is noreset.”
From this release, you can enter an IPv6 address manually in the IP Address Scheme window of Cisco Prime Provisioning (CPP) while creating an MPLS service request. The IPv6 address entered must be available in the IPv6 address pools. If the IPv6 address belongs to a valid IPv6 block, then the IPv6 address is blocked as allocated and is updated in the respective IPv6 pool. The IPv6 address pool is then split as valid IPv6 address blocks or pools.
While entering the IPv6 address, ensure that you remember the following conditions:
1. The subnet mask that you enter should be same as that of the IPv6 pool mask.
2. The IPv6 address mask of the Provider Edge (PE) interface and the Customer Edge (CE) interface must be under the same subnet mask as that of the IPv6 address pool.
Once the allocation is successful, you can view the valid IPv6 address pools with Allocated status in the Resource Pools window of CPP.
To remove the MPLS service request, you need to release the IPv6 address back to the available pool. The pools that are split as blocks are combined again into a single pool. For this, you can either decommission the service or perform force delete of the IPv6 allocated block or pool.
Prime Provisioning 6.8.2 release allows you to create MPLS SR with VLAN-ID that ranges between 1-65535 for L3VPN/MPLS services on ASR9K series devices, only when the EVC Service is enabled.
Note This functionality supports only PE devices of IOS-XR type.
When you enable the EVC Service checkbox in the MPLS Service Request Editor page, the VLAN-ID value is automatically updated/changed to support VLAN-ID ranges of 1-65535.
It is recommended to enter the VLAN-ID ranges within the specified range otherwise, an exemption occurs in the following instances:
Note Enabling EVC service on L3VPN creates BVI virtual interfaces to allow routing through BVI interfaces.
BVI interfaces can be configured in the range of 1-65535. This is because Prime Provisioning does not have an option to provide BVI interface and thus uses the VLAN- ID value as BVI interface value. The extended value of 1-65535 specified in the VLAN-ID range field allows you to create BVI interface with BVI interface number range 1-65535.
From this release, EVPN-VPWS configurations are supported by importing a EVPN-VPWS customization.xar file as part of Prime Provisioning policies and service requests to manage various Ethernet Virtual Circuit services.
To view or edit the EVPN-VPWS attributes in the Policy Editor window or the EVC Service Request Editor window, make sure that you have completed the following prerequisite.
1. Import the EVPNVPWSCustomization.xar file under $PRIMEP_HOME/packages/std, which is already copied as part of Prime Provisioning product (PP6.8.2 or greater). The customization XML uses merge mode as “Combine”. For more information about how to Import customization files, see Importing and Exporting Customizations section in the Cisco Prime Provisioning 6.8 User Guide.
Note The EVPN-VPWS attributes are visible in the Policy Editor or the EVC Service Request Editor window only when you import the EVPNVPWSCustomization.xar file.
2. Make sure that the supported platform includes ASR9K with IOS-XR version 6.0 or later.
Enter or Modify EVPN-VPWS Attributes
To enter the EVPN-VPWS Attributes:
1. Create an EVC PW policy and import the “EVPNVPWSCustomization.xml”. Below is a configuration sample:
2. In the Policy Editor window, in the Source ac-id field, enter the range between 1 and 16777215.
3. In the Remote ac-id field, enter the range between 1 and 16777215.
4. Click Finish to save the EVC Policy.
Note You can also create an SR (VPWS) using this policy with XR devices and enter the values for the attributes.
From this release, EVPN-VPLS configurations are supported by importing a EVPN-VPLS customization.xar file as part of Prime Provisioning policies and service requests to manage various Ethernet Virtual Circuit services.
To view or edit the EVPN-VPLS attributes in the Policy Editor window or the EVC Service Request Editor window, make sure that you have completed the following prerequisite.
1. Import the EVPNVPLSCustomization.xar file under $PRIMEP_HOME/packages/std, which is already copied as part of Prime Provisioning product (PP6.8.2 or greater). The customization XML uses merge mode as “Combine”. For more information about how to Import customization files, see Importing and Exporting Customizations section in the Cisco Prime Provisioning 6.8 User Guide.
Note The EVPN-VPLS attributes are visible in the Policy Editor or the EVC Service Request Editor window only when you import the EVPNVPLSCustomization.xar file.
2. Make sure that the supported platform includes ASR9K with IOS-XR version 6.0 or later.
3. Before configuring the EVPN-VPLS, configure BGP with new EVPN Address family as in the sample configuration below:
Enable or Modify EVPN-VPLS Attributes
To enter the EVPN-VPLS Attributes:
1. Create an EVC VPLS policy and import the “EVPNVPLSCustomization.xml”. Below is a configuration sample:
2. In the Policy Editor window, the following EVPN-EVI attributes are added.
Note You can also create an SR (VPLS) using this policy with XR devices and enter the values for the required attributes.
This release contains the following new and enhancements feature under different service blades and infrastructure.
All the new features introduced in Prime Provisioning 6.8.1, Prime Provisioning 6.8.2 and Prime Provisioning 7.1 release are explained in Prime Provisioning User Guide 7.0.
This section summarizes features that were added to enhance EVC services in Prime Provisioning 7.1.
From this release, Prime Provisioning supports new CLI that define pseudowire interface and cross connect between the service instance to the Pseudowire interface.
In new XE versions you can use both, old and new CLIs and support is provided only for ASR920 devices and applicable only for EVC-Pseudowire policies.
ASR920 supports only flex in Prime Provisioning and this feature is applicable only for flex services.
You can create an EVC Service Request (SR) with Use Pseudowire Interface feature for ASR 920 devices. If the selected device is other than ASR 920 devices, and when you try to create an EVC SR by enabling Use Pseudowire Interface, Prime Provisioning will report an error message.
For more information, see the section in the Prime Provisioning 7.0 User Guide.
Note Prime Provisioning does not support enabling the following attributes together at a time:
“Use Pseudowire Interface' and 'Configure Bridge Domain'
“Use Pseudowire Interface” and “Use Pseudowire Class”
Also, the minimum allowed direct link should be 2.
Prime Provisioning supports L2 services with Autopick Bridge Domain Name with new format L2-X.
Create L2 services with autopick bridge domain name, with the format of L2-X, where X will be the range between 1 to 60000 for the newly created service request.For example, "bridge-domain L2-40001".
As soon as the starting range value is set through the DCPL property as (Provisioning\Service\fsm\bridgeDomainName) for the first service request, Prime Provisioning will consider the set value as a starting range value for autopick bridge domain name automatically, and for the next service request onwards the value is incremented with +1.
If the default value for bridgeDomainName property is zero, the existing behavior will not change.
This section summarizes features that were added to enhance L3VPN/MPLS services in Prime Provisioning 7.1
Prime Provisioning allows you to create MPLS services with BGP additional path configuration CLI for Install or Select backup.
You can provide DHCP Helper IP parameters for ASR920 devices, while creating MPLS service requests for the selected PE interface type you can view the IP helper address details of a server, VRF, GRT, MTU in CLI under the interface node.
In the MPLS Service Request Editor-Interface area, check the Use EVC Service check box to enable the following DHCP Helper IP fields:
This release contains the following new and enhancements feature under different service blades and infrastructure.
All the new features introduced in Prime Provisioning 6.8.2, Prime Provisioning 7.0 and Prime Provisioning 7.1 release are explained in Prime Provisioning User Guide 7.1.
This section summarizes features that were added to enhance EVC services in Prime Provisioning 7.1.
From this release, Prime Provisioning supports new CLI that define pseudowire interface and cross connect between the service instance to the Pseudowire interface.
In new XE versions you can use both, old and new CLIs and support is provided only for ASR902 and ASR 903 devices and applicable only for EVC-Pseudowire policies.
ASR902 and ASR 903 supports only flex in Prime Provisioning and this feature is applicable only for flex services.
You can create an EVC Service Request (SR) with Use Pseudowire Interface feature for ASR 902 and ASR 903 devices. If the selected device is other than ASR 902 and ASR 903 devices, and when you try to create an EVC SR by enabling Use Pseudowire Interface, Prime Provisioning will report an error message.
For more information, see the section in the Prime Provisioning 7.1 User Guide.
Note Prime Provisioning does not support enabling the following attributes together at a time:
“Use Pseudowire Interface' and 'Configure Bridge Domain'
“Use Pseudowire Interface” and “Use Pseudowire Class”
Also, the minimum allowed direct link should be 2.
From Prime Provisioning 7.1, auto pick bridge group shows “bridge group <VFI-NAME>” for local core types, when DCPL property (Provisioning\Service\mpls\bridgeDomainName) is 'true' and Autopick bridgeGroupName is checked.
This section summarizes features that were added to enhance L3VPN/MPLS services in Prime Provisioning 7.1.
Prime Provisioning allows you to create MPLS services with BGP additional path configuration CLI for Install or Select backup.
You can provide DHCP Helper IP parameters for ASR902 and ASR 903 devices, while creating MPLS service requests for the selected PE interface type you can view the IP helper address details of a server, VRF, GRT, MTU in CLI under the interface node.
Prime Provisioning supports L3 services with Autopick Bridge Domain Name with new format L3-X.
Create L3 services with autopick bridge domain name, with the format of L3-X, where X will be the range between 1 to 60000 for the newly created service request.For example, "bridge-domain L3-40001".
As soon as the starting range value is set through the DCPL property as (Provisioning\Service\mpls\bridgeDomainName) for the first service request, Prime Provisioning will consider the set value as a starting range value for autopick bridge domain name automatically, and for the next service request onwards the value is incremented with +1.
If the default value for bridgeDomainName property is zero, the existing behavior will not change..
Prime Provisioning supports device filter option for HUB & BACKUP HUB device picker for HVPLS and ETree policy services. If you want to select Hub devices:
– In the EVC Service Request Editor window, in the Direct Connect Links area, Click Add to Select Device and UNI.
– Check the Edit check box, and then choose the SPOKE option. The Hub and Backup Hub Device Selection window appears. You can use toggle picker and choose the Hub device names using the quick filters in the Device Selection window.
From Prime Provisioning 7.1, auto pick BG takes VRF name instead of provider name (for example, bridge group VRFtest1), when auto pick bridge group name is checked and DCPL property (Provisioning\Service\mpls\bridgeGroupName) is set to 'true'. If VRF name contains special character(., :, <Space>) you can replace with "_" in the VRF user name.
– Internet Explorer 9, 10, and 11.
– Firefox browser standard version 30, 31, 37 and 55.
– Firefox browser version ESR 24, 31, 52.
You can install Prime Provisioning 7.1 on Prime Provisioning 6.8.1.5/6.8.2.3/7.0.0.1. Schema upgrade is supported from 6.8.1.2, 6.8.2, 7.0 to 7.1 migration can only be performed from 6.8.1.2, 6.8.2, 7.0. To migrate from earlier releases (prior to 6.8), you must first upgrade to Prime Provisioning 6.8.1.5/6.8.2.3/7.0.0.1 release. See “Upgrading Prime Provisioning” section.
The procedure for upgrading from earlier releases is documented in the Cisco Prime Provisioning Installation Guide 7.1.
The Linux platform supported by Prime Provisioning includes: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, 64 bit, version 6.7, 6.8, 6.9, 7.0, 7.1 and 7.4. End of support by Redhat version 6.5 and 7.2.
In Prime Provisioning 7.1, IOS-XR 6.4.1-SDR on NCS6K platform certification is supported.
If you want to migrate from an existing installation to Prime Provisioning 7.1, your upgrade path depends on which release you are upgrading from. This process is explained in detail in Chapter 4, “Upgrading Prime Provisioning” of the Cisco Prime Provisioning Installation Guide 7.1.
The various possible upgrade paths are described in Table 1 .
The following bugs were resolved in Prime Provisioning 7.1:
The following open bugs apply to Prime Provisioning 7.1.
To find known problems in Prime Provisioning 7.1, use the following URL:
https://tools.cisco.com/bugsearch/search
You can search for specific bugs or search for a range by product name. This tool enables you to query for keywords, severity, range, or version.
Use the following search criteria to locate bugs for Prime Provisioning 7.1:
The results display bug ID and title, found-in version, fixed-in version, and status. The bug ID is a hyper link to detailed information for the bug ID’s product, component, severity, first found-in, and release notes. The results could be displayed in a feature matrix or spreadsheet.
See the Cisco Prime Provisioning 7.1 Documentation Overview for a list of all Prime Provisioning guides.
We sometimes update the documentation after original publication. Therefore, you should also review the documentation on Cisco.com for any updates.
Other Cisco Prime Product Documentation
If you are deploying Prime Provisioning as part of the Prime Carrier Management suite, then see also the documentation for the other suite components:
For a list of accessibility features in Prime Provisioning, visit Cisco's Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) website, or contact accessibility@cisco.com.
For information on obtaining documentation, using the Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, see What’s New in Cisco Product Documentation.
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