Abstract. Due to the significant development of network services in the past few years, their validation has become increasingly difficult. The advent of novel approaches to the issue of validation is therefore vital for keeping services manageable, safe, and reliable. We present a model for the validation of service configurations on network devices. A service configuration is modelled by a tree structure, and its properties are described by validation rules expressed in terms of these tree elements. By using an existing logical formalism called TQL, we have succeeded in expressing complex dependencies between parameters, and in automatically checking these dependencies against real-world network descriptions in feasible time.

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Abstract. Netconf is a protocol proposed by the IETF that defines a set of operations for network configuration. One of the main issues of Netconf is to define operations such as validate and commit, which currently lack a clear description and an information model. We propose in this paper a model for validation based on XML schema trees. By using an existing logical formalism called TQL, we express important dependencies between parameters that appear in those information models, and automatically check these dependencies on sample XML trees in reasonable time. We illustrate our claim by showing different rules and an example of validation on a Virtual Private Network.

Due to the unprecedented development of networks, manual network service provisioning is becoming increasingly risky, error-prone, expensive, and time-consuming. To solve this problem,rule-based methods can provide adequate leverage for automating various network management tasks. This paper presents a rule-based solution for automated network service provisioning. The proposed approach captures configuration data interdependencies using high-level, service-specific, user-configurable rules. We focus on the service validation task, which is illustrated by means of a case study.

Based on numerical results, we analyse the influence of the network-level complexity factors and rule descriptive features on the rule efficiency. This analysis shows the operators how to increase rule efficiency while keeping the rules simple and the rule set compact. We present a technique that allows operators to increase the error coverage, and we show that high error coverage scales well when the complexity of networks and services increases.
We reassess the correlation function between specific rule efficiency and rule complexity metrics found in previous work, and show that this correlation function holds for various sizes, types, and complexities of networks and services.

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The continuous development of the Internet results in an increased number of network services. The network operators and service providers have to deploy various configuration tools to deliver those network services. The different tools used to configure the same equipments can create network configuration inconsistency. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the configuration tools with validation components.This paper presents a solution for these configuration inconsistencies. Our approach captures the features of the CLIs, such as the context and parameter dependencies of the commands and the service properties, and translates them into configuration validation rules.

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Abstract:As today's networks increase in size and complexity and new network services are deployed, the management becomes more complex and error-prone and the configurations can become inconsistent. To enforce the configuration consistence and integrity, it is necessary to enhance the validation capabilities of the management tools. The Meta-CLI Model presented in this paper captures the dependences among the configuration components and the network service properties and translates them into validation rules. It also translates the device configuration information into tree-like models and checks their integrity and consistence using theses rules.