Technical documentation

NetYCE 6.1.0 was finalized at 2014-11-04

YCE 6.0 was first released in December 2013. At that stage the new web-front-end was introduced on an evaluation basis. the YCE provisioning client for the Windows environment remained the front-end for production work. Since then, numerous improvements were made to the front-end, some based on early feedback of customers.

Although the YCE provisioning client is still available to the 6.1 user, the preferred client to use is the web-based front-end.

About 30 new syntax various were added to the Service types. The new functions most deal with locate options allowing for following connection paths between nodes. A total of 141 different Service-type variations are now available to the modeller.

These new service-types are NOT available to the YCE provisioning client. Although it is possible to use these syntaxes in this Windows client, there is no build-in support to execute them! Full support for service types is only available in using the web-front-end.

The “configuration-change-detection” facility of YCE 6.0 is being expanded into a full Network Configuration and Change Management (NCCM) system. Configurations wil be retrieved from the nodes periodically and compared with previous versions. This mechanism incorporates the configuration-change-detection where configuration snapshots are taken after YCE completed a change. The change detection can now be performed before a new change is committed.

A special class of relations are available for cases where writing a bit af script is faster of more efficient tan using a complex SQL query: Scripted relations. These relations are written in Perl using the YCE relations plugin. These relation are also a suitable integration point for customer scripts or external data disclosed using client software.

A finer control of Domain pasword-like variables is now enabled. Using the customisable authorisation matrix, the way each of these fields are displayed or made accessible can be controlled individually and per role.

For example, using the default settings for the ‘manager’ role, the values of these fields are shown as a series of bullets and therefore no longer legible. But when entering a new value, the value is not hidden until the typing is complete. Only the ‘system’ role allow these fields to be both readable and editable.

This function - to hide variable content from users that are allowed to modify them - is also available for custom variables. Node types, Domains, and Regions can have custom variable that exhibit the same behaviour.

Support for other vendor-types than Cisco has been added at version 5. With 6.0 Cisco XR, HP (c5) and Avaya were added. The list of vendors is constantly growing and currently includes:

• Cisco IOS
• Cisco XR
• Cisco NX
• Junos
• Avaya Switches
• Avaya 8000 series
• HP Comware 5
• Huawei Cloud engine
• Huawei switches
• Fortinet
• Albis Acceed

Previously, the Operating System upgrade tool was a Cisco-IOS only tool. The functionality has been expanded to include most of the vendor types that are supported: Cisco IOS, Junos, Avaya, HP, and both Huawei types.

The application programming interface (API) for integration with external systems has been greatly expanded. The Service Types and Tasks can be externally triggered using a parameterized XML message allowing for change orchestration. Likewise, creating network change jobs and retrieving results can be realised externally.

To fully realise the potential of these orchestrations, the service tasks and the network change jobs can incorporate custom variables to be used in Service type variables and Templates/Scenario’s.

Using two mirroring YCE databases has long been possible but required a manual process to configure. If for some reason the databases got out-of-sync, the procedure to redistribute the leading database and configure the synchronization required the same lengthy process.

With NetYCE 6, once the synchronization is setup, the process is simplified and fully accessible through the web gui. It entails of restoring the same database archive set on both database servers by uploading and then activating the synchronization at both ends.

Supported browsers are recent versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari. Internet Explorer support is added in this 6.1 release but requires IE version 11 or later. Users of earlier versions receive a notification to this effect.

YCE 6.1 uses a html5 feature called ‘Application Cache’ to control the caching that all all browsers will do to optimise download volume and performance. This caching often causes problems for web-based applications after a software update. The browser will continue to use cached html, javascript or stylesheets from the cache when updated versions are available. The application cache allows the application some control over this behaviour. Unfortunately, not all recent browsers support the feature consistently.

On system updates, NetYCE version 6.1 will attempt to update the browser cache by forcing all users to re-login (and for some browsers twice). Nevertheless, it is recommended to close and reopen the browser after an update. In some cases a manual cache cleanup was required before the new code was downloaded.