R12.1-JA-2025June05
Support Signature Variables in NIT Replication Settings
Signature variable is a specific type of variable, and it supports two types of values: single value and table. Signature variable is aimed to expose the main variable values used in parser when NI is used for NIT replication, and can be output to ADT as row data based on the ADT-based table and to build ADTs. For example, users can use device name, OSPF ID, area ID, and OSPF config-let to generate an OSPF configuration table for a device. Alternatively, users can generate a status table for a device interface by using device, interface, interface status, and interface CRC.
When users build ADT to do intent-based network assessment, there is a high-frequency table structure as shown below.
Device “R1” has more than one row in ADT with different parameters. To build this ADT, users have to use NIC with signature variables, but it is complex to be maintained and used by users and NetBrain engineers.
The support of the signature variable in NIT replication settings can solve the above problem because:
- The logic of building an ADT base table is self-contained inside NIT - easy to maintain and update after users deploy the ADT.
- It doesn’t require NI to be executed – This separates the “compiling” and “executing” of ADT content.
The main flow to resolve the problem is as follows:
- In NIT replication settings, define signature variable as table column.
- In decoding process, signature variables will be calculated and saved to NIT decoded database (signature variables will be deduplicated automatically).
- In ADT building from NIT, signature variables are available to be added to table column.