Administrator Guide

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Open Automation Framework
The Dell Networking S4810, S4820T, S5000, S6000, Z9000, Z9500, and MXL platforms support the Open
Automation framework.
The Open Automation framework provides an open, industry standards-based automation technology
that simplifies managing dynamic virtual data centers and reduces risk and overhead.
With the Open Automation framework, resources in a virtualized data center are efficiently managed
without requiring manual reconfiguration of virtual switches (vSwitches), virtual machines (VMs) on
network servers, and VM control software each time there is a network change. Automated provisioning
of network resources during VM migration also maintains connectivity and security policies.
To automate monitoring and network device management, the Open Automation framework uses
industry standard scripting languages, such as Perl, Python, and Ruby. To adapt to required configuration
changes, you can quickly allocate virtual resources. In addition, a network device failure is more quickly
detected and resolved; as a result, network uptime increases.
Automated bare metal provisioning (BMP) allows you to reduce operational overhead by automatically
configuring Dell Networking switches, accelerating switch installation, and simplifying operating system
upgrades.
Support for multiple, industry standard hypervisors, virtual switches, and system management tools
ensure that automated solutions work within an established data-center environment in which
heterogeneous server, storage, and networking equipment inter-operate. In addition, Open Automation
allows you to customize automated solutions for your current multi-vendor virtualization environment.
An onboard web-based graphical user interface (GUI) provides a user-friendly way to monitor and
manage a data center network. To provide additional management capability, HTTP and HTTPS daemons
run on supported switches, such as the representational state transfer (REST) application programming
interface (API).
The Open Automation framework consists of the following network management tools:
• Bare metal provisioning
• Smart scripting
• Virtual server networking
• Representational state transfer application programming interface
• Web server with HTTP support
To extend and add functionality to your Dell Networking OS without requiring updates to the OS release,
use these components together or independently.
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Open Automation Framework