Using NETCONF-proxy server to integrate laboratory equipment into software-defined infrastructures

Abstract

The essential changes that have taken place over the past decade in the field of telecommunications present new requirements for the educational institutions laboratory complexes management. The modern management concept "Infrastructure as Code"(Infrastructure as Code, IaC) proclaims the usage of a single and universal approach for programmatic management of all components of the communication and computing infrastructure. One of the most common ways to implement this approach is based on the representation of managed unit's configurations in the form of specially marked-up records that form the configuration management database. In this case, process of infrastructure components control is nothing more then sequence of transactions that can be performed for this database records, both locally or remotely - by using network management protocols. The implementation of solutions based on modern universal protocols and network management tools will be complicated when the controlled components do not support modern network management protocols and are separated by the institution's intranet. As one of the possible approaches to solving these problems, we consider the use of gateway communication servers as part of the training classes, which will be able to implement dynamic configuration management of special laboratory equipment of the training class and to provide information interaction between the components of the laboratory complex. The paper considers the choice of control protocols for the gateway server, as well as tools for managing communication infrastructures, and presents an implementation option for this approach for integrating special laboratory equipment of the IRIT RTF at Ural Federal University laboratory classes into a single software-defined laboratory complex. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.