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nso-service-mgmt

Cisco NSO service management — discover service types, list service instances, orchestrate network services

personAuthor: jakexiaohubgithub
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NSO Service Management

MCP Server

  • Command: cisco-nso-mcp-server (pip-installed, stdio transport)
  • Requires: NSO_ADDRESS, NSO_USERNAME, NSO_PASSWORD environment variables

Available Tools

| Tool | Parameters | What It Does | |------|-----------|-------------| | get_service_types | none | List all available service types in NSO (L3VPN, VPLS, ACL, etc.) | | get_services | service_type | List all service instances for a given service type |

What Are NSO Services?

NSO services are the core value of NSO. Instead of configuring devices one at a time, you define a service (e.g., "L3VPN between Site-A and Site-B") and NSO:

  1. Translates the service intent into per-device CLI/NETCONF configuration
  2. Deploys the config to all affected devices transactionally
  3. Tracks what config belongs to which service (service meta-data)
  4. Enables rollback — delete the service and all its config is cleanly removed

Common service types include:

  • L3VPN — Layer 3 VPN provisioning across PE routers
  • L2VPN / VPLS — Layer 2 VPN / VPLS services
  • ACL Management — Centralized ACL provisioning
  • QoS Policies — Quality of service templates across devices
  • Interface Provisioning — Standardized interface configurations
  • Firewall Rules — Security policy deployment
  • Custom Services — Any service package developed for your environment

Workflow: Service Discovery

When a user asks "what services does NSO have?" or "what can NSO provision?":

  1. Get service types: get_service_types to list all available service packages
  2. For each type: get_services to list deployed instances
  3. Report: Table of service types, instance counts, and deployment status

Workflow: Service Inventory Report

When a user needs to understand what's deployed:

  1. List service types: get_service_types
  2. For each interesting type: get_services with the service type name
  3. Cross-reference with devices: Use get_device_config (nso-device-ops) to see the config NSO deployed
  4. Report: Service name, type, affected devices, deployment status

Workflow: Service Health Check

When validating that NSO services are properly deployed:

  1. List services: get_service_types → get_services for each type
  2. Check device sync: For each device in a service, run check_device_sync (nso-device-ops)
  3. Flag issues: If a device is out of sync, the service config may have drifted
  4. Report: Service health summary — in-sync vs out-of-sync devices per service

Workflow: Pre-Change Service Impact Analysis

Before making manual device changes:

  1. List services: get_service_types → get_services for each type
  2. Identify affected services: Which services touch the device being changed?
  3. Warn the user: "R1 has 3 active L3VPN services — manual changes may conflict with NSO"
  4. Recommend: Use NSO services for changes instead of direct CLI, or re-sync after manual changes

Integration with Other Skills

| Scenario | Skills Involved | |----------|----------------| | Audit deployed services | nso-service-mgmt + nso-device-ops (verify device configs match services) | | Service drift detection | nso-service-mgmt + nso-device-ops (check_device_sync) | | Document services | nso-service-mgmt → github-ops (commit service inventory to repo) | | Service impact analysis | nso-service-mgmt + pyATS (verify service is working at network level) | | Service report delivery | nso-service-mgmt → msgraph-teams or Slack (post service inventory) | | Lab service testing | nso-service-mgmt + cml-lab-lifecycle (test services against CML lab) |

NSO Service Concepts

| Concept | Meaning | |---------|---------| | Service Type | A service package (e.g., l3vpn) — defines what parameters are needed and how to translate to device config | | Service Instance | A deployed service (e.g., "l3vpn-siteA-siteB") — a specific instantiation with actual parameters | | Service Meta-Data | NSO tracks which config lines belong to which service — enables clean rollback | | FASTMAP | NSO's algorithm that maps service intent to device config — handles create, modify, delete | | Reactive FASTMAP | Services that react to external events (e.g., device state changes) | | Nano Services | Multi-step services with state machines for complex provisioning workflows | | Service Package | The code (YANG models + templates + logic) that defines a service type |

Example Slack Conversations

"What services are running on NSO?" → get_service_types → list of available service packages → get_services for each type → count of deployed instances → Report: "NSO has 4 service types: l3vpn (12 instances), acl-mgmt (8 instances), qos-policy (5 instances), interface-std (20 instances)"

"Show me all L3VPN services" → get_services("l3vpn") → list of all L3VPN instances with their parameters → Report: "12 L3VPN services deployed across 6 PE routers"

"Are any services out of sync?" → get_service_types → get_services for each → get affected devices → check_device_sync for each affected device → Report: "2 of 12 L3VPN services have out-of-sync devices: PE1, PE3"

"What services touch router PE1?" → get_service_types → get_services for each → filter for PE1 → Report: "PE1 participates in: l3vpn-customer-a, l3vpn-customer-b, qos-gold, acl-mgmt-edge"

Important Rules

  • Services are read-only in this MCP — you can discover and inspect services but not create/modify/delete them
  • Service drift is critical — if check_device_sync shows out-of-sync, service config may not match intended state
  • Manual changes conflict with services — warn users that direct CLI changes on NSO-managed devices can break service tracking
  • Record in GAIT — log all service discovery and audit operations for audit trail

Environment Variables

Same as nso-device-ops:

  • NSO_SCHEME, NSO_ADDRESS, NSO_PORT, NSO_USERNAME, NSO_PASSWORD, NSO_VERIFY, NSO_TIMEOUT