US 12,244,458 B2
Limiting the scope of a declarative configuration editing operation
David Miedema, Ottawa (CA); David McDonald, Atlanta, GA (US); and Rodd Lamarche, Ottawa (CA)
Assigned to Ciena Corporation, Hanover, MD (US)
Filed by Ciena Corporation, Hanover, MD (US)
Filed on Mar. 9, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/196,177.
Prior Publication US 2022/0294692 A1, Sep. 15, 2022
Int. Cl. H04L 12/24 (2006.01); G06F 9/44 (2018.01); H04L 29/06 (2006.01); H04L 29/08 (2006.01); H04L 41/0816 (2022.01); H04L 41/0853 (2022.01); H04L 41/0893 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 41/0816 (2013.01) [H04L 41/0853 (2013.01); H04L 41/0893 (2013.01)] 17 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A network management system comprising:
a processing device, and
a memory device adapted to store a computer program having instructions that, when executed, enable the processing device to
receive a request to edit existing configuration data associated with a Network Element (NE) operating in a network, the existing configuration data including a plurality of attributes that characterize functional aspects of the NE to configure for how the NE operates in the network, wherein the NE is a physical device that is one of a switch, router, transmitter, receiver, amplifier, multiplexer, and demultiplexer that operates in the network, wherein the NE has a configuration based on the existing configuration data and is managed by the network management system, wherein the network management system does not completely know all of the configuration of the NE, and wherein the request is a declarative operation allowing a user to declare a desired state of the NE in the network,
compare the desired state with a current state defined by at least the existing configuration data associated with the NE,
obtain a selected set of attributes from the plurality of attributes responsive to the received request from the user, to limit the scope of the declarative operation such that other attributes besides the selected set of attributes are not edited or deleted based on the declarative operation, wherein the selected set of attributes is defined by the user in an inclusion filter that includes only the attributes to be edited with the new configuration data, wherein the inclusion filter is one of a schema filter, a datastore filter, and an access group filter,
obtain new configuration data for editing a portion of the existing configuration data, the portion of the existing configuration data to be edited including the selected set of attributes, and
replace a subset of the selected set of attributes included in existing configuration data with the new configuration data while preventing change to attributes included in the existing configuration data associated with one or more attributes excluded from the selected set of attributes.