Cisco Technology, Inc.

Palo Alto Networks, Inc.

Memoir Systems, Inc.

Kartik Mohanram

Ramana Rao Kompella

Sundar Iyer

Advait Dixit

Chandra Nagarajan

Navneet Yadav

Shadab Nazar

Navjyoti Sharma

Shang-Tse Chuang

Thu V Nguyen

John Thomas Monk

Divjyot Sethi

Sanjeev Joshi

Adam Kablanian

Security policy analysis is disclosed. Configuration information, including at least one policy, associated with a live production security appliance, is received. The received configuration information is used to instantiate the policy in a sandbox environment. The sandbox environment is used to evaluate a proposed change to the configuration information, including by building a model using the received configuration information.

Security policy analysis

In some examples, a system creates a requirement including EPG selectors representing EPG pairs, a traffic selector, and a communication operator; determines that EPGs in distinct pairs are associated with different network contexts and, for each pair, which network context(s) contains associated policies; creates first data representing the pair, operator, and traffic selector; when only one network context contains the associated policies, creates second data representing a network model portion associated with the only network context and determines whether the first data is contained in the second data to yield a first check; when both network contexts contain the associated policies, also creates third data representing a network model portion associated with a second network context, and determines whether the first data is contained in the second and/or third data to yield a second check; and determines whether policies for the pairs comply with the requirement based on the checks.

Assurance of security rules in a network

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for fault code aggregation across application-centric dimensions. In an example embodiment, a system obtains respective fault codes corresponding to one or more network devices in a network and maps the one or more network devices and/or the respective fault codes to respective logical policy entities defined in a logical policy model of the network, to yield fault code mappings. The system aggregates the one or more of the fault code mappings along respective logical policy dimensions in the network to yield an aggregation of fault codes across respective logical policy dimensions and, based on the aggregation, presents, for each of the respective logical policy dimensions, one or more hardware-level errors along the respective logical policy dimension.

Distributed fault code aggregation across application centric dimensions

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for receiving one or more models of network intents, comprising a plurality of contracts between providers and consumers, each contract containing entries with priority values. Each contract is flattened into a listing of rules and a new priority value is calculated. The listing of rules encodes the implementation of the contract between the providers and the consumers. Each entry is iterated over and added to a listing of entries if it is not already present. For each rule, the one or more entries associated with the contract from which the rule was flattened are identified, and for each given entry a flat rule comprising the combination of the rule and the entry is generated, wherein a flattened priority is calculated based at least in part on the priority value of the given one of given entry and the priority value of the rule.

Shim layer for extracting and prioritizing underlying rules for modeling network intents

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for generating counterexamples for equivalence failures between models of network intents. A listing of conflict rules corresponding to an equivalence failure between at least first and seconds model of networks intents describing the operation and communication of network devices in a network is obtained. A logical exclusive disjunction between first conflict rules from the first model and corresponding second conflict rules from the second model is calculated. One or more counterexamples corresponding to the equivalence failure are generated based at least in part on the logical exclusive disjunction, such that a given counterexample comprises network and packet conditions that cause the first conflict rules to trigger a first action and cause the second conflict rules to trigger a second action that is different from the first action. Hot fields that are more likely to be associated with the equivalence failure are identified in the counterexample.

Generation of counter examples for network intent formal equivalence failures

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for assurance of rules in a network. An example method can include creating a compliance requirement including a first endpoint group (EPG) selector, a second EPG selector, a traffic selector, and a communication operator, the first and second EPG selectors representing sets of EPGs and the communication operator defining a communication condition for traffic associated with the first and second EPG selectors and the traffic selector. The method can include creating, for each distinct pair of EPGs, a first respective data structure representing the distinct pair of EPGs, the communication operator, and the traffic selector; creating a second respective data structure representing a logical model of the network; determining whether the first respective data structure is contained in the second respective data structure to yield a containment check; and determining whether policies on the network comply with the compliance requirement based on the containment check.

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for static network policy analysis for a network. In one example, a system obtains a logical model based on configuration data stored in a controller on a software-defined network, the logical model including a declarative representation of respective configurations of objects in the software-defined network, the objects including one or more endpoint groups, bridge domains, contexts, or tenants. The system defines rules representing respective conditions of the objects according to a specification corresponding to the software-defined network, and determines whether the respective configuration of each of the objects in the logical model violates one or more of the rules associated with that object. When the respective configuration of an object in the logical model violates one or more of the rules, the system detects an error in the respective configuration associated with that object.

Static network policy analysis for networks

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for configuring and verifying compliance requirements in a network. An example method can include receiving, via a user interface, endpoint group (EPG) inclusion rules defining which EPGs on a network should be included in specific EPG selectors; selecting EPGs that satisfy the EPG inclusion rules for inclusion in the specific EPG selectors; creating the specific EPG selectors based on the selected EPGs; creating a traffic selector including parameters identifying traffic corresponding to the traffic selector; creating a compliance requirement based on a first and second EPG selector from the specific EPG selectors, the traffic selector, and a communication operator defining a communication condition for traffic associated with the first and second EPG selectors and the traffic selector; determining whether policies on the network comply with the compliance requirement; and generating compliance events indicating whether the policies comply with the compliance requirement.

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for identifying conflict rules between models of network intents. A first and second model of network intents are obtained, the models describing the operation and communication between one or more network devices in a network. A logical exclusive disjunction between the first and second models is calculated over the space of possible packet conditions and network actions defined by models, without enumerating all possible packet conditions and network actions. It is detected whether the models are in conflict with respect to at least a first network device. If the models are in conflict, it is determined whether a given rule of a plurality of rules associated with the first model is a conflict rule. The determining comprises calculating the intersection between the given rule and the logical exclusive disjunction, wherein the given rule is a conflict rule if the calculated intersection is non-zero.

Identification of conflict rules in a network intent formal equivalence failure

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for assurance of quality-of-service configurations in a network. In some examples, a system obtains a logical model of a software-defined network, the logical model including rules specified for the software-defined network, the logical model being based on a schema defining manageable objects and object properties for the software-defined network. The system also obtains, for each node in the software-defined network, a respective hardware model, the respective hardware model including rules rendered at the node based on a respective node-specific representation of the logical model. Based on the logical model and the respective hardware model, the system can perform an equivalency check between the rules in the logical model and the rules in the respective hardware model to determine whether the logical model and the respective hardware model contain configuration inconsistencies.

Assurance of quality-of-service configurations in a network

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for identifying intra-priority class shadowed rules. A network intent model that is based at least in part on a priority-ordered listing of rules representing network intents is received, wherein each rule comprises a Boolean function of one or more packet characteristics and a corresponding network action. Each rule is sorted into a priority class, and for each priority class, it is determined whether each of its constituent rules are intra-priority class shadowed, wherein an intra-priority class shadowed rule can be constructed from the set comprising the remaining rules of the given priority class, and a non intra-priority class shadowed rule cannot be constructed from the set comprising the remaining rules of the given priority class. An indication of the determined intra-priority class shadowed rules is transmitted, such that the number of possible intra-priority class orderings can be reduced to account only for the relative ordering of the intra-priority class shadowed rules.

Intra-priority class ordering of rules corresponding to a model of network intents

In some examples, a system obtains a network logical model and, for each node in a network, a node-level logical, concrete, and hardware model. The system identifies a service function chain, and determines a respective set of service function chain rules. For each node, the system determines whether the respective set of service function chain rules is correctly captured in the node-level logical model and/or concrete model to yield a node containment check result. Based on a comparison of policy actions in the concrete model, hardware model, and at least one of the node-level logical model or network logical model, the system determines whether the respective set of service function chain rules is correctly rendered on each node to yield a node rendering check result. Based on the node containment check result and node rendering check result, the system determines whether the service function chain is correctly configured.

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Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

Kartik Mohanram