Sequencing of Configuration Operations for IP Networks

When configuring an IP network, changes may need to be made to several devices as part of one configuration operation. Given an in-band access to the devices where data and control packets flow on the same network, it becomes imperative to sequence the changes intelligently to retain connectivity to the devices that need to be reconfigured. In this paper, we present techniques to sequence configuration operations for IP networks. We describe our experiences with implementation of the techniques, and experimentally evaluate the usefulness of the proposed techniques. We demonstrate that automatic sequencing is valuable in IP network configuration.