4A0-AI1 Nokia NSP IP Network Automation Professional Composite Exam Questions and Answers

Nokia NSP is a platform that enables management, control and automation of IP/Optical networks. It supports various levels of network automation, from static networking to autonomous networking.

The process of moving to SDN based self-regulated networking involves four stages:

• Static networking: The network is manually configured and operated by human operators. There is no automation or intelligence involved.
• Action-based networking: The network is partially automated by using predefined actions or scripts that are triggered by events or commands. There is still human intervention required for complex tasks or exceptions.
• Adaptive networking: The network is dynamically automated by using policies, analytics and machine learning that can adjust the network behavior based on changing conditions and objectives. There is minimal human intervention required for oversight and validation.
• Autonomous networking: The network is fully automated by using artificial intelligence and closed-loop feedback that can optimize the network performance and reliability without any human involvement. The network can self-heal, self-optimize and self-protect.

The NSP Kafka service is a distributed messaging system that allows different applications to publish and subscribe to different event types. It provides an API client to receive event or alarm notifications and subscribe to different event types. However, it does not use NETCONF based operations and YANG models. Instead, it uses the Kafka protocol to send and receive messages between producers and consumers.

nsp.sr_cli is a nodal communication action that uses the network element’s NE ID to establish communication. It is one of the NSP actions and expression functions that can be used to design workflows for network automation

According to the Nokia NSP Intent Manager Application Help2, an intent has the following characteristics:

• It is stored in the database as the source of truth.
• It is an instance of an intent type, which defines the structure and logic of an intent.
• It can be created and deleted through RESTCONF API or through the Intent Manager GUI.
• It can involve services, nodes, links, paths, or any other network elements.

YANG is a data modeling language used to model configuration and state data for network devices. It defines a tree-like structure for data and is used to store, configure, and retrieve information from network devices. It is human readable and can be used to define actions and operations.

NSP APIs allow for supervision of network elements, help with the definition and activation of network services, and allow for an OSS and NSP server to talk to each other. However, they do not support GraphQL, which is a query language for APIs. 

According to Nokia NSP IP Network Automation Professional guide, NSP APIs support REST/RESTCONF, SOAP/XML and GraphQlll, and help with the definition and activation of network services, and they also allow for supervision of network elements and an OSS and NSP server to talk to each other. Therefore, statement B is false as it states that NSP APIs support Kafka which is not mentioned in the guide as a supported API.

NSP Workflow Manager (WFM) is a module that allows users to create and execute automated procedures using NSP or third-party APIs. A workflow is a sequence of actions that can be performed on various targets such as:

• NSP applications: These are the applications that run on NSP such as Network Insight, Service Assurance, Traffic Engineering and others. They can be accessed by using RESTful APIs2.
• Network elements: These are the devices that are managed by NSP such as routers, switches and optical equipment. They can be accessed by using CLI, NETCONF, RESTCONF, SNMP or TL12.
• UNIX servers: These are the servers that run UNIX-based operating systems such as Linux or Solaris. They can be accessed by using SSH or SCP2.

According to the NSP Intent Manager Application Help, an intent type has to be in Released state for Intent Manager to provision a request. An intent type can be in Draft, Released or Phased-out state. A Draft state means that the intent type is under development and cannot be used for provisioning. A Phased-out state means that the intent type is no longer supported and cannot be used for provisioning

The statement that best describes the Intent Manager application is: "It generates and validates the configuration of the network." Intent Manager is responsible for collecting the user's intent, verifying the user's input, and converting the user's intent into a device-specific configuration. It uses a high-level language to abstract the network complexity, enabling the network operator to define intent in simple terms. Once the intent is defined, Intent Manager automatically generates a device-specific configuration for each network element. It then validates the intent by checking the network's current state against the user's desired intent. If there is a mismatch, it will take corrective action to bring the network to the desired intent state.