# FRINX Machine introduction

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, efficient network management and automation are crucial for maintaining robust and scalable IT infrastructures. Frinx Machine emerges as a powerful solution tailored to meet these demands, providing an integrated platform designed to simplify and enhance network automation.

# What is Frinx Machine?

Frinx Machine is an advanced network automation platform delivering a comprehensive suite of tools for managing and automating network infrastructures. It is designed to streamline network operations, reduce complexity, and drive efficiency through a unified, scalable, and flexible approach.

Frinx Machine enabling seamless management of network configurations across multi-vendor environments. It provides a consistent interface for deploying and managing configurations, reducing the complexities associated with heterogeneous network devices.

# FRINX Machine core components

# High-Level Architecture

The following diagram outlines the main functional components in the FRINX Machine solution:

# UniConfig

Connects to the devices in the network
Retrieves and stores configuration from devices
Pushes configuration data to devices
Builds diffs between actual and intended config to execute atomic configuration changes
Retrieves operational data from devices
Manages transactions across one or multiple devices
Translates between CLI, vendor native, and industry-standard data models (i.e. OpenConfig)
Reads and stores vendor native data models from mounted network devices (i.e YANG models)
Ensures high availability, reducing network outages and downtime
Executes commands on multiple devices simultaneously

# Workflow manager (Conductor)

Atomic tasks are chained together into more complex workflows
Defines, executes and monitors workflows (via REST or UI)
Schedule workflow executions

We chose Netflix’s conductor workflow engine since it has been proven to be a highly scalable open-source technology that integrates very well with FRINX UniConfig. Further information about Conductor can be found at:

FRINXio conductor sources: https://github.com/FRINXio/conductor
FRINXio conductor community sources: https://github.com/FRINXio/conductor-community
Sources: https://github.com/conductor-oss/conductor
Docs: https://conductor-oss.github.io/conductor/index.html

# Device inventory

Store all important devices information on one place
Maintain devices in all deployment zones from one place
Notify about changes in inventory via Kafka

# Topology discovery

Acquires information from live network
- Relying on UniConfig as its primary source of network information
Uses that information to build topology view(s):
- Across multiple layers of the network
- e.g. LLDP data to build physical topology view or routing data to build L3 view
Performs reconciliation across the layers in order to provide a unified topology view
Provides an API to query topologies
Provides Kafka notifications about changes in the topology
Consumes and stores device metadata events from Kafka topic

# Performance monitor

Collects performance metrics about devices in a time-series based database
- Relies on UniConfig as a producer of the performance metrics of devices.
- Relies on Device Inventory as a producer of information about devices, such as device name, vendor, model, and version.
Unifies performance metrics and produces them to a Kafka broker.
Provides an API to query performance metrics of devices.