Cisco Network Assurance Engine REST API User Guide

The Cisco Network Assurance Engine REST API

IMPORTANT: This document describes the features, operation, and syntax of the
Cisco Network Assurance Engine (NAE) REST API as of the current release when written.
The features, operation, and syntax of the API are subject to change in future
releases, and Cisco cannot guarantee backwards compatibility with prior releases.

Overview

The Cisco Network Assurance Engine (NAE) REST API provides an alternative operation method
to the Cisco NAE GUI. The REST API gives programmatic access to all
assurance models in addition to providing fully automatable management of
the Cisco NAE.

The REST API is a set of programming interfaces that uses Representational State
Transfer (REST) architecture. The API contains resources represented by Uniform
Resource Identifiers (URIs), which allow you to unambiguously identify each
resource. Each URI contains a protocol used to exchange the messages
and the resource location string. A URI can refer to a single object or a
collection of objects.

A REST API operation is executed by sending an HTTP GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE
request in the format of /nae/api/v1/{resource} to a URI within
the Cisco NAE. The HTTP request typically includes a payload message
in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format, and the HTTP response typically
includes a JSON format message body. In some cases, the HTTP request may also
contain URL parameters.

• A GET request may submit URL parameters and returns a JSON data
  structure containing the requested data or status. The GET method is
  nullipotent, meaning that it can be called zero or more times without making any
  changes; in other words, it is a read-only operation.
• A POST request typically creates a new object, such as a user or fabric. It should
  be sent only once for each object created. A POST
  request submits a JSON data structure to the specified resource
  and returns a JSON data structure containing confirmation or failure information.
• A PUT request is used to modify an attribute of an existing object. A PUT
  request submits a JSON data structure to the specified resource
  and returns a JSON data structure containing confirmation or failure information.
  It is not necessary for the payload structure of
  a PUT request to contain the attributes that are not being modified.
  The PUT method is idempotent, meaning that there is no additional effect when
  a request is sent more than once with the same input parameters.
• A DELETE request may submit URL parameters and returns a JSON data
  structure containing confirmation or failure information.
  The DELETE method is idempotent, meaning that there is no additional effect when
  a request is sent more than once with the same input parameters.

You can use common developer tools such as cURL, Postman, or a programming
language to compose and send the HTTP request and the JSON payload.

An expansion of this guide, including examples, workflows, and status/error codes, can be found on the Cisco Network Assurance Engine documentation page.

For OpenAPI (formerly Swagger) format documentation of NAE REST API commands, see
About The REST API Reference (OpenAPI/Swagger).