Ignite is an open source tool designed to facilitate initial network boot-strapping and provisioning. It supports Cisco Nexus switches leveraging POAP and, in the near future, PXE capabilities of NX-OS. Ignite provides a powerful and flexible framework through which a data center network administrator can define the data center fabric in terms of its topology, configuration templates (configlets) and resource pools.

Ignite provides the following functionality to help with Day-0 automation:

• Topology design
• Configuration design
• Image and configuration store for POAP
• POAP request handler

Ignite provides a flexible mechanism to identify switches based on their serial number, MAC address, or its location in the network as determined by examining its relationship to peers. Ignite, can then generate a configuration unique to the switch using rules provided by the administrator, configuration templates and configlets, scripts, and resource pools.

Topology Design with Ignite