Arista MCS

Vasco Coelho

Arista’s Media Control Service (MCS) is a software service that provides APIs to quickly and dynamically configure bandwidth-protected multicast flows across an IP network topology.
In addition to polling the API to monitor device and interface parameters, the Arista MCS connector also implements Redis message subscriptions, which allows receiving very fast updates or changes to senders, receivers, flows, etc.

USE CASE DETAILS

The Interfaces table shows and allows monitoring of device interface parameters, such as administrative and operational status, speed, and IP address. A device has multiple interfaces.

The Senders and Receivers tables contain the configuration details for each sender and receiver. This includes the source IP, multicast IP, and bandwidth. A sender/receiver is configured for a specific device and interface/port.

Once a sender and receiver are correctly configured, a flow will be created and displayed in the Active Flows table.

During element startup, Redis subscribes to channel messages, and each received Redis message is promptly processed. The Redis page displays a table with the last message, date, and timestamp for each subscribed Redis channel.


The Arista MCS also implements an InterApp receiver. This allows the connector to receive messages from external sources, such as Automation scripts and applications. Currently, the connector supports the reception of certain flow engineering messages, enabling them to use the connector to configure a flow by setting up sender and receiver configurations to the MCS.