Extracting data from the network is necessary for common troubleshooting, reporting, and auditing automation tasks. Often these tasks involve examining both the configuration of one or more devices as well as the running state (operational data). Junos PyEZ attempts to make this extraction process as easy as possible so that the user can focus on the task at hand, and not on the device-specific implementation details.
Operational Data and Configuration
Operational data, sometimes called "run-state" data, refers to the current running conditions of the device, and not its configuration. For example, you might configure an interface to use OSPF, but the neighbor connection status is operational data. From the Junos OS CLI, operational data is displayed using show commands, for example, show ospf neighbor.
You will often need to correlate both the configuration and operational state when performing such tasks. For example, you might need a list of the configured OSPF interfaces to determine if the operational state is complete or correct. In these workflows (use-cases), you are accessing the Junos OS configuration in a read-only way.
Junos PyEZ has been optimized to make the extraction of both configuration and operational information as easy as possible. This is done though the use of tables and views.