Circuits¶

Circuits are the WAN and data links you lease from providers - internet transit, MPLS, dark fibre, point-to-point - recorded with their provider, circuit ID, and the sites at each end.

You build them in three layers: providers (who you buy from), circuit types (how you classify links), and the circuits themselves.

Add a provider¶

A provider is the company you lease a circuit from.

1. Open Circuits → Providers in the sidebar and click Add provider.
2. Give it a name.
3. Optionally fill in the account number, portal URL, and NOC email / phone so support details live right next to the circuits.
4. Optionally fill in the support details - see below.
5. Save.

Provider support details¶

What you need in your hand when you open a ticket, kept on the provider rather than in somebody's mailbox:

• Support contract - the reference you quote when filing a case. Separate from the account number above: with the same provider these are routinely two different references.
• Support phone - the line you call, when it differs from the NOC number.
• Support hours - a weekly schedule plus the time zone it is stated in, the same control contacts use. The provider page shows it as one line with an Available now / Outside hours badge, so you can see whether it's worth calling before you dial.
• Account manager - pick an existing contact where one exists, so their own phone, email and hours come along; type a name instead for a vendor rep nobody has made a record for.

These appear in their own Support card on the provider page, rather than mixed in with the billing fields.

Add a circuit type¶

A circuit type classifies your links - Internet, Transit, MPLS, Dark Fibre, anything that fits your network.

1. Open Circuits → Circuit types and click Add circuit type.
2. Name it and pick a color so it stands out in the circuit list.
3. Save.

Add a provider network¶

A provider network is the far side of a circuit that isn't one of your own sites - the provider's IP-transit cloud, an internet-exchange fabric, another carrier's network. It exists so a circuit's Z end has something real to land on when it doesn't terminate at your own facility.

1. Open Circuits → Provider networks and click Add provider network.
2. Pick the provider and give the network a name (e.g. "Telia IP transit"). Optionally record the provider's service ID for it.
3. Save.

Add a circuit¶

1. Open Circuits → Circuits and click Add circuit.
2. Choose the provider and enter the circuit ID (the provider's reference for the link). This pair must be unique.
3. Optionally pick a circuit type and set a status.
4. Optionally record the install date, termination date, and commit rate (in kbps).
5. Save, then open the circuit and add its terminations (below).

Rates are entered in kbps and read in the unit that suits them - 10 Gbps, 500 Mbps, 1.544 Mbps - on the circuit page, its terminations and the list's Commit column.

Terminate a circuit¶

Each end of a circuit is a termination - side A and side Z. A termination lands on exactly one of:

• one of your sites, or
• a provider network (for transit/IX circuits whose far end is the provider's cloud).

Each side carries its own physical details: port speed and upstream speed (kbps, for asymmetric links), the cross-connect ID at the facility, and patch-panel info - so the data an operator needs at the meet-me room lives on the side it belongs to.

1. Open the circuit's detail page → Terminations tab.
2. Add the A side (usually your site) and the Z side (the far site or a provider network).
3. Fill in speeds / cross-connect / patch-panel details as known.
4. Cable the side that lands in your rack to the port it lands on - Connect cable on that side, or see Cabling a circuit. A termination takes one cable, and the trace from that port then runs out to the circuit. The side then shows what it is cabled to.

Circuit status¶

Deleting several at once¶

Tick rows in the Circuits, Providers, Provider networks or Circuit types list to delete several at once. Before anything is removed Danbyte shows what will happen: which rows go, what goes with them (a circuit's terminations), and which rows it keeps because something still uses them. Only the free rows are deleted. More than 1000 rows are asked about and deleted 1000 at a time, under one confirmation (see Large selections). The bulk delete is POST /api/<list>/bulk-delete/ with {"ids": [...]} (add "dry_run": true for the preview) and needs the delete permission on the type.

A provider or circuit type with circuits is kept, as a single delete refuses it.

Provider, provider-network & circuit-type pages¶

Click a provider, provider network, or circuit type name in its list to open its detail page - the pencil in the header edits it.

• A provider page carries its account and NOC contact details up top, a Circuits tab listing every circuit you lease from that provider, and a Networks tab for the provider networks it operates.
• A provider network page shows its provider and service ID, with a Circuits tab listing the circuits that terminate on it.
• A circuit type page shows the type's colored badge, slug, color and description, with a Circuits tab answering "what uses this type" - the check to run before you edit or delete a type. It also carries Journal and Change log tabs, so every change ever recorded against the type is readable there.

All three circuit lists are the same table the main Circuits page draws. They are powered by GET /api/circuits/?provider=<id>, ?provider_network=<id>, and ?type=<id>.

Link speed on the site map¶

The site map works out how fast each line between two sites is from what you have already recorded. The first figure it finds wins, and it says which one it used:

1. Commit rate - the circuit's committed rate, when it is set.
2. Port speed - otherwise the terminations' port speeds, the slower side winning. Where a side records an upstream speed (DSL, DOCSIS), the link carries both directions: 100/20M.
3. Cabled interfaces - otherwise the speed of the interfaces its sides are cabled to, through any patch panels; the slower one.

Other lines between sites follow the same idea:

• A tunnel has only its own Capacity, set on the tunnel - nothing is worked out from its interfaces. Every spoke of a hub tunnel shows the hub's figure.
• A cable runs at the lower of its two end interfaces' speeds. A trunk between two patch panels is followed through the panels to the ports its strands reach, and carries one link per strand patched at both ends: four 10G links read 4×10G.
• Several cables between the same two sites add up the same way - 2×10G when they match, the sum when they don't - and the ones with no known speed are counted separately.

When nothing is known the line has no figure rather than a guess.

Circuit SLAs¶

A circuit can be a member of a service level agreement. It is measured on the addresses of the interfaces its ends are cabled to, or on a monitor address you pick, such as the provider's far-end gateway. Carrier maintenance entered on the circuit is excluded like any planned maintenance.

The Circuits list, and a provider's Circuits tab, have SLA and Availability columns. Sort a provider's circuits by SLA to see which ones miss their agreement. A circuit's Overview shows the agreements it is in, with Add to SLA.

Tags & custom fields¶

Need to track something extra - a contract end date, an SLA tier, an order number? Add a custom field for circuits and it appears on every circuit's form. See Tags & custom fields.