Introducing Nautobot v2.3.0

Nautobot v2.3.0 has just been released, and we’re excited to share some of the new features and important changes that it includes!

Cloud Modeling

Nautobot v2.3.0 adds a new built-in “Cloud” app with four initial data models (CloudAccount, CloudResourceType, CloudNetwork, and CloudService). This app and models are designed specifically for the purpose of representing the cloud-based parts of your network in Nautobot, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), Azure VNETs, Application Load Balancers (ALBs) and Network Load Balancers (NLBs), and so forth.

Modular Devices

With Nautobot v2.3.0, you can now model modular network hardware in greater detail than ever before with the new, nestable ModuleBayTemplate, ModuleBay, ModuleType, and Module data models. With these, you can track individual line cards and route processors (including “cold standby” hardware not presently installed into a device), directly define interfaces and other port types as belonging to a specific module within the larger device, and even model your network hardware down to the level of individual SFP transceiver modules if you so desire.

Object Metadata

A new set of functionality designed specifically for the needs of enterprise users, Object Metadata lets you flexibly define and track information about your network data in Nautobot, such as its provenance, ownership, and classification. For example, you might use this feature to track, on a per-record or even per-field basis:

• Who is responsible for the accuracy of this data?
• When (after what date) can this data be deleted?
• What is the classification or risk level of this data?
• Which system of record is this data originally sourced from?

Object Metadata will be especially useful to users in highly regulated industries and those with significant compliance and/or auditing mandates, as it can be used for data security, data orchestration, and data attestation applications. This functionality was previously only available via custom App development, but it has been requested by our users and customers often enough that we decided to go ahead and implement it as a core Nautobot feature.

Shareable Saved Views

Do you have that Device table configured just the way you like it, with specific columns shown or hidden, specific sorting, custom filters, and pagination? Now you can save sets of display preferences for any object table within Nautobot as “saved views”. Users can define multiple saved views for a given table, switch between them with ease, and even share their saved views with other users, allowing teams to define a shared user interface (UI) for their specific workflows. Furthermore, Nautobot administrators can even set a specific saved view as the default for a given view, which users can begin from to further customize Nautobot’s UI to their own liking.

Enhanced Dynamic Groups

A third type of Dynamic Groups, “static” groups, are now available in Nautobot v2.3.0. The existing two types of groups (filter-defined and set-operation-defined) are still fully supported, but this third type is defined by directly assigning individual records to the group, providing the most granular control yet over Dynamic Group membership. These new groups have the same data model and APIs as the other group types, meaning that your Jobs and Apps (such as Nautobot Golden Config) can use these new groups immediately, with no updates necessary.

Additionally:

• You can now assign a tenant and/or tags to each Dynamic Group.
• The performance of Dynamic Group resolution and members lookup has been greatly improved thanks to a redesigned caching implementation.
• Dynamic Groups are now supported by many more of Nautobot’s object types than ever before.

Interface Roles

A long-requested feature, Nautobot v2.3.0 now lets you assign user-definable Roles to individual device Interfaces (including virtual machine interfaces) for purposes of classification and configuration management.