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In Apstra 5.1, the cabling map is part of the blueprint’s intended physical topology. Cable-map edits are performed in the Staged workspace because Staged is where you modify intent (what the fabric should look like) before committing those changes and deploying them. The Staged → Physical → Links view provides both a tabular and topology-oriented representation of spine-to-leaf and other physical connections. When Apstra auto-assigns interfaces during initial build, the logical mapping may not match the real patching in the data center. The cabling map editor allows you to override interface names (and where applicable, link addressing metadata) so the blueprint accurately reflects the actual patch panel and switchport usage.

This accuracy is critical in a Junos v24.4 leaf-spine fabric because underlay correctness depends on the real physical adjacencies: link membership, LAG expectations (where used), and the resulting BGP neighbor relationships that carry EVPN signaling for VXLAN overlays. By updating the cabling map in Staged, you ensure Apstra can correctly validate neighbor discovery, verify intent, and produce consistent device configuration aligned to the real-world wiring. After making the cabling corrections, you commit the staged changes and then deploy/apply so that Apstra’s intent and the running network converge. This work is not performed under Active (which reflects deployed state) and is not a function of Connectivity Templates (which are for endpoint/service attachment rather than fabric cabling).

Verified Juniper sources (URLs):

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/apstra5.0/apstra-user-guide/topics/topic-map/cabling-map-edit-datacenter.html

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/apstra6.0/apstra-user-guide/topics/topic-map/cabling-map-edit-datacenter.html

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/jvd/jvd-dcfabric-5-stage/configuration_walkthrough.html

In Apstra 5.1, property sets are structured data objects (YAML/JSON) used to hold values that templates can consume at render time. Their most common use is with configlets, where property set key/value pairs are referenced as variables inside the template so Apstra can perform variable substitution during configuration generation. This directly supports statement B.

Property sets are also designed to be reusable. A single configlet can reference more than one property set (for example, one set for NTP servers and another for syslog collectors), allowing clean separation of data domains and easier lifecycle updates. This supports statement E.

Operationally, when you bring design content into a blueprint, the blueprint must have the required supporting objects available. In Apstra workflows, configlets that use property sets require those property sets to be present in the blueprint context (commonly accomplished by importing the relevant property set(s) from the catalog into the blueprint as part of bringing in the configlet and its dependencies). This aligns with statement A as the blueprint-level outcome: the property sets used by an imported configlet are imported/available in the blueprint for rendering.

Statements C and D are incorrect because property sets are not limited only to configlets (they are also used with Analytics probes), and the syntax is not vendor-specific—Apstra uses standard YAML/JSON structures independent of NOS.

Verified Juniper sources (URLs):

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/apstra5.1/apstra-user-guide/topics/concept/property-set-datacenter-design.html

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/apstra4.2/apstra-user-guide/topics/concept/property-set-datacenter-design.html

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/apstra5.1/apstra-user-guide/topics/ref/configlet-examples.html

 In Juniper Apstra, a widget is a graphical element that displays data from an intent-based analytics (IBA) probe. A widget can be used to monitor different aspects of the network and raise alerts to any anomalies. A widget can be viewed by itself or added to an analytics dashboard. A dashboard is a collection of widgets that can be customized and organized according to the user’s preference1.

The main dashboard in Juniper Apstra is the blueprint dashboard, which is the default view that shows the network information and configuration for the active blueprint. A blueprint is a logical representation of the network design and intent. The blueprint dashboard can display the system-generated dashboards, the user-generated dashboards, and the individual widgets that are relevant to the network2.

To make a widget appear on the main dashboard in Juniper Apstra, the user needs to set the Default toggle switch to On for the desired widget. This will add the widget to the blueprint dashboard, where it can be viewed along with other network information. The user can also remove the widget from the blueprint dashboard by setting the Default toggle switch to Off for the widget3. Therefore, the statement D is correct in this scenario.

The following three statements are incorrect in this scenario:

When creating the widget, select the Add to Blueprint Dashboard option. This is not true, because there is no such option when creating a widget in Juniper Apstra. The user can only select the widget type, the probe, and the display mode when creating a widget4. To add the widget to the blueprint dashboard, the user needs to set the Default toggle switch to On for the widget after creating it3.

On the blueprint dashboard, click on the Add Widget option. This is not true, because there is no such option on the blueprint dashboard in Juniper Apstra. The user can only view, edit, or delete the existing widgets and dashboards on the blueprint dashboard2. To add a widget to the blueprint dashboard, the user needs to set the Default toggle switch to On for the widget from the widgets table view3.

Widgets automatically appear on the blueprint dashboard. This is not true, because widgets do not automatically appear on the blueprint dashboard in Juniper Apstra. The user needs to manually add the widgets to the blueprint dashboard by setting the Default toggle switch to On for the widgets that they want to see on the blueprint dashboard3. The only exception is the widgets that are part of the system-generated dashboards, which are automatically created and added to the blueprint dashboard based on the state of the active blueprint2.

In Apstra 5.1, this screen represents a configuration deviation workflow: Apstra is comparing the intended (golden) configuration it generated from blueprint intent against the actual configuration currently on the device. When an operator makes a change directly on the switch CLI (for example, on a Junos v24.4 leaf), Apstra detects the difference and flags it as drift because it did not originate from the blueprint’s intent model.

Clicking Accept Changes tells Apstra to adopt the device’s current CLI state as the new accepted baseline for that device, effectively incorporating the observed CLI delta into Apstra’s intended configuration for purposes of future comparison and compliance. In other words, Apstra stops treating that specific deviation as an error because it has been acknowledged and absorbed into the “golden config” (the intent-aligned configuration Apstra considers correct for that node). This is commonly used when an emergency change was made on-box and you want Apstra’s source of truth to reflect it, rather than reverting it.

This differs from Apply Full Config, which is used to push Apstra’s intended configuration down to the device to restore compliance. If you do not accept the change, a later commit/apply action can overwrite the CLI-entered configuration to re-align with blueprint intent.

Apstra 5.1 Security Policies are intended to enforce permit/deny controls for traffic between defined endpoints such as routing zones, virtual networks, and IP endpoints. Apstra expresses this security intent in an implementation-independent way, then renders and deploys the equivalent enforcement configuration onto the appropriate devices and interfaces. In Apstra terminology, the outcome is an ACL applied at enforcement points, such as virtual network interfaces (SVIs/IRBs) for east-west controls and border leaf interfaces for external-to-internal controls.

Therefore, the two correct policy types in this context are access control lists (ACLs) and firewall filters. “ACL” is the abstract policy object Apstra compiles and applies, while on Junos v24.4 the concrete enforcement mechanism for stateless packet filtering on interfaces is typically implemented as a firewall filter. Apstra automatically places these rendered ACLs/filters where needed: when you add VXLAN endpoints (such as expanding a rack/leaf in a VN), the ACL is placed on the corresponding VN interface; when you add external connectivity points, relevant ACLs are placed on the border leaf enforcement points. This automation ensures that security intent remains consistent as the fabric scales or changes, reducing the risk of manual rule drift. In contrast, filter-based forwarding / policy-based routing changes forwarding decisions rather than expressing permit/deny security intent, and is not the primary mechanism used by Apstra Security Policies for reachability control.

According to the Juniper documentation1, a template is a configuration template that defines a network’s policy intent and structure. A template can be either rack-based or pod-based, depending on the type and number of racks and pods in the network design. A template includes the following details:

Policies: These are the parameters that apply to the entire network, such as the overlay control protocol, the ASN allocation scheme, and the underlay type.

Structure: This is the physical layout of the network, such as the type and number of racks, pods, spines, and leaves. The structure also defines the leaf-to-spine interconnection, which is the number and type of links between the leaf and spine devices. The leaf-to-spine interconnection can be either single or dual, depending on the redundancy and bandwidth requirements.

Therefore, the correct answer is A. the leaf-to-spine interconnection. This is a component that is defined in a template, as it determines the physical connectivity of the network. The speed of the links, the number of spine devices, and the definition of IP pools are not components that are defined in a template, as they are either derived from the device profiles, the resource pools, or the blueprint settings. References: Templates Introduction | Apstra 4.2 | Juniper Networks

In Apstra 5.1, off-box agents and analytics services are delivered as containerized workloads that consume CPU and memory within the Apstra cluster. When these workloads are concentrated on the controller node, the controller can become resource-constrained, impacting overall responsiveness and scaling limits. The supported architectural solution is to add a worker node (worker VM) and allow Apstra to place offbox (and, if applicable, iba) containers on that worker. This increases cluster capacity and shifts runtime load away from the controller, which should remain focused on core control-plane and management functions.

Juniper’s sizing guidance also treats worker nodes as the scalable unit for off-box agent growth: each VM node (controller or worker) supports a bounded number of off-box agents, and when one VM is insufficient, the prescribed approach is to increase capacity by adding worker nodes to the Apstra VM cluster. This method scales horizontally and avoids overloading the controller with operational containers.

While increasing CPU/memory on the controller might help temporarily, the documented design pattern for sustained growth is to distribute the off-box workloads across worker nodes. Switching to on-box agents is a different operational model and not the direct remediation for controller resource pressure in an off-box deployment.

Verified Juniper sources (URLs):

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/apstra5.1/apstra-install-upgrade/topics/ref/apstra-server-resources.html

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/apstra5.0/apstra-user-guide/topics/topic-map/apstra-cluster-nodes.html

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/apstra4.2/apstra-user-guide/topics/topic-map/apstra-cluster-nodes.html

In Apstra IBA, a probe is a directed graph made of stages (data you can inspect) and processors (operations that transform/aggregate data). While stages can be inspected during probe construction, the simplest operational way to make probe results readily consumable by day-2 operators is to publish them through widgets that can be placed on Analytics dashboards. A dashboard widget is the visualization and presentation object that renders either (1) counts of anomalies or (2) the outputs produced by stages and processors in a probe. Creating a widget tied to the probe output means the operator can open a dashboard and immediately see the metric trends, tables, or anomaly indicators without navigating into probe internals.

A predefined probe is optional content (a starting template) and is not required for visibility. Processors and stages are internal probe building blocks, but they do not, by themselves, create an operator-friendly view in the UI. In a Junos v24.4 EVPN-VXLAN fabric, this is especially useful for link utilization, drops, latency signals, or any custom telemetry pipeline: you build the probe logic once, then expose the key results in a widget that persists across operational workflows and can be shared on standardized dashboards for capacity planning and troubleshooting.

Verified Juniper sources (URLs):

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/apstra4.2/apstra-user-guide/topics/concept/widgets.html

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/apstra4.2/apstra-user-guide/topics/topic-map/widget-stage-create.html

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/apstra4.2/apstra-user-guide/topics/concept/probes.html

In Apstra 5.1, resources are values that must be allocated uniquely and consistently across a fabric so Apstra can render deterministic, conflict-free configurations. These values are managed through resource pools, which provide ranges (or sets) of assignable identifiers that Apstra can automatically allocate to blueprint elements during build and deployment.

Three valid resource pool types in Apstra are ASN pools, VNI pools, and integer pools. ASN pools supply Autonomous System Numbers used in IP fabric underlays (commonly eBGP in three-stage Clos), ensuring each device or role receives the correct AS assignment without manual tracking. VNI pools supply VXLAN Network Identifiers for overlay segmentation in EVPN-VXLAN fabrics. Apstra uses these to create scalable tenant segments where the VNI uniquely identifies the broadcast domain in the overlay, and Junos v24.4 devices (leaf VTEPs) are configured accordingly. Integer pools provide generic numeric values used mainly in Freeform-style designs or in situations where a template needs a consistent allocated integer (for example, a custom ID used by a configlet or another allocation-driven construct).

“Routing zone pools” and “interface pools” are not resource pool types in Apstra. Routing zones (VRFs) are blueprint design objects, and interfaces are physical/logical constructs, but neither is consumed as an allocatable “pool” resource type in the Apstra resource catalog model.