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Avalon overview

Avalon automates network operations: device discovery and site mapping, inventory, provisioning down to ZTP, configuration backup, and a trace of every operation. It is multi-tenant, and ships as a virtual appliance on your own hypervisor: everything stays on your premises, including on a site with no internet access.

Avalon's components

Avalon has three main components:

  • Initialization script: Sets up all data required by both Avalon Manager and Avalon App. It also configures the appliance's network services.
  • Avalon Manager: A standalone application that manages Avalon’s main application lifecycle. It retrieves releases, starts, stops and restarts Avalon, deletes the releases that are no longer needed, and accepts a release uploaded on a site with no access to our servers.
  • Avalon App: The core of Avalon, our platform for network management and automation.

Components overview

Avalon's components role
Roles of Avalon’s components and how they interact

The next diagram shows how those components talk to our servers, and by which path a release reaches the appliance.

Avalon's components diagram
Relationships between Avalon’s components

How to read this diagram

Arrows show where the files go. The connection itself is always opened by the appliance or by the administrator's workstation, never by our servers.

The license symbol marks where one is needed: in Avalon Manager to download a version from our registry, in Avalon to run, and on the administrator's workstation to sign in to the portal. The appliance, however, needs no license to install a bundle uploaded to it, nor to update Avalon Manager: what gets checked is the signature.

Lifecycles

Appliance installation

Common to both modes, and a prerequisite for everything else. Marked 1 on the diagram.

  1. You import the OVA on your hypervisor and start the machine.
  2. On your first connection to its console, the initialization script configures the appliance: network, domain name, passwords, and encrypted data volume.
  3. Avalon Manager starts, and its interface becomes reachable from your browser.

The OVA is obtained from our website, by requesting a trial, which sends you a personal, time-limited download link. No license is needed at this stage.

It is installed afterwards from the manager's License tab, and it is what opens everything else: access to our servers for online mode, and sign-in to the portal, where the Avalon version bundles and the Avalon Manager binaries are downloaded, each with its signature.

Installation details are on the Virtual appliance page.

Avalon lifecycle in online mode

The appliance reaches our servers. Marked 2a then 3 on the diagram.

  1. The manager downloads the version you picked and checks its signature.
  2. You set it as the next version to run.
  3. You start Avalon, then stop it, restart it, or delete the versions you no longer need.

Avalon lifecycle in offline mode

The appliance does not reach our servers. Marked 2b.1, 2b.2 then 3.

  1. On the portal, an administrator downloads the .tar bundle and its .sig signature.
  2. They upload both to the manager, which checks the signature before installing.
  3. From there on, it is the same as in online mode.

Avalon Manager lifecycle

  1. On the portal, an administrator downloads the .bin binary and its .sig signature.
  2. They hand both over in the Status tab, which checks the signature and the declared version.
  3. The manager replaces itself and restarts, without interrupting Avalon.

Always by upload

Up to and including version 1.4.5, Avalon Manager has no online mode. This procedure therefore applies on an appliance that reaches our servers too.

Deployment

Avalon ships as a ready-to-use virtual appliance, to be imported on your hypervisor.

  • Format (1.3): OVA, validated on VMware vSphere and Proxmox VE.
  • Other formats: on request.

Initial configuration then happens from the appliance's console, and day-to-day operation from Avalon Manager.

Platform compatibility

Full automation support

Vendor Platform Models/Versions Upgrade Support
Cisco Catalyst IOS All models from 2950 (!) to Cat 9K INSTALL/BUNDLE modes
ISSU (Cat 9400 & 9500)
Cisco Nexus NX-OS 5K/6K, 7K, 9K -
HPE Aruba CX All models VSX procedure
HPE ProCurve / ArubaOS-Switch All models Planned Q4 2026
HPE Comware All models Planned Q4 2026
Huawei CloudEngine, VRP All models Planned Q4 2026

Topology discovery

Vendor Platform Additional features
Cisco IE 1000 / IE 3000 IE 1000: check connectivity, backup, WebSSH
Hirschmann Classic (beta)
Palo Alto Firewalls
Stormshield Firewalls
Arista EOS

Your platform not listed?

Avalon's modular architecture enables rapid integration of new platforms. Most vendors can be supported within 2-4 weeks. Contact us to discuss your specific requirements.