DevNet Associate (DEVASC) v1.0Infrastructure and AutomationMedium

A network automation engineer is designing a system to collect real-time performance metrics from thousands of network devices. The solution requires a high-performance, low-latency, and bi-directional streaming mechanism. Which protocol is best suited for this requirement?

  1. AgRPC
  2. BSSH
  3. CHTTP/REST
  4. DSNMP
Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: A. gRPC

gRPC (Google Remote Procedure Call) is a modern, high-performance, open-source universal RPC framework that can handle bi-directional streaming, making it ideal for real-time telemetry and communication between services and devices, especially at scale.

Why the other options are wrong

  • B. SSH is for secure remote access and command execution, not a high-performance streaming protocol for metrics collection.
  • C. HTTP/REST is primarily request-response and less efficient for high-volume, real-time streaming.
  • D. SNMP is a pull-based protocol, not designed for high-volume, real-time streaming telemetry.

gRPC

gRPC (Google Remote Procedure Call) is an open-source high-performance RPC framework that can run in any environment. It uses Protocol Buffers as its Interface Definition Language (IDL) and HTTP/2 for transport, enabling efficient bi-directional streaming.

  • High performance, low latency.
  • Bi-directional streaming.
  • Uses HTTP/2 and Protocol Buffers.
  • Cross-platform and language-agnostic.

Memory trick: gRPC is the 'GReat' way for Real-time Performance streaming.

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