Support Multiple Providers in a Single Operator Deployment #143
Description
Background
Currently, the network-operator is designed to run with a single provider per deployment, specified via the --provider flag at startup (cmd/main.go:90). The provider is selected globally for all controllers and applied uniformly to all network devices managed by that operator instance.
Available providers:
openconfig(default) - Standards-based YANG modelscisco-nxos-gnmi- Cisco NX-OS specific implementation
This architecture requires deploying separate operator instances when managing devices from different vendors or requiring different protocol implementations, which:
- Increases operational overhead (multiple deployments, RBAC configs, webhooks)
- Complicates multi-vendor network environments
- Limits flexibility in heterogeneous infrastructure
Proposed Enhancement
Enable the operator to support multiple providers simultaneously within a single deployment, allowing different devices to use different providers based on their vendor, capabilities, or configuration requirements.