Support Multiple Providers in a Single Operator Deployment

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 models
• cisco-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.

Start at cmd/main.go:90 and trace how the --provider flag is selected and passed to controllers. Compare the openconfig and cisco-nxos-gnmi providers and identify the device configuration or selection rules needed for per-device choice. Done means one operator deployment can manage devices using different providers without separate operator instances.