What can you do with NETCONF?

Query the state of specific fields, change the configuration of specific fields, run management actions, send event notifications, back up and restore configurations, and test a configuration before committing the transaction.

* Applications and devices share the same YANG models, and NETCONF carries the data between them. *

• Query the status of specific fields, for example one interface's state.
• Change the configuration of specific fields, without touching the rest.
• Execute management actions (operations defined in the model, such as a reload).
• Send event notifications, so devices can push changes instead of being polled.
• Back up and restore configurations.
• Test a configuration before the transaction is completed.

The last point is the big step beyond the CLI. A change can be validated as a whole and either applied completely or not at all, so a device never ends up half-configured because command 7 of 10 failed.

Because resources are addressed by meaningful paths such as interfaces/interface/eth0, these operations target exactly the data you mean.