Overview

Cisco Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) is a management system for Cisco NXOS-based storage fabrics. In addition to provisioning, monitoring, and troubleshooting the data center network infrastructure, the Cisco DCNM provides a comprehensive feature-set that meets the routing, switching, and storage administration needs of data centers. It streamlines the provisioning for the Programmable Fabric and monitors the SAN components.

Cisco DCNM provides a high level of visibility and control through a single web-based management console for Cisco Nexus Series Switches, Cisco MDS, and Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) products. Cisco DCNM also includes Cisco DCNM-SAN client and Device Manager functionality.

This section contains the following sections:

Introduction

Cisco DCNM provides an alternative to the command-line interface (CLI) for switch configuration commands.

Cisco DCNM includes these management applications:

Cisco DCNM Web UI

Cisco DCNM Web UI allows operators to monitor and obtain reports for Cisco MDS and Nexus events, performance, and inventory from a remote location using a web browser. Licensing and discovery are part of the Cisco DCNM Web UI.

Performance Manager

Performance Manager presents detailed traffic analysis by capturing data with SNMP. This data is compiled into various graphs and charts that can be viewed on the Cisco DCNM Web UI.

Installation Options

Cisco DCNM software images are packaged with the Cisco DCNM installer, signature certificate, and signature verification script. Unzip the desired Cisco DCNM installer image ZIP file to a directory. Verify the image signature by following the steps in the README file. The installer from this package installs the Cisco DCNM software.

DCNM Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) Installer

This installer is available as an Open Virtual Appliance file (.ova). The installer contains a pre-installed OS, DCNM, and other applications needed for programmable fabric.

DCNM ISO Virtual Appliance (ISO) Installer

This installer is available as an ISO image file (.iso). The installer is a bundle of OS, DCNM, and other applications needed for dynamic fabric automation.


Note

If you are installing Cisco DCNM on SE, install the DCNM ISO Virtual Appliance (.iso) installer.

Deployment Options

You can deploy the Cisco DCNM installer in one of the following modes:

Supported Latency

The supported latency for Cisco DCNM LAN Fabric deployment is defined below:

  • Between Native HA Primary and Secondary appliances, latency is 50ms.

  • Between DCNM Native HA Primary appliance to Switches, latency is 50ms.

  • Between DCNM Computes latency is 50ms.

Standalone Server

All types of installers are packaged along with PostgreSQL database. The default installation steps for the respective installers result in this mode of deployment.


Note

We recommend that you deploy Cisco DCNM in Native HA Mode.

High Availability for Virtual Appliances

You can deploy the DCNM Virtual appliances, both OVA and ISO, in High Availability mode to have resilience in case of application or OS failures.

DCNM Computes

Compute nodes are scale out application hosting nodes that run resource-intensive services to provide services to the larger Fabric. When compute nodes are added, all services that are containers, run only on these nodes. This includes Config Compliance, Endpoint Locator, and Virtual Machine Manager.

DCNM in Clustered Mode

In a clustered mode, the Cisco DCNM Server with more compute nodes provides an architecture to expand resources, as you deploy more applications. The DCNM Servers do not run containerized applications. All applications that work in unclustered mode works in the clustered mode, also.

DCNM in Unclustered Mode

In unclustered mode, the Cisco DCNM runs some of its internal services as containers. Cisco DCNM leverages resources from the Standby node for running some containers applications. The Cisco DCNM Active and Standby nodes work together to extend resources to the overall functionality and deployment of DCNM and its applications. However, it has limited resources to run some of the advanced applications and to extend the system to deploy more applications delivered through the Cisco AppCenter.

root and sysadmin User Privileges

The following table summarizes the user privileges differences between DCNM 11.5 and previous releases.


Note

This is applicable to Cisco DCNM OVA/ISO deployments only.

Description

Functionality in DCNM 11.5 Release

Functionality in DCNM 11.4(1) and 11.3(1) Releases

Remarks

su command

Requires local root password.

sysadmin user can’t run sudo su command

Requires sysadmin password

su is an alias for sudo su

The su command requires the local password even when the remote authentication is configured.

appmgr change_pwd ssh root command

Only root user can run this command.

sysadmin can also run this command.

-

appmgr root-access {permit|deny|…} command

Only root user can run this command

sysadmin user can also run this command

-

appmgr remote-auth command

Only root user can run this command

Not available

-

Other appmgr commands

root or sysadmin user can run these commands

root or sysadmin user can run these commands

-

Upgrading to Cisco DCNM Release 11.5(1)

Before Cisco DCNM Release 11.0(1), DCNM OVA, and ISO supported SAN functionality. From Cisco DCNM Release 11.3(1), you can install Cisco DCNM for SAN Deployment on both OVA and ISO virtual appliances.

The following table summarizes the type of upgrade that you must follow to upgrade to Release 11.5(1).

Table 1. Type of Upgrade for LAN Fabric deployments

Current Release Number

Upgrade type to upgrade to Release 11.5(1)

11.4(1)

Inline Upgrade

11.3(1)

Inline Upgrade

11.2(1)

Inline Upgrade

11.1(1)

11.1(1) → 11.2(1) → 11.5(1)

11.1(1) → 11.3(1) → 11.5(1)

11.1(1) → 11.4(1) → 11.5(1)

→ represents an Inline Upgrade

System Requirements

This section describes the various system requirements for proper functioning of your Cisco DCNM Release 11.5(1).


Note

We recommend that you do not upgrade any underlying third-party software separately. All the necessary software components will be updated during the inline upgrade procedure. Upgrading the components outside of DCNM upgrade causes performance issues.


Note

If you are deploying Network Insights applications on the Cisco DCNM Compute cluster, refer to the app-specific release notes for additional CPU or memory requirements for Computes.

Java Requirements

The Cisco DCNM server is distributed with JRE 11.0.8 into the following directory: 

DCNM_root_directory/java/jdk11

Server Requirements

Cisco DCNM Release 11.5(1), supports the Cisco DCNM server on these 64-bit operating systems:

  • IP for Media, and LAN Fabric Deployments:

    • Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) with an integrated CentOS Linux release 7.8

    • ISO Virtual Appliance (ISO) with an integrated CentOS Linux release 7.8

Supported Latency

The supported latency for Cisco DCNM LAN Fabric deployment is defined below:

  • Between Native HA Primary and Secondary appliances, latency is 50ms.

  • Between DCNM Native HA Primary appliance to Switches, latency is 50ms.

  • Between DCNM Computes latency is 50ms.

Database Requirements

Cisco DCNM Release 11.5(1) supports the following databases:

  • PostgreSQL 10.15 - For OVA/ISO deployments


Note
The ISO and OVA installations support only the embedded PostgreSQL database.

Hypervisors

Cisco DCNM supports the ISO installation on a bare-metal server, no hypervisor, on the following server platforms:

Server

Product ID (PID)

Recommended minimum memory, drive capacity, and CPU count 1 2

Cisco UCS C240M4

UCSC-C240-M4S

32G / 500G 16 vCPUs

Cisco UCS C240M4

UCSC-C240-M4L

32G / 500G 16 vCPUs

Cisco UCS C240 M5S

UCSC-C240-M5SX

32G / 500G 16 vCPUs

Cisco UCS C220 M5L

UCSC-C220-M5L

32G / 500G 16 vCPUs

1 Install the Cisco DCNM Compute node with 16 vCPUs, 64G RAM, and 500GB hard disk.
2 If you are deploying Network Insights applications on the Cisco DCNM Compute cluster, refer to the app-specific Release Notes for additional CPU/memory requirements for the Computes.

Note

Cisco DCNM can work on an alternative computing hardware with appropriate specifications, despite Cisco is only testing on Cisco UCS.

Supported Hypervisors

You can use the Cisco DCNM Server on the following hypervisors:

Hypervisor supported

Data Center Manager server application

Supported deployments

ESXi 7.0

vCenter 7.0

All

ESXi 6.7 P01

vCenter 6.7 P01

All

ESXi 6.5

vCenter 6.5

All

ESXi 6.0

vCenter 6.0

All

RedHat 7.6 KVM with QEMU version 1.5.3

Virtual Machine Manager (comes with RHEL 7.6)

LAN Fabric

Hyper-V on Windows Server 2019

Hyper-V Manager (comes with Windows Server 2019)

LAN Fabric

This is supported with Native HA mode, and not in Cluster mode.

Server Resource (CPU/Memory) Requirements


Note

If you install Cisco DCNM on a virtual machine, you must reserve resources equal to the server resource requirements to ensure a baseline with the physical machines.

If the existing Elasticsearch database is more than 250GB, Cisco DCNM Server requires more than 500GB HDD space to complete reindexing.

Table 2. System Requirements for Cisco DCNM LAN Fabric Deployment

Deployment Type

Small (Lab or POC)

Large (Production)

Compute for 81-350 switches scale (without Network Insights)

Compute for up to 80 switches (with Network Insights)

OVA/ISO

CPU: 8 vCPUs

RAM: 24 GB

DISK: 500 GB

CPU: 16 vCPUs

RAM: 32 GB

DISK: 500 GB

CPU: 16 vCPUs

RAM: 64 GB

DISK: 500 GB

CPU: 32 vCPUs

RAM: 64 GB

DISK: 500 GB

Note

For Huge and Compute deployments, you can add extra disk. The size of the disk can range from a minimum of 32GB to a maximum of 1.5TB.

If the existing Elasticsearch database is more than 250GB, Cisco DCNM Server requires more than 500GB HDD space to complete reindexing.

Allocate sufficient disk space to the root partition to complete DCNM installation and for stable continuous operation of the DCNM applications. Refer to the applications’ User guides for disk space requirements. You can mount another disk where the /tmp directory can be mounted during the installation or upgrade. You can also add additional disk space and the disk file system using appmgr system scan-disks-and-extend-fs command.

Cisco DCNM LAN Fabric Deployment Without Network Insights (NI)


Note

For information about various system requirements for proper functioning of Cisco DCNM LAN Fabric deployment, see System Requirements.

Refer to Network Insights User guide for sizing information for Cisco DCNM LAN Deployment with Network Insights (NI).

To see the verified scale limits for Cisco DCNM 11.5(1) for managing LAN Fabric deployments, see Verified Scale Limits for Cisco DCNM.

Table 3. Upto 80 Switches
Node CPU Deployment Mode CPU Memory Storage Network
DCNM OVA/ISO 16 vCPUs 32G 500G HDD 3xNIC
Computes NA — — — —
Table 4. 81–350 Switches
Node CPU Deployment Mode CPU Memory Storage Network
DCNM OVA/ISO 16 vCPUs 32G 500G HDD 3xNIC
Computes OVA/ISO 16 vCPUs 64G 500G HDD 3xNIC

VMware Snapshot Support for Cisco DCNM

Snapshots capture the entire state of the virtual machine at the time you take the snapshot. You can take a snapshot when a virtual machine is powered on, powered off. The following table shows snapshot support for your deployment.

VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi)

6.0

6.5

6.7

6.7 P01

7.0

VMware vCenter Server

6.0

6.5

6.7

6.7 P01

7.0

Note

You need VMware vCenter server to deploy Cisco DCNM OVA Installer. However, to install DCNM directly on VMware ESXi without vCenter, you can choose DCNM ISO deployment. Ensure that correct CPU, Memory, Disk, and NIC resources are allocated to that VM.

To take a snapshot on the VM, perform the following steps:

  1. Right-click the virtual machine the inventory and select Snapshots > Take Snapshot.

  2. In the Take Snapshot dialog box, enter a name and description for the snapshot.

  3. Click OK to save the snapshot.

The following snapshots are available for VMs.

  • When VM is powered off.

  • When VM is powered on, and active.


Note

Cisco DCNM supports snapshots when VM is either powered on or powered off. DCNM doesn’t support snapshots when the Virtual Machine memory option is selected.

Ensure that Snapshot the Virtual Machine's memory check box must not be selected, as shown in the following figure. However, it is grayed out when the VM is powered off.

You can restore VM to the state in a Snapshot.

Right-click on the Virtual Machine and select Manage Snapshot. Select the snapshot to restore, and click Done.

Supported Web Browsers

Cisco DCNM supports the following web browsers:

  • Google Chrome version: 86.0.4240.198

  • Mozilla Firefox version: 82.0.3 (64-bit)

  • Microsoft Edge version: 86.0.622.63

Other Supported Software

The following table lists the other software that is supported by Cisco DCNM Release 11.5(1).

Table 5. Other Supported Software

Component

Features

Security

  • ACS versions 4.0, 5.1, 5.5, and 5.8

  • ISE version 2.6

  • ISE version 3.0

  • Telnet Disabled: SSH Version 1, SSH Version 2, Global Enforce SNMP Privacy Encryption.

  • Web Client Encryption: HTTPS with TLS 1, 1.1 and 1.2

  • TLS 1.3

OVA\ISO Installers

CentOS 7.8/Linux Kernel 3.10.x

Also, Cisco DCNM supports call-home events, fabric change events, and events that are forwarded by traps and email.