Overview

Know your Web UI

When you launch the Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller Web UI for the first time, the Feature Management window opens. After you choose a deployment type, the left pane displays menu relevant to the personality.

The top pane displays the following UI elements:

  • Home icon – Click to view One view on the Nexus Dashboard setup.

  • Nexus Dashboard – Click to view One view on the Nexus Dashboard setup.

  • Feedback – Allows you to provide feedback on Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller. For instructions, see User Feedback.

  • Help – Click on Help to see a drop-down list with the following options:

    • About Nexus Dashboard – Displays the version of the Cisco Nexus Dashboard on which Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller is deployed.

    • Welcome Screen – Displays What's New information. You can choose to see this page every time you launch the Web UI.

    • Help Center – Click to view the Help Center page. You can access various product documents from this page.

      Scroll to the end of the page to view the services installed on Nexus Dashboard. Click on the Service to view Help Center.

  • User Role – Displays the role of the user who is currently logged in, for example, admin. Click on the username to see a drop-down list with the following options:

    • User Preferences – Allows you to view the Welcome screen on every login.

    • Change Password – Allows you to change the password for the current logged-in user.

      If you are a network administrator user, you can modify the passwords of other users.

    • Logout – Allows you to terminate the Web UI and return to the login screen.

  • Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller Persona – Specifies the deployment persona – Fabric Controller or SAN Controller or Fabric discovery.

  • Alerts and Notifications – You can view the alerts and event notifications by clicking the Alerts and Notifications icon, next to the Help icon, in the top pane of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller.

  • Alarms – The Alarms icon flashes when there is an Alarm or when thresholds exceed for your Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller Deployment. Click on the flashing Alarms icon to view the messages. The following alarms are displayed.

    • Interfaces Limit Exceeded – If the maximum number of endpoints across all fabrics exceed 100K, the Alarms icon flashes and displays a message.

    • High Availability (HA) State – The HA state notification appears when the Native HA setup is not synchronized; when one of the nodes or both nodes may have stopped, failed, or not ready; or when the Alarms icon flashes. If the HA setup is synchronized, the notification clears either in 30 minutes (during the polling cycle) or when you log out and log in to the Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller Web UI.

    • Application down – If one or more applications are down, an error appears. An alarm message appears when the applications go online or offline.

General icons on UI:

  • Hamburger icon – Click on Hamburger icon adjacent to product name on home screen to minimize the menu items on home screen or to view menu items in details.

  • Refresh icon – Click refresh icon to refresh and load screen.

User Feedback

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller allows you to provide feedback on the application. You can ask for new features/enhancements using this feature. The request is sent to Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller marketing engineers, who evaluate the requirement and include the features or enhancements in the upcoming releases.

To provide feedback using the Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller Web UI, perform the following steps:

Procedure

Step 1

Click on Feedback on the right top corner of the Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller application.

When using this for the first time, you must configure the DNS and proxy server on the Cisco Nexus Dashboard.

Step 2

To establish a connection, go to Cisco Nexus Dashboard on your browser and perform the following steps:

  1. On the Cisco Nexus Dashboard Web UI, choose Infrastructure > Cluster Configuration.

    The Cluster Configuration General tab appears.

  2. In the Proxy Configuration area, click Edit icon.

  3. In the Servers area, click Add Server.

  4. Choose the protocol type – HTTP or HTTPS.

  5. In the Server field, enter the IP address.

  6. Enter the Username and Password in the respective fields.

  7. Click the tick icon to confirm. Click the wrong icon to delete.

  8. In the Ignore Hosts area, click Add Ignore Host.

  9. Enter the Hostname and click tick icon to confirm. Click wrong icon to delete.

  10. Click Save to configure the proxy server.

Note

 

Wait for up to five minutes for the Proxy configuration to propagate to the Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller application.

Step 3

On the Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller Web UI, click Feedback.

Step 4

On the Feedback panel, click on the stars to let us know how you feel about Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller.

Step 5

In the Make a suggestion field, enter your suggestion/feedback.

Step 6

If you choose Cisco to contact you regarding the feedback, check the Cisco may contact me about my feedback check box.

Step 7

Provide your Name and Email in the respective fields.

Cohosting of NDFC Managed mode with Nexus Dashboard Insights

From Release 12.1.1e, you can host NDFC Fabric Controller persona and Nexus Dashboard Insights on the same Nexus Dashboard Cluster in Managed mode to manage fabrics and Nexus Dashboard Insights to monitor the same fabrics. Note that NDFC in Fabric discovery mode, that is, monitored mode with NDI on the same Nexus Dashboard cluster is supported with NDFC Release 12.0.2f. Cohosting requires 4 physical Nexus Dashboard nodes for a maximum scale of up to 50 switches. This functionality is also supported on NDFC Release 12.1.1e with the corresponding paired Nexus Dashboard Insights release.


Note

Nexus Dashboard deployed on KVM doesn’t support cohosting NDFC and Insights service on the same Nexus Dashboard cluster.

Note

For cohosting NDFC and Insights on the same Nexus Dashboard cluster, the Nexus Dashboard nodes must be Layer 2 adjacent. Support for Layer 3 adjacency for cohosting deployments will be introduced in future releases.

The following table shows the compatible versions for Nexus Dashboard and services.

Services

Compatible Version

Nexus Dashboard

 2.1.1e2.1.2d

Nexus Dashboard Insights

Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller

12.0.2f12.0.1a

The following table shows the system requirements for Nexus Dashboard.

Specification

Supported Scale

Number of physical Nexus Dashboard nodes

5

Number of switches supported

50

Number of flows supported in Nexus Dashboard Insights

10000

Installation of NDFC and NDI on the same Nexus Dashboard

Cisco NDFC can be cohosted with Nexus Dashboard Insights on the same Nexus Dashboard.

Before you begin

Installing Nexus Dashboard

Install the required form factor of Cisco Nexus Dashboard. For instructions, refer to Cisco Nexus Dashboard Deployment Guide.

Installing NDFC

Refer to Cisco NDFC Installation Guide.

Configure NDFC sites on Nexus Dashboard. Refer to the Adding Sites section in the Cisco Nexus Dashboard Deployment GuideCisco Nexus Dashboard Deployment Guide.

Installing NDI

On the same Nexus Dashboard set up, install the Nexus Dashboard Insights service. Refer to Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights Deployment Guide, for more information.

Post Installation

After installing compatible versions of NDFC and NDI on the 5-node physical Nexus Dashboard, launch NDFC as Fabric (LAN) Controller. Create Fabric, discover and import switches on NDFC fabric. Nexus Dashboard automatically identifies the NDFC fabric and lists on the Sites page as entities.


Note

You must provide the password for each of the sites in the Nexus Dashboard site manager.