Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights Sites, Release 6.4.1 - For Cisco ACI

 
Updated April 7, 2024
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First Published: 2024-03-06

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New and Changed Information

The following table provides an overview of the significant changes up to the current release. The table does not provide an exhaustive list of all changes or the new features up to this release.

Table 1. New Features and Changed Behavior in the Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights
Feature Description Release Where Documented

Onboard NX-OS sites without a controller

Support for standalone NX-OS sites.

6.4.1

See Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights Sites, Release 6.4.1 - For Cisco NDFC or Standalone NX-OS

Telemetry status

You can now view the telemetry status at the site level.

6.4.1

Individual Site Details

Time selection

You can now select a time range in the Site View.

6.4.1

Individual Site Details

This document is available from your Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights GUI as well as online at www.cisco.com. For the latest version of this document, visit Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights Documentation.

Sites

About Sites

Sites are on-premises network regions that consist of a group of switches and other networking devices that provide connectivity for your applications and endpoints. You can split sites into different availability zones, such as pods, that are analyzed and managed by Nexus Dashboard Insights.

Types of on-premises sites

  • Online sites: Multiple Nexus switches running ACI or NX-OS that can be represented by a controller such as APIC or NDFC and connected to Nexus Dashboard Insights to continuously stream telemetry. Types of online sites include:

    • ACI: Multiple Nexus switches with Cisco ACI and represented by a Cisco APIC.

    • NDFC: Multiple Nexus switches with Cisco NX-OS and represented by a Cisco NDFC.

    • NX-OS: A group of Cisco Nexus 9000 switches running NX-OS without a controller.

  • Snapshot sites: Controller-based sites, that are referenced by a snapshot, for use in one-time analysis or demonstrations. They may or may not be connected to Nexus Dashboard Insights over the network.

To learn about how to prepare sites for onboarding, see Add Sites.

Once your site is onboarded and fully prepared, Nexus Dashboard Insights will start the site analysis to collect data from your site and display the site information in the Sites page. See Site Details. From there, you can view your site’s general information, inventory, L2 and L3 connectivity, endpoints, anomalies and advisories and more! To learn more see Site Details.

Prerequisites

Guidelines and Limitations

When you onboard an ACI site using the Ready to Add option in Nexus Dashboard Insights, you cannot specify the Login Domain in Nexus Dashboard Insights. You can specify the Login Domain in Nexus Dashboard.

Add Sites

You can add a site to Nexus Dashboard Insights using the following methods:

  • Online Sites

    • Enable the site that has already been added to Nexus Dashboard. Sites added to the Nexus Dashboard are not enabled in the services by default, so you will need to explicitly enable them directly from Nexus Dashboard Insights.

    • Add a site to Nexus Dashboard and then enable the site in a single workflow in Nexus Dashboard Insights.

  • Snapshot sites

    • Add a snapshot site.

Add an Online Site

  1. Navigate to Manage > Sites.

  2. Click Add Site.

    1. If you are adding a site in Nexus Dashboard Insights for the very first time, you will receive the following message. Click Add Site to proceed.

      add-site-first-time.jpg

  3. To enable a site that has been already added to Nexus Dashboard, select Ready to Add. The sites added to Nexus Dashboard are displayed. To add a site to Nexus Dashboard, see Cisco Nexus Dashboard Sites Management.

    ready-to-add-site.jpg

  4. Complete the following fields for Ready to Add.

    1. Select the site.

    2. Click Next.

    3. Select the site location from the map to identify the site on Nexus Dashboard.

    4. Click Next.

    5. Select the in-band EPG from the drop-down list. For Nexus Dashboard Insights, in-band EPG is used for connectivity between Nexus Dashboard and the fabric.

    6. Use toggle to select IPv4 or IPv6 to onboard the site. Based on this setting, Nexus Dashboard Insights will configure its collector to receive telemetry from this site. This setting should match your sites IP address configuration.

      note.svg

      IPv6 is only supported for Cisco APIC release 6.0(3) and later.

    7. Click Next.

    8. Verify the configuration.

    9. Click Submit.

  5. To add a site to Nexus Dashboard and then enable the site using Nexus Dashboard Insights, select Manually Add.

    manually-add-site.jpg

  6. Complete the following fields for Manually Add.

    1. In the Hostname field, enter the IP address used to communicate with the site’s controller.

    2. In the User Name and Password field, provide the login credentials for a user with admin privileges on the site you are adding.

    3. In the Domain field, enter the controller login domain name.

    4. Click Next.

    5. Enter the site name to identify the site on Nexus Dashboard.

    6. Select the site location from the map to identify the site on Nexus Dashboard.

    7. Click Next.

    8. Select the in-band EPG from the drop-down list. For Nexus Dashboard Insights, in-band EPG is used for connectivity between Nexus Dashboard and the fabric.

    9. Use toggle to select IPv4 or IPv6 to onboard the site. Based on this setting, Nexus Dashboard Insights will configure its collector to receive telemetry from this site. This setting should match your sites IP address configuration.

      note.svg

      IPv6 is only supported for Cisco APIC release 6.0(3) and later.

    10. Enter the username and password. Enter the username with this format:

      apic#<domain>\\<username>

      Example: apic#MyDomain.com\\MyUsername

    11. Click Next.

    12. Verify the configuration.

    13. Click Submit.

Add a Snapshot Site

  1. Navigate to Manage > Sites.

  2. Click Add Site.

  3. To add a snapshot site, select Add Site Snapshot.

    add-snapshot-site.jpg

  4. Click Download Snapshot Script to download the data-collectors.tar.gz to your machine.

  5. Extract the file you downloaded and run the data collection script. Follow the instructions provided in the readme.md file. After the script is completed successfully, the data is collected in a <filename>.tar.gz file.

    note.svg

    The collection script requires that you have Python3 installed on your system.

  6. Upload the file in Nexus Dashboard Insights and click Next

  7. Enter the site name to identify the site on Nexus Dashboard.

  8. Select the site location from the map to identify the site on Nexus Dashboard.

  9. Click Next.

  10. Verify the configuration.

  11. Click Submit.

Once your site is onboarded and fully prepared, Nexus Dashboard Insights will start the analysis to collect data from your site and display the site information in the Sites page. See Site Details. The Site Analysis banner displays the progress of the analysis. The time to run the analysis depends on the size of the fabric.

site-analysis.jpg

Site Details

In Nexus Dashboard Insights, Global View provides bird’s eye view of your global network infrastructure for all your sites. The Sites page provides the details for an individual site.

For multi-cluster deployments see section Multi-Cluster Connectivity in Journey and Global View.

Site Details in Global View

After you add the first site, Global View gives you a bird’s eye view of your global network infrastructure for all your sites, their locations, and the key health metrics.

Navigate to Overview> Global View.

The map visually shows the physical location and total number of your sites in each continent, and their names. Click a site to jump directly to the details for that site, or scroll down to the Sites area to navigate to your site. You can also use the the zoom control icons in the page to change your view of the map.

See an at-a-glance summary for each individual site in the Sites area. It includes their anomaly and advisory health levels, site-external traffic with total data transferred, and connectivity data for endpoints and Layer 3 neighbors. To learn about sites in Global View, see Journey and Global View.

Individual Site Details

In the Sites page, you can dive into the details for an individual site, switch, or interface, with a comprehensive dashboard, simple topology, per-device summaries and more. You can also manage anomalies and advisories at a site level.

  1. Navigate to Manage > Sites.

  2. Select Online or Snapshot sites from the drop-down list.

  3. Use the search bar to filter the sites. The Sites table, displays the site type, connectivity status, anomaly and advisory level, onboarding time.

  4. Click the site name to view details for your site.

  5. From the Time Selection drop-down menu select the time. All sections will show data based on time selection and data availability. By default, the current time is selected.

  6. Click Overview.

    site-details-aci.jpg

    1. In the The Anomaly and Advisory area you can view the status of your anomaly and advisory levels, and a list of your top anomaly and advisory categories.

      1. Click Anomaly to view the level, category, and count for your anomalies for the site.

      2. Click the anomaly name to view additional details.

      3. Click Advisory to view the level, category, and count for your advisories for the site.

      4. Click the advisory name to view additional details.

    2. The General area shows you the type of site, the software version used, the connectivity status to Nexus Dashboard, conformance status, onboarding time, and telemetry status. In the General area hover on the software version and click View Bugs to view the active and susceptible bugs for that site. See Getting Started. Telemetry collection status provides insights into the health and performance of the switches and devices in your network. The different telemetry collection statuses at the site level include:

      1. OK - This status indicates that the telemetry data streaming from all the switches to Nexus Dashboard Insights is functioning correctly. This is the desired state, as it ensures comprehensive monitoring and visibility into the network’s performance.

      2. Not OK - This status indicates the telemetry data streaming from all the switches to Nexus Dashboard Insights is not functioning correctly. This could be as a result of various problems such as network outages, misconfigurations, or hardware failures.

      3. Partial OK - This status indicates that telemetry data streaming from all the switches to Nexus Dashboard Insights is not functioning correctly from some of the switches but it is functioning correctly from others. This suggests an inconsistent or partial telemetry data flow within the network which could be caused by various factors, such as switch-specific issues or misconfigurations on some switches.

    3. In the External Traffic area, you can see the External Traffic that the site has sent and received in the last 7 days. The donut helps view the how much traffic is sent and received by the site. Click the information icon to view more information about what External Traffic is and how it can be measured for the different types of sites.

    4. In the Interfaces area, you can see the summary of the interfaces for the site. Click Total to view additional details such as Anomaly Level, Admin Status, Operational Status, and Interface Type. Click the interface name to view additional details.

    5. In the Connectivity area, you can view details about your endpoints, and L3 neighbors.

    6. In the Inventory area, you can view the summary of the controllers and switches for the site.

      1. Click View Hardware Resources to view the hardware resources for the site. Click and choose a resource from the Top Devices By drop-down list to see a graph for that resource. In the table that follows, see the resource usage by switch. Click the switch name to view additional details.

      2. Click View Capacity to view the different resources with their maximum capacity and current usage. Site Summary shows you the trends for the week, as well as the capacity by resource for the entire fabric. You see the number of resources used out of the total available capacity for each resource in this site (for example, Bridge Domains 2829 of 15000). The percentage indicates the percentage of resource used. The Switch Summary displays the capacity breakout of resources by switch. The graph shows you the timeline for the parameter that you have selected from the Top Switches By drop-down list. In the table, click Operational Resources, Configuration Resources, or Hardware Resources, to see the capacity and usage for each switch in the site.

    7. In the Analytics Summary area, you can view the congestion score for the switch. See Inventory.

  7. Click Inventory to view the the controllers and switches information for the site. To learn more, see Inventory.

  8. Click Connectivity to view the details of interfaces, endpoints, L3 neighbors, vPC Domains, flows for the site. To learn more, see Inventory.

  9. Click Anomalies to view all the anomalies for the site. To learn more, see Anomalies and Advisories.

  10. Click Advisories to view all the advisories for the site. To learn more, see Anomalies and Advisories.

  11. Click Integrations to view all the integrations associated with the site. To learn more, see Integrations.

  12. Click File History to view he history of files that are attached to the snapshot site. It shows the file name, the file size, when the file was uploaded, upload status, and when the last analysis was run.

    note.svg

    File History is displayed only for snapshot sites.

    1. For the currently active snapshot, which is the latest file that you uploaded, you can click Run Analysis to run the same snapshot analysis again. This can be useful when additional features are added and you want to re-run an analysis so that the additional features are included in your analysis.

    2. You can also upload a snapshot file for the same site at a different time interval. Click Upload File to upload the file and then click Run Analysis to run the snapshot analysis.

Working with Sites

  1. Navigate to Manage > Sites.

  2. To add a site, click Add Site. See Add Sites.

  3. Select Online or Snapshot sites from the drop-down list.

  4. Click the site name to view the Site Details.

    site-actions-aci.jpg

  5. From the Actions drop-down menu, select Edit Site to edit the site details. After you update the information, click Save.

  6. From the Actions drop-down menu, select View in Topology to view the topology for the site.

  7. From the Actions drop-down menu, select System Status to view the status of the data analysis for your site. See Getting Started.

  8. To delete a site from Nexus Dashboard Insights, perform the following steps:

    1. From the Actions drop-down menu, select Pause Telemetry Collection to pause data collection.

    2. From the Actions drop-down menu, select Remove from Insights to remove the site. The site is removed from Nexus Dashboard Insights only and not from Nexus Dashboard.

  9. From the Actions drop-down menu, select Resume Telemetry Collection to resume data collection.

  10. Click Analyze Now to perform an on-demand analysis. Select the service such as Assurance or Bug Scan and click Run Now. See Getting Started.

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