Introduction
Cisco Elastic Services Controller (ESC) is a Virtual Network Functions Manager (VNFM), which performs lifecycle management of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs).
The Cisco Elastic Services Controller (ESC) promotes agility, flexibility, and programmability in Network Function Virtualization (NFV) environments, and offers comprehensive automated lifecycle management capabilities. By design, Cisco ESC is built as an open and a modular system. It provides a single point of control to manage all aspects of VNF lifecycle for generic virtual network functions (VNFs) in a dynamic environment. Drawing on industry standards and open APIs, you can control the full lifecycle of all of your virtualized resources, whether using Cisco or third-party VNFs, allowing you to choose best-of-breed industry solutions.
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As part of the Cisco Orchestration Suite, ESC is packaged with Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) and Cisco NFV Orchestrator (NFVO) bundle. This is available within Cisco Solutions such as Cisco Managed Services Accelerator (MSX).
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As a Specialized Virtual Network Function Manager (SVNFM), ESC tightly integrates with the Cisco Mobility VNFs.
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ESC can also be utilized as a Generic Virtual Network Function Manager (GVNFM) to provide lifecycle management for both Cisco and third-party VNFs.
Supported Virtual Infrastructure Managers (VIM)
ESC supports lifecycle management of VNFs on OpenStack, VMware vCenter, vCloud Director, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and so on. For more details, see the Cisco Elastic Services Controller Install and Upgrade Guide.
New Features and Enhancements in 5.7
This section describes the features added in Cisco Elastic Services Controller Release 5.7:
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SNMP Enhacements— ESC SNMP Enhacements allow updating configuration file and managing multiple managers with dedicated target community
For more information, see the Cisco Elastic Services Controller Administration Guide. -
ESC support for ESXi and vCenter 7.0.x — Deploying a service with multiple SR-IOV interfaces on ESXi 7.0
For more information, see the Cisco Elastic Services Controller Administration Guide. -
Recovering the D-MONA from One VIM Instance to Another— When D-MONA agent fails, ESC recovers it quickly while D-MONA recovers on another VIM.
For more information, see the Cisco Elastic Services Controller User Guide. -
Upgrading D-MONA—ESC image helps to upgrade D-MONA to the latest version provided for the update.
For more information, see the Cisco Elastic Services Controller User Guide.
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Enabling ESC Lifecycle Notifications during Login—ESC login banner includes End-of-Life and End-of-support dates.
For more information, see the Cisco Elastic Services Controller Install and Upgrade Guide.
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ESC Documentation Update
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Cisco Elastic Services Controller Troubleshooting Guide—Explains the various troubleshooting activities related to ESC Installation, ESC HA, ESC Micro-services, ESC upgrades, ESC troubleshooting backup and restore, ESC ConfD and NETCONF API, and ESC VNF deployment. For more information, see the Cisco Elastic Services Controller Troubleshooting Guide
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Deprecated Features
Starting ESC Release 5.4, some of the functionalities are deprecated. The table below lists the deprecated functionalities, and the new functionalities replacing them in ESC:
Deprecated Functionality |
New Functionality |
New in Release |
Deprecation Notice |
Retired in (future) Release |
---|---|---|---|---|
Data model pertaining to SOL001 v2.7.1 |
Data model pertaining to SOL001 v3.3.1 |
5.7 |
5.7 |
|
Data model, request/response structures and flows pertaining to SOL002 v2.5.1 |
Data model, request/response structures and flows pertaining to SOL002 v3.3.1 |
5.7 |
5.7 |
|
Data model, request/response structures and flows pertaining to SOL003 v2.5.1 |
Data model, request/response structures and flows pertaining to SOL003 v3.3.1 |
5.7 |
5.7 |
|
The Cisco-specific extensions on
. |
Moved to a standardised extension point:
|
5.4 |
5.4 |
6.0 |
The Cisco-specific extensions on
to specify the external volume UUID in the resource_id. |
Moved to a standardised data structure:
|
5.4 |
5.4 |
6.0 |
Some of the Cisco-specific extensions on
. |
All but allowed_address_pairs have moved to standardised data structures on
and
|
5.4 |
5.4 |
6.0 |
The Cisco-specific extensions on an out-of-band Security Group. |
Moved to a standardised data structure:
|
5.4 |
5.4 |
6.0 |
The following Cisco-specific extensions on which serve as placeholders for the definition of fixed addresses and static IP
pools in the SOL001 VNFD:
|
Use
for IP addressing requirements, using |
5.3 |
5.4 |
6.0 |
Starting with Cisco ESC Release 5.3, support for the following may end in any of the future releases without additional notice:
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The deprecated VMware vCenter versions 5.5 and 6.0.
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The deprecated VMware vCloud Director (vCD) version 8.2.
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The deprecated D-MONA 1:1 mapping
For more information, see the release documents available at http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/cloud-systems-management/elastic-services-controller-esc/tsd-products-support-series-home.html.
Cisco Elastic Services Controller Bugs
For a complete list of open and resolved bugs for this release, use the Cisco Bug Search tool.
Open Bugs
The table below lists the open issues in the Cisco Elastic Services Controller 5.7 release.
Bug ID |
Description |
CSCvz18002 | Changing OOB port using ChangeExtVnfConnectivity API req is not detaching old port |
Resolved Bugs
The table below lists the resolved issues in the Cisco Elastic Services Controller 5.7 release.
Bug ID |
Description |
CSCwa51711 | VNF deployment using PCI passthru fails with error "No host is compatible with the virtual machine" |
Cisco Bug Search Tool
Bug Search Tool (BST), the online successor to Bug Toolkit, is designed to improve our customers' effectiveness in network risk management and device troubleshooting.
BST allows partners and customers to search for software bugs based on product, release, and keyword, and aggregates key data such as bug details, product, and version. The service has provision to filter bugs based on credentials to provide external and internal bug views for the search input.
To use the BST to search for a specific bug or to search for all bugs in a release:
Procedure
Step 1 | |||
Step 2 |
At the Log In screen, enter your registered Cisco.com username and password; then, click Log In. The Bug Search page opens.
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Step 3 |
To search for a specific bug, enter the bug ID in the Search For field and press Return. |
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Step 4 |
To search for bugs in the current release:
See Bug Search Tools & Resources on Cisco.com. For more details on the tool overview and functionalities, check out the help page, located at http://www.cisco.com/web/applicat/cbsshelp/help.html |
Accessibility Features in Cisco ESC
For a list of accessibility features in Cisco ESC 5.7, see Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) on the Cisco website, or contact accessibility@cisco.com.
All product documents are accessible except for images, graphics, and some charts. If you would like to receive the product documentation in audio format, braille, or large print, contact accessibility@cisco.com.
Related Documentation
The following documents are available for Cisco Elastic Services Controller:
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Cisco Elastic Services Controller User Guide
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Cisco Elastic Services Controller Install and Upgrade Guide
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Cisco Elastic Services Controller ETSI NFV MANO Guide
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Cisco Elastic Services Controller Administration Guide
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Cisco Elastic Services Controller Troubleshooting Guide
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Cisco Elastic Services Controller NETCONF API Guide
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Cisco Elastic Services Controller REST API Guide
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Cisco Elastic Services Controller ETSI API Guide
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Cisco Elastic Services Controller Deployment Attributes
You can access the documents at: