[VIDEO] Create Configuration Snapshots in ACI and Rollback

Introduction

This document describes in video format how to create a configuration snapshot in Cisco ACI and roll from a change.

Final Video

Background

In addition to a description of the process to create a configuration snapshot in Cisco ACI, this document also describes and shows how to roll back to it using the Cisco APIC GUI.

Transcript Start

Hi, I am Alejandro with Cisco Professional Services.

Today I walk you through the process of creating a configuration snapshot in Cisco ACI. I will also describe and show how to roll back from it it back using the Cisco APIC GUI.

As a best practice, Cisco recommends to capture a configuration snapshot before you make any significant change to your ACI fabric. This allows you to easily roll back the change, in case anything goes wrong.

1. First, open a new browser window and navigate to the management IP address of any of the active or primary APICs [add text in video to say what “APIC” means] in the cluster.
2. If you see a privacy warning on your browser, validate that you have navigated to the correct IP address. If you are, ignore the message and continue.
3. Log in to the ACI fabric with the local admin user or with any other local or remote user with admin-level read and write access.
4. On the APIC GUI, navigate to the Admin tab on the navigation bar at the top of the window and then select Config rollbacks on the blue ribbon below.
5. When you create a configuration snapshot you can select the scope of it when you open the list next to Config Rollbacks for.

You can create a snapshot for a specific tenant, or you can create one for the entire fabric. Keep in mind that a snapshot created for a tenant only contains the configuration of the tenant and no other configuration object - not even global, fabric, or access policies.

For this example, choose Select for All Fabric to create a snapshot of everything in this ACI fabric.

6. Once you have selected the scope, on the right side of the screen, select the location of the snapshot. You can store snapshots within the APIC local drive or send them to a previously configured external destination, such as a remote file server.

Note: How to send snapshots to an external repository and the configuration of a remote file server are not be covered in this video. For this example, select APIC as the location.

7. Next, provide a description for the snapshot. Keep in mind that the addition of a description to a snapshot is not the same as when you set the name of the actual file in the APIC drive. The description is only useful in the GUI to quickly identify a snapshot.
8. Once you provided a location and a description for the snapshot, click the dark gray button labeled Create a snapshot now.
9. Click ok on the window that pops up and wait a few minutes until the snapshot appears at the bottom of the list.
10. Once you see the snapshot listed, you can continue with your change.
11. For this video, create a dummy tenant which is erased once a rollback is performed in later steps.
12. To rollback to the previously created snapshot, navigate to Admin and then to Config Rollbacks.
13. On the list of snapshots, look for the snapshot that you created and click on it to select it.
14. On the right side of the window, you see the file name, the size of the snapshot, and an option to compare it with any other previous snapshot. Skip that last option for now.
15. At the bottom right corner of the screen, click Rollback to this configuration.
16. Read the message on the pop-up window. If you plan to rollback after a firmware upgrade, not all policies are present on the previous version and could be lost when the process is performed. If this is not a concern, click yes.
17. Dependent on the amount of changes, the rollback process can take a few seconds or more. Once the process is complete, a green checkmark appears next to the selected snapshot to indicate that the rollback was successful.
18. To verify, go back to the tenant view and confirm that the tenant that was added to the fabric has been removed.

I hope this video is useful to you. Thanks for watching!