Overview

This section contains the following topics:

Audience

This guide is for experienced network administrators who want to use Change Automation and Health Insights in their network. This guide assumes that you are familiar with the following topics:

  • Networking technologies and protocols (IS-IS, BGP, and so on)

  • Network monitoring and troubleshooting

  • Familiarity with Cisco Crosswork Infrastructure and how Crosswork applications are installed. For more information, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller Installation Guide.

Overview of Change Automation and Health Insights

Cisco Crosswork Health Insights and Cisco Crosswork Change Automation are components that can optionally be installed with Cisco Crosswork Network Controller (Crosswork Essentials or Crosswork Advantage).

The applications provide a ready-to-use solution supporting the following use cases:

  • Monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and notify of any anomalies.

  • Prepare network changes triggered by changes in KPIs and roll out these changes.

  • Automate change and remediation.

Change Automation

Change Automation helps to codify workflows using parameterized Plays and stitches them into Playbooks for execution.

Health Insights

Health Insights offers real-time, telemetry-based Key Performance Indicator (KPI) monitoring and intelligent alerting. The alerts are based on predefined templates or user-defined logic. These alerts can be tied to the Playbooks to implement closed-loop automation workflows.

Health Insights configures KPIs based on telemetry using MDT, SNMP, or GNMI. The collected data is evaluated in one of the following four possible ways (using UI based tools):

  • No alert

  • Standard deviation

  • Two-level threshold

  • Rate change

Other configurations are also possible using the Cisco Crosswork APIs. For more details, see Cisco Crosswork Network Automation APIs.

Cisco Crosswork API

All the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller applications provide a robust set of APIs that allow it to be integrated with other tools you use to manage and configure your network. For more details on the product APIs, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller API Documentation on Cisco DevNet.

Integration with other Cisco and non-Cisco products

Cisco Crosswork Health Insights and Cisco Crosswork Change Automation are components that can optionally be installed with Cisco Crosswork Network Controller. For more details on Crosswork Network Controller, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller Product page on Cisco.com.

Below are the other Cisco products with which Change Automation and Health Insights can be integrated:

  • Cisco Crosswork Planning: Cisco Crosswork Planning provides traffic and topology analysis to Change Automation and Health Insights. It gives a cross-sectional view of traffic, topology, and equipment state. For more information, see Cisco Crosswork Planning.

  • Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (Cisco NSO): Change Automation and Health Insights uses Cisco Network Services Orchestrator as the default provider to configure the devices according to their expected functions, including configuring any required model-driven telemetry (MDT) sensor paths for data collection. Cisco Network Services Orchestrator is vital in supplying device management and configuration-maintenance services. For more information, see Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO).

  • Cisco Crosswork Optimization Engine: Crosswork Optimization Engine provides real-time network optimization. Some Plays enable integration with Crosswork Optimization Engine so that the optimization decision is based on the KPIs being tracked in Health Insights. For more information, see Cisco Crosswork Optimization Engine Data Sheet.

  • Non-Cisco Products: Change Automation and Health Insights supports the loading of models for non-Cisco equipment which will enable the creation of KPIs and in some cases, the execution of plays. For more information on how to do these advanced integrations, see the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller Administration Guide and the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller API Documentation on Cisco DevNet. If you require assistance with these integration efforts, contact your account team.