Cisco Network Insights Applications for the Data Center Network Manager

Release Notes

Network Insights - Advisor – Release 1.0.1

Cisco Network Insights applications consist of a pair of monitoring utilities that can be added to the Data Center Network Manager (DCNM). Click one of the following to review release information for:

■        Cisco Network Insights – Advisor

■        Related Documentation

This document describes the features, caveats, and limitations for NIA on the DCNM.

Table 1 shows the online change history for this document.

Table 1 Online History Change

Date

Description

June 6, 2019

Release becomes available.

July 8, 2019

1.0.1: Added link to Cisco Network Insights – Advisor Application for DCNM User Guide.

July 15, 2019

1.0.1: No hardware Advisory available.

July 15, 2019

1.0.1: Nexus 7000 Series is removed from the not supported list.

Hardware Recommendations for Network Insights

This section describes the DCNM 11.2 LAN deployment requirements for NIA software telemetry. A DCNM-native HA deployment is recommended.

The following are recommended for Network Insights applications running on the DCNM:

Table 2 Deployments Up to 80 Switches

Node

Deployment Mode

CPU

Memory

Storage

Network

DCNM

OVA/ISO

16vCPUs

32G

500G HDD

3xNIC

Computes (x3)

OVA/ISO

16vCPUs

64G

500G HDD

3xNIC

Table 3 Hardware Recommendations for Deployments from 81 to 250 Switches

Node

Deployment Mode

CPU

Memory

Storage

Network

DCNM

OVA/ISO

16 vCPUs

32G

500G HDD

3xNIC

Computes (x3)

ISO

32 vCPUs

256G

2.4TB HDD

3xNIC*

* Network card: Quad-port 10/25G

Downloading and Installing Network Insights Applications in DCNM

See the Cisco Network Insights – Advisor Application for DCNM User Guide for information and procedures on downloading and installing the NIA application.

Cisco Network Insights - Advisor

The Cisco Network Insights - Advisor (NIA) application monitors a data center network and pinpoints issues that can be addressed to maintain availability and reduce surprise outages. NIA constantly scans the customer’s network and provides proactive advice with a focus on maintaining availability and alerting customers about potential issues that can impact uptime.

NIA consists of the following components:

·         Advisories

o    Software Upgrades

o    Cisco Recommendations

·         Cisco Notices

o    EoL/EoS Dates

o    Field Notices

·         Issues

o    Bug/PSIRT Reports

o    Baseline Best Practices (Compliance)

·         TAC Assist

o    Log Collection

·         Serviceability

o    Schedule Driven (Compliance)

o    On Demand

Initial Setup

See the Cisco Network Insights – Advisor Application for DCNM User Guide for information and procedures on setting up the NIA application.

Release Information for NIA

This section includes the following:

■        New and Changed Information for NIA

■        Caveats in NIA

■        Compatibility Information for NIA

■        Usage Guidelines for NIA

New and Changed Information for NIA

This section lists the new and changed features in this release and includes the following topics:

■        New Software Features in NIA

New Software Features in NIA

The following sections list the new software features in this release:

■        Notices

■        Bug Scan

■        Compliance Check

■        TAC Assist

■        Advisories

■        Upgrade Impact

Notices

NIA constantly checks Cisco Nexus Product Database for any outstanding EOL/EOS or Field Notices for Switches and analyzes them against the customer network to provide a list of customer devices affected by it.

Bug Scan

Users can schedule or run an on-demand Bug-scan on their network. NIA collects tech supports from all the devices and run’s them against known set of signatures and flags the corresponding defects. NIA also generates an advisory for the customer. See Advisories for further details.

Compliance Check

NIA scans customer configurations periodically and checks it against Cisco’s Hardening Guide. Such configurations are flagged as anomalies that customers can fix. Once fixed these anomalies are removed from the system.

TAC Assist

The Technical Assistance Center (TAC) Assist feature helps customer collect information that they need for opening a Service Request (SR). Currently TAC Assist only captures the tech-support from the switches selected, puts them in a single folder and provides the location to the user.

Advisories

NIA exposes 3 different type of Advisories in the first phase:

·         Software-Advisory: Suggests the software version to upgrade, to fix the issues listed in the Advisory. This advisory gets generated when Bugs/PSIRTS are detected by the Bug Scan or when recommended software release changes.

·         Hardware-Advisory: Suggests the hardware migration. This advisory gets generated in the event of EOL/EOS of the device.

·         CallTAC-Advisory: Suggests to engage with Cisco TAC for resolving the issues listed in the Advisory. This advisory gets generated when NIA is not able to provide a specific advisory.

·         FieldNotice-Advisory: Suggests the necessary action to be taken if a field notice is generated. In first version of NIA this is the same as field notice itself showing the affected devices.

Upgrade Impact

The NIA generated Advisory suggests an upgrade image that best attempts to address bugs, PSIRTs, and software End of Life. In cases where a specific image is shown, the "Upgrade Impact" button runs the following check on listed devices:

ISSU check for non-disruptive upgrade to the suggested version (only NXOS Software version)

The results are displayed for each device with NONDISRUPTIVE/DISRUPTIVE/FAIL. Clicking on the status shows the output from the device. In case a conflict is noticed in image versions that can be suggested, a CALLTAC advisory action is shown, for example: the conflict could be due to different NXOS versions running on devices.

Caveats in NIA

This section contains lists of open and resolved caveats.

■        Open Caveats in NIA

■        Resolved Caveats in NIA

Open Caveats in NIA

This section lists the open caveats. Click the bug ID to access the Bug Search Tool and see additional information about the bug. If a caveat is fixed in a patch of this release, the "Fixed In" column of the tables specifies the release.

Open Caveats in this Release

The following table lists the open caveats in this release.

Table 4 Open Caveats in this Release

Bug ID

Description

CSCvq02398

NIA App reports a Bug Scan or TAC Assist job partial failures, if tac-pac collection in-progress. A failure could occur if switch has a tac-pac collection running and NIA starts a Bug Scanner or TAC Assist job.

CSCvp51960

NIA TAC Assist job only lists the folder name where the files are located for the job.

Resolved Caveats in NIA

This section lists the resolved caveats.

None in this release.

Compatibility Information for NIA

The following lists compatibility information for the Cisco NIA application.

·         NIA Image: 1.0.1

·         DCNM Image: 11.2(1)

·         Number of devices supported: 250

·         Devices Supported: N3K and N9K

Usage Guidelines and Limitations for NIA

This section lists usage guidelines and limitations for the Cisco NIA application.

·         NIA is not supported on following platforms:

o    Nexus 9500 R-Series Line Cards

o    Nexus 3600 R-Series

Related Documentation

The Cisco Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) documentation can be accessed from the following website:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/cloud-systems-management/prime-data-center-network-manager/tsd-products-support-series-home.html

The documentation includes installation, upgrade, configuration, programming, and troubleshooting guides, technical references, and release notes, as well as other documentation.

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Any Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and phone numbers used in this document are not intended to be actual addresses and phone numbers. Any examples, command display output, network topology diagrams, and other figures included in the document are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any use of actual IP addresses or phone numbers in illustrative content is unintentional and coincidental.

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