Deploy Cisco Catalyst 8000V on Microsoft Azure

Customize the Microsoft Azure Portal

You can customize the Microsoft Azure portal GUI by adding frequently used objects such as virtual machines or virtual network to the left-hand side panel.


Note
You only need to perform these optional steps if you are going to deploy a Cisco Catalyst 8000V instance using a single interface where you need to manually add the resources. You don't have to create these resources manually if you are deploying a Cisco Catalyst 8000V instance with 2, 4, or 8 interfaces using a solution template.

Before you begin

To customize the portal, you must have a Microsoft Azure subscription.

Procedure

Step 1

Sign in to the Microsoft Azure portal.

Step 2

Click Browse and select an object to be added to the left hand side panel.

Step 3

In the drop-down menu, click the star symbol for your chosen object.

The details of this object are saved for future use. Repeat steps 2 and 3 to add a series of objects to the left-hand side panel.

Deploy a Cisco Catalyst 8000V with a Single Interface

Perform the following steps to deploy a Cisco Catalyst 8000V with a single interface.


Note
If you are deploying Cisco Catalyst 8000V with a 2-, 4- or 8- NICs solution template, the following steps are not required. Instead, go to the Microsoft Azure portal and determine the public IP address of the Cisco Catalyst 8000V. Then, ssh into the Cisco Catalyst 8000V as described in the Access the Cisco Catalyst 8000V CLI section.

Procedure

Step 1

Select Virtual machines in the left hand side panel.

Step 2

Click Add.

Step 3

Enter c8000v. A search starts, to find any Cisco Catalyst 8000V VM deployments in the Azure Marketplace.

Step 4

Choose a deployment.

Step 5

Click Create.

The Basics sub-menu is highlighted.

Step 6

Name - Enter the name of the virtual network.

The virtual network is a cloud-based network used by Microsoft Azure to represent the private network.

Step 7

VM disk type - Select a VM disk type.

The VM disk type is either SSD or HDD.

Step 8

User name

Username for the Cisco Catalyst 8000V virtual machine. This is the username that you will use to log into the CCisco Catalyst 8000V instance.

Step 9

Authentication type - Enter a Password (default) or SSH public key.

Step 10

Subscription - Select the name of a subscription.

A default name based on the name of the virtual machine is provided. You can change the default name.

Step 11

Resource Group - Create a new group by selecting Create new or select an existing group by selecting Use existing.

The Size sub-menu is highlighted.

Specifies the name of a new or existing resource group.

Step 12

Click OK.

Step 13

Click Virtual machine size

For further information on virtual machine size, see Sizes for Windows virtual machines in Azure.

Step 14

Click OK.

The Settings sub-menu is highlighted.

Step 15

High Availability - Select an existing availability set or create a new availability set.

To use High Availability, select an existing availability set or create a new availability set.

Step 16

Storage - Enter the storage account name.

Enter the storage account name if you are using Managed Disks to manage the storage accounts of VM disks.

Step 17

Virtual network - Enter the virtual network address.

Enter the address of the virtual network using Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation. Example: 10.4.1.0/16

Step 18

Subnet - Enter the subnet IP address.

Step 19

Public IP address - Enter the public IP address name.

The IP address is provided by Azure.

Step 20

Network Security groups - Enter the name of a network security group.

Step 21

Auto-shutdown

To enable auto-shutdown, set Enable to On. To disable auto-shutdown set Enable to Off. For more information on auto-shutdown, search for auto-shutdown in the Microsoft Azure Documentation.

Step 22

(Optional) Monitoring - Select Monitoring to enable monitoring.

Enables Cisco Catalyst 8000V monitoring using boot diagnostics. If you enable monitoring, you must also enter the boot diagnostics account name.

Step 23

Click OK.

The 4 Summary sub-menu is highlighted. The system displays the summary details of the VM that is about to be deployed.

Step 24

Click Create.

The VM is created and the purchase is confirmed.

Step 25

Click Virtual machines on the left hand panel.

Verifies the VM status. After a few minutes, the VM status changes from Creating to Running. Make a note of the Public IP address name.

What to do next

Go to the Access the Cisco Catalyst 8000V CLI section which explains how to ssh into Cisco Catalyst 8000V.

Deploy Cisco Catalyst 8000V with Multiple Interfaces

Perform the following steps to deploy Cisco Catalyst 8000V with multiple interfaces.

Procedure

Step 1

Select Virtual machines in the left hand side panel.

Step 2

Click Add.

Step 3

Enter "C8000V".

Finds the Cisco Catalyst 8000V VM deployments in the Azure Marketplace.

Step 4

Choose the deployment of your choice, with 2,4, or 8 NICs.

Step 5

Click Create.

Step 6

Virtual Machine name - Select the Basics sub-menu and enter a name for the virtual machine.

Name of the cloud-based network used by Microsoft Azure to represent a private network.

Step 7

Username - Select a user name.

The Username for the Cisco Catalyst 8000V virtual machine which you can use to log into the Cisco Catalyst 8000V instance.

Step 8

Authentication type - Enter a Password (default) or SSH public key.

Step 9

Cisco IOS XE Image Version - Select the Cisco IOS XE version.

Step 10

Subscription - (Optional) Change the subscription name.

A default subscription name is provided, based on the name of the virtual machine. You can change this default subscription name.

Step 11

Resource Group - Select either Create new or Use existing.

You can only create a Cisco Catalyst 8000V in a new Resource Group (or in a completely empty existing resource group). To remove a Resource Group, first delete the Cisco Catalyst 8000V VM and then delete the Resource Group.

Step 12

Click OK.

Step 13

Select the Cisco C8000V Settings sub-menu and then select Number of Network Interfaces in C8000V.

Step 14

Select the number of interfaces: 2, 4, or 8.

Step 15

License Type - Select either BYOL or PAYG as the license type.

Step 16

Managed Disk - Select Enabled.

Step 17

Storage Account - Enter a name for the storage account.

For more information on storage accounts, see the Microsoft Azure Resources section in this guide.

Step 18

Virtual machine size - Select the appropriate virtual machine size.

Based on the number of interfaces that you are using, select the appropriate virtual machine size. Microsoft Azure supports different image types with different performance expectations. To view the supported instance types and the virtual machine sizes, see the following links:

Step 19

Custom Data - Select Yes if you want to provide a bootstrap configuration file.

For further information about providing a bootstrap configuration file for the Cisco Catalyst 8000V instance, see Deploying a Cisco Catalyst 8000V VM Using a Day 0 Bootstrap File section and the Customdata-examples section.

Step 20

Availability Set - Select Yes.

Step 21

Availability Set name - Enter a name for the availability set.

Step 22

Availability Set fault domain count - Enter the availability set fault domain count.

Fault domains define the group of VMs that share a common power source and network switch. Availability sets arrange virtual machines across fault domains.

Step 23

Availability Set update domain count - Enter the availability set update domain count.

An update domain is a group of VMs and underlying physical hardware that can be rebooted at the same time.

Step 24

Boot diagnostics - Enter the boot diagnostics.

For more information on boot diagnostics, see the Information About Deploying Cisco Catalyst 8000V in Microsoft Azure section.

Step 25

Diagnostics Storage account - Enter the storage account name.

Step 26

Public IP Address - Enter the public IP address name.

For more information on the public IP address, see the Microsoft Azure Resources section.

Step 27

DNS label - (Optional) Change the name of the DNS label.

The DNS label is the name of the public IP address to be assigned to the Cisco Catalyst 8000V. A default value for the DNS label is shown in the text box, which is the VM name followed by "-dns".

Step 28

Virtual network - Choose one of the following: Create New or Use existing.

For a new virtual network, enter the name and the IP address.

Step 29

Click Subnets - Enter the subnet names and the IP addresses.

Step 30

Check that all the Cisco Catalyst 8000V Settings are acceptable, and then click OK.

The 3 Summary sub-menu is highlighted.

Step 31

Click OK.

The 4 Buy sub-menu is highlighted.

Step 32

Click Create

The VM is created and the purchase is confirmed.

Step 33

Click Virtual machines on the left hand panel.

After a few minutes, the status of the recently created VM changes from Creating to Running. Make a note of the Public IP address name.

Access the Cisco Catalyst 8000V CLI

Access the CLI of the Cisco Catalyst 8000V VM through a terminal server.

Before you begin

Before you access the CLI, perform the steps in one of the preceding deployment procedures Deploy a Cisco Catalyst 8000V With a Single Interface, or Deploy a Cisco Catalyst 8000V With Multiple Interfaces.

Procedure

Enter the ssh command using a command syntax from one of the two substeps below.

Enter the ssh command in a terminal server of your choice to access the CLI .

  • If you did not previously use an SSH public key (you did not specify a username of “azureuser”, you can access the Cisco Catalyst 8000V CLI using the following command: ssh –o ServerAliveInterval=60 username@c8000v_ip_address
  • If you previously used an SSH public key (you did specify a user name of “azureuser”), you can access the Cisco Catalyst 8000V CLI using the following command: ssh –ikey-o ServerAliveInterval=60 azureuser@c8000v_ip_address

Example

In the following example, user name=“azureuser”, public IP address = 40.121.148.7 and password=xxx are used as parameters in the ssh command, before other commands such as show ip route . No ssh public key was previously specified.) 

$ ssh –o ServerAliveInterval=60  azureuser@40.121.148.7 
                The authenticity of host '40.121.148.7 (40.121.148.7)' can't be established.
                RSA key fingerprint is 94:79:e9:d2:2e:85:93:d6:52:41:cc:a3:d9:14:7f:5f.
                Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
                Warning: Permanently added '40.121.148.7' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
                Password: mypassword
# show ip int br
                Interface              IP-Address      OK? Method Status                    Protocol
                GigabitEthernet1       10.4.1.4        YES DHCP   up                        up      
                GigabitEthernet2 	unassigned     YES unset  administratively down     down	
            
# configure terminal
                Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
                # interface g2
                # ip address dh
                # ip address dhcp
                # no shutdown
                # end
                # show run interface g2
                Building configuration...
                Current configuration : 69 bytes
                !
                interface GigabitEthernet2
                ip address dhcp
                negotiation auto
                end
                # show ip interface brief
                Interface              IP-Address      OK? Method Status                Protocol
                GigabitEthernet1       10.4.0.4        YES DHCP   up                    up
                GigabitEthernet2       10.4.1.4        YES DHCP   up                    up
                
                # show ip route
                <output snipped for brevity>
                Gateway of last resort is 10.4.1.1 to network 0.0.0.0
                
                S*    0.0.0.0/0 [1/0] via 10.4.1.1
                10.0.0.0/8 is variably subnetted, 4 subnets, 2 masks
                C        10.4.1.0/24 is directly connected, GigabitEthernet1
                L        10.4.1.4/32 is directly connected, GigabitEthernet1
                C        10.4.2.0/24 is directly connected, GigabitEthernet2
                L        10.4.2.4/32 is directly connected, GigabitEthernet2
                168.63.0.0/32 is subnetted, 1 subnets
                S        168.63.129.16 [254/0] via 10.4.1.1