• Upgrade support to 3.1 version.

• Software patching support.

• BETA: IPv6 deployment mode support.

• Inventory Key usage is deprecated for 3.1 and replaced with default node policy.

• Information about elements impacted added to the job information.

• CSV import functionality support for adding and updating inventory.

• Search Criteria support added.

• Versioning and updated tracking of plays.

• Impact analysis – API interaction with WAE Playbook.

• Support for NSO Ansible modules to enable multi-vendor playbooks.

• Parallel execution on device groups.

• Information on playbook compatibility with each device/OS.

• Parallel Software/SMU upgrades.

• Ability to organize KPIs into a single manageable entity (KPI Profile) that user can enable on a single device or multiple devices.

• Ability to create custom alerts using alert groups. Alert groups contain boolean expressions with KPIs within a profile.

• Ability to enable alert forwarding and alert groups to an HTTP endpoint. The general device alerts and alert groups can be differentiated.

• Smart licensing registration, and integration with Cisco Smart Software Manager (direct mode, on-prem and proxy support).

• Backup and restore support for database and configuration.

• Ability to update the default user properties.

• Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server support.

• API grouping for user role creation.

• Password policies updated.

• Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Health Insights 3.1 uses Cisco Crosswork Data Gateway as the scalable collection architecture between the network and application to collect data.

• Support for CLI, SNMP and MDT data collection methods.

• Ability to optimize collection requests to reduce redundancy.

• External data destination support for third party applications (Kafka, gRPC) access to network data.

• Ability to monitor collection jobs.

• Custom device package support for third party device data collection.

For configuration and installation procedures, see the Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Health Insights Installation Guide.

• Deploy Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Health Insights on a highly available cluster (vSphere HA) with shared storage.

• Use VMware vCenter and vSphere Web Client (flash mode) for OVA deployment.

• Use the same NTP source and server to avoid time synchronization issues.

• Confirm that the DNS and NTP servers are properly configured.

• If the UI does not appear within 30 minutes after installation, log into the VM and check the installation logs for configuration errors. If necessary, collect logs to give to Cisco TAC (see the "Perform Administrative Tasks" chapter of the Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Health Insights User Guide).

• Use Terminal Access-Control System Plus (TACACS+), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) or Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for auditing purposes.

• During configuration, note the Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Health Insights UI and CLI user names and passwords. You will not be able to recover the administrator password later because of security purposes.

• In situations where Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Health Insights is expected to work with PCE (PCE is used for L3 topology discovery) we recommend the use of dual PCEs.

Use CSV files to quickly import and onboard device, credential, and provider information.

For information on how to use Health Insights, see the "Monitor Network Health and KPIs" chapter in the Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Health Insights User Guide.

• Group the KPIs within a KPI Profile for monitoring relevant device metrics. For best results, limit to adding 10 KPIs per KPI Profile. Maximum number of KPIs that can be supported within a KPI profile is 50.

• For optimal performance, enable a KPI Profile in batches of 50 devices.

• Link the playbook with KPI before enabling the corresponding KPI Profile on a device.

• For best system performance, use the default KPI cadence.

For information on how to use Change Automation, see the "Automate Network Changes" chapter in the Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Health Insights User Guide.

• Use the scheduling feature to perform planned maintenance operations.

• Use the Install and Uninstall packages to upgrade or downgrade software patches.

• Use Change Automation from day 2 onwards.

• Use Dynamic Group tags for simultaneous playbook execution across multiple devices. Currently Change Automation supports up to 20 concurrent playbook executions.

• Configure the MOP timeout value appropriately, so that a timeout does not occur when running playbooks.

• Mapping of devices to Cisco Crosswork Data Gateway is recommended to be done in batches of 300 devices to ensure optimal performance.

For administrative and monitoring tasks see the "Perform Adminstrative Tasks" chapter in the Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Health Insights Installation Guide.

• Avoid restarting services (via UI or CLI) when troubleshooting Cisco Crosswork Change Automation and Health Insights.

• Monitor and view application state, health, performance, and summary details from the Crosswork Manager window.

• Use custom certificates signed by your local CA to avoid browser warning messages. To manage certificates, go to the Certificate Management application.

• The application data Health Insights data from version 3.0 (Change Automation, Health Insights, Topology) cannot be migrated, as the schema has been updated in the version 3.1.

• AAA remote authentication server settings, custom local users and custom roles are not retained in the migration from version 3.0 to version 3.1.

• Sometimes, under certain load conditions, the execution of a Playbook times out. If it continues to fail for a specific device, try changing the device state to DOWN and UP again.

• While scheduling playbooks across a dynamic group tag, the corresponding job set screen for the job in the Job History page will not display the relevant devices, until the job is scheduled for execution.

Sometimes, NETCONF reachability times out for IOS XE devices. To recover, try changing the device state to DOWN and UP again.

• After a KPI Profile is enabled, editing cadence & threshold parameter for any of the associated KPIs can be achieved as below:

  • Create a custom KPI with the required cadence & threshold parameters and associate with the existing KPI Profile.

  • Create a new KPI Profile with the relevant KPIs associated. Update the cadence & alert parameters before enabling this new KPI Profile.

  • Disable the KPI Profile & perform the modifications on relevant associated KPIs and re-enable the KPI Profile.

• If the alert flag (on/off) is updated after the KPI Profile is enabled, and the operation is successful, then you will observe a corresponding job on HI Job History page with no details.

• For custom KPIs:

  • Only one gather path should be specified when creating custom KPIs.

  • All leaf sensor paths are reserved for that KPI use only.

  • Multiple KPIs cannot use the same sensor path. Therefore, custom KPIs cannot share a sensor path with each other or with an existing default KPI that is active on a device.

• L2 links are discovered on topology utilizing either Customer Data Platform (CDP) or Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP).

• Point-to-point CDP or LLDP is supported in topology.

• PCE is required for L3 link topology mapping.

• Enable traps on routers to receive L2 link down and up status changes quickly. Otherwise, it may take one SNMP poll cadence (default is 5 minutes) to see the L2 link status change.

• The JSON Web Token is only valid up to 8 hours.

In rare cases, after the successful registration, the License Authorization Status in the Smart Licensing page is not changed and will continue to display as being in EVALUATION mode. As a consequence, the evaluation timer will be started and incorrect messages will be displayed to the user. As a workaround, please de-register and register the product again.