Table Of Contents

Cisco Pulse Overview

Pulse Appliances

Pulse Connect Appliance

Pulse Collect Appliance

Accessing Cisco Pulse

Cisco Pulse Users

Anonymous Users

Cisco Pulse Overview

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Cisco Pulse is a product that brings together a user, also known as an expertise seeker, with other users with current experience with a term, also known as expertise providers, so that they can quickly collaborate. Along with the expertise providers, Cisco Pulse might also find related information, which includes documents and videos.

These topics provide this overview information for Cisco Pulse:

•Pulse Appliances

•Accessing Cisco Pulse

Pulse Appliances

Cisco Pulse supports these two Pulse Appliances:

•Pulse Connect Appliance

•Pulse Collect Appliance

Pulse Connect Appliance

The Pulse Connect Appliance is a Cisco MCS-7845-I3 hardware appliance on which Pulse Connect software is pre-installed. Figure 1-1 shows the architecture of the Pulse Connect software.

Figure 1-1 Pulse Connect Software Architecture

At the lowest level is the Pulse Connect Engine. This engine analyzes the content discovered by the Pulse Collect Engine, as well as user-supplied content, and presents the dynamic information via the Pulse Apps.

At the next level is the Pulse Apps Platform, which is a platform on which administrative tools and application programming interfaces (APIs) are integrated. This platform provides the capability to configure all aspects of Cisco Pulse.

At the top level are the Pulse Apps, which can be end user applications that are built by Cisco Systems, Inc., for example, the Pulse Locator and the Tag Navigator gadget, or by third parties. Those who decide to implement third-party applications can leverage data that is collected and exposed through Cisco Pulse but must implement the Pulse Connect Engine and Pulse Apps Platform in order to do so.

Related Topics

•Pulse Collect Appliance

Pulse Collect Appliance

A Pulse Collect Appliance is a Cisco MCS-7845-I3 hardware appliance on which the Pulse Collect Engine runs. A Pulse Collect Engine analyzes content shared across the network for terms in the Pulse Vocabulary, attaches the terms to their associated users, documents, and videos, and sends this information to the Pulse Connect Engine for further analysis. This engine stores metadata for the content for approximately 6 months.

Figure 1-2 shows the Pulse Collect Appliance in relation to Pulse Connect Appliance in the overall Cisco Pulse architecture.

Figure 1-2 Overall Cisco Pulse Architecture

This document assumes that the Pulse Collect Appliance is implemented within a Cisco Pulse infrastructure. However, you can alternatively implement this appliance within your existing application infrastructure.

Related Topics

•Pulse Connect Appliance

Accessing Cisco Pulse

Users can access Cisco Pulse from Microsoft Windows clients with one of these supported browsers:

•Mozilla Firefox browser, version 2.0 or 3.0

•Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, version 6.0, 7.0, or 8.0

If you use a different browser to access Cisco Pulse, the system warns and reminds you to use one of the supported browsers.

Also, to support the playing of videos in the Pulse Locator search results page, a browser must support the Adobe Flash Player 9 and above. However, we highly recommend upgrading to the latest available Adobe Flash Player version for the best performance.

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Note While accessing Cisco Pulse from one of the supported browsers, we strongly recommend that you not refresh the browser. Doing so, especially after performing an action, such as a system administrator deleting a Cisco Pulse user or a Cisco Pulse user changing the status of a tag, causes the browser to resend a request to perform the same action that was just completed. Refreshing the browser in this situation can result in a Cisco Pulse error.

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This topic describes the different types of Cisco Pulse users:

•Cisco Pulse Users

•Anonymous Users

Cisco Pulse Users

A Cisco Pulse user is included in a configured list of individuals who can access and use Cisco Pulse. This user is given a Cisco Pulse username and password and can log in at any time.

Cisco Pulse supports privilege levels for these three distinct users:

•User—An end user who has a public profile and can use the Pulse Locator to search for expertise providers or be identified as an expertise provider based on system analysis and tagging, or by declaring their experience in their public profile.

•System administrator—This user has the same privileges described for the "user" privilege level. In addition, this user has access to Cisco Pulse pages that enable them to initially configure, maintain, and monitor Cisco Pulse. This user also creates and maintains the Cisco Pulse user list and in some organizations, might create and maintain the Pulse and Restricted Vocabularies.

•Business administrator—This user has the same privileges described for the "user" privilege level. In addition, this user creates and maintains the Pulse and Restricted Vocabularies.

The system and business administrators can also create gadgets and optionally publish them so that Cisco Pulse users can add them to their Home pages.

Cisco Pulse also supports ncpadmin, which is a fixed user account intended for the system administrator. The system administrator can retain exclusive use of this account or share the login name and password with another administrator. The ncpadmin has access to the same Cisco Pulse pages as the user with the "system administrator" privileges. However, this user does not have a public profile nor access to the Pulse Locator and the Gadget Development pages.

For more information on these Cisco Pulse users, see the "Roles, Privileges Levels, and Responsibilities" section on page 6-15.

Anonymous Users

An anonymous user does not have a Cisco Pulse username and password. However, the system administrator can allow such a user to access and use only the Pulse Locator. For more information, see the Appendix B, "Allowing Pulse Locator Access to Anonymous Users."