Cisco Active Network Abstraction Administrator Guide 3.6 Service Pack 4
Managing Cisco ANA Units
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Table Of Contents

Managing Cisco ANA Units

What Is a Cisco ANA Unit?

Adding New Cisco ANA Units

Editing Cisco ANA Unit Properties

Removing a Cisco ANA Unit


Managing Cisco ANA Units

This chapter describes how to manage Cisco ANA units. This includes adding and removing units, and viewing unit properties.

•What Is a Cisco ANA Unit?—Provides a description of a unit.

•Adding New Cisco ANA Units—Describes how to add a new unit to the Cisco ANA fabric.

•Editing Cisco ANA Unit Properties—Describes how to view the properties of a unit.

•Removing a Cisco ANA Unit—Describes how to remove a unit.

What Is a Cisco ANA Unit?

The main purpose of Cisco ANA units is to host autonomous virtual network elements (VNE). The units are interconnected to form a fabric of VNEs that can inter-communicate with other VNEs regardless of the unit they are running on. Each unit can host thousands of Autonomous VNE processes (depending on the server system size).

Figure 5-1 Cisco ANA Architecture

For more information about adding units, see Adding New Cisco ANA Units.

The clustered N+m high availability mechanism within the Cisco ANA fabric handles the failure of a unit. Unit availability is established in the gateway running a protection manager process which continuously monitors all units in the network. Once the protection manager detects a unit that is malfunctioning, it automatically signals one of the m servers in its cluster to load the configuration of the faulty unit (from the system registry), and to take over all its managed network elements. The switchover to the redundant standby unit does not result in any loss of information in the system as all information is auto-discovered from the network, and no persistent storage synchronization is required. When a unit is configured it can be designated as being an active or standby unit.

Note The Cisco ANA system is usually configured with the high availability mechanism enabled.

For more information about high availability, standby units, and defining a redundant unit, see the Cisco Active Network Abstraction High Availability User Guide.

Adding New Cisco ANA Units

Cisco ANA Manage enables the user to add a unit to the Cisco ANA fabric. Cisco ANA Manage automatically registers the unit in the registry and creates a transport uplink between the unit and the gateway. The units are linked to the gateway in a star topology.

In addition, the administrator can enable or disable high availability for a unit. These settings enable the administrator to define to which protection group a unit is assigned, and whether it is enabled for high availability. For more information on high availability, see the Cisco Active Network Abstraction High Availability User Guide.

Note By default all units in the Cisco ANA fabric belong to one cluster identified as the default-pg protection group.

To add a new unit:

Step 1 Select the ANA Servers branch in the Cisco ANA Manage window.

Step 2 Open the New ANA Unit dialog box:

•Right-click the ANA Servers branch, then select New ANA Unit.

•In the toolbar, click New Unit.

•Select File > New ANA Unit.

The New ANA Unit dialog box is displayed.

The following field is displayed in the New ANA Unit dialog box:

•IP Address—The unique IP address of the unit.

Note An error message is displayed if a unit is already configured with the same IP address.

The following check boxes are displayed in the New ANA Unit dialog box:

•Enable Unit Protection—Indicates whether a unit is enabled (check box is selected) for high availability. This option is selected by default.

Note We strongly recommended that you do not disable this option. When you define the unit as a "new" standby unit, this option is automatically disabled. For more information about configuring standby units, see the Cisco Active Network Abstraction High Availability User Guide.

•Standby Unit—Indicates whether a unit is defined (check box is checked) as a standby unit.

•Protection Group—Displays the currently defined list of customized protection groups.

Step 3 Enter the IP address of the new unit in the IP Address field.

Step 4 Select the required protection group from the Protection Group list.

Step 5 Click OK. The new unit is displayed in the tree pane and the workspace of Cisco ANA Manage.

If the new unit is installed and reachable, it starts automatically. The unit is registered with the gateway. Specifically, the command creates the configuration registry for the new unit in the Golden Source. See Appendix C, "Golden Source Registry."

In addition, Cisco ANA Manage automatically creates the transport uplinks between the unit and the gateway.

Editing Cisco ANA Unit Properties

Users can view the properties of a Cisco ANA server, such as physical and allocated memory, and change its protection group.

To edit a unit's properties:

Step 1 Select the ANA Servers branch in the Cisco ANA Manage window. The ANA Servers branch is displayed.

Step 2 Select the unit or gateway in the workspace or expand the ANA Servers branch and select the required unit or gateway in the tree pane.

Step 3 Open the Properties dialog box:

•Right-click to display the shortcut menu, then choose Properties.

•In the toolbar, click Properties.

•Select File > Properties.

The ANA Unit Properties dialog box is displayed.

The following fields are displayed in the ANA Unit Properties dialog box:

•IP Address—The IP address of the unit or gateway.

•Status—The status of the unit or gateway, either Up or Down.

•Up Since—The date and time that the unit or gateway was started.

•Physical Memory—The physical memory of the unit or gateway.

•Allocated Memory—The amount of memory allocated to the unit or gateway. Allocated memory is the sum of all memory settings for all AVMs.

•Used Memory—The maximum memory used by the unit or gateway. Used memory is the sum total of the memory used by all AVMs that are Up.

The Protection Group drop-down list displays the customized protection groups. The visible protection group is the one to which the selected unit belongs.

Step 4 In the Protection Group drop-down list, change the assigned unit protection group, as required, by selecting an option from the list.

The Enable Unit Protection check box defines whether a unit is enabled (the check box is checked) for high availability. This option is selected only when high availability is enabled on that unit.

Note When you change (either disable or enable) the Enable Unit Protection option for high availability, changes become effective after a delay of about 15 minutes.

Step 5 Click OK. The ANA Unit Properties dialog box is closed.

Removing a Cisco ANA Unit

The user can remove a unit.

Note•The user must first delete all VNEs and non-reserved AVMs before deleting a unit. Reserved AVMs cannot be deleted. For more information about reserved AVMs, see Creating AVMs, page 6-1.

•The gateway cannot be deleted.

•The unit cannot be deleted if it is the gateway to which the user is connected.

To remove a unit:

Step 1 In the Cisco ANA Manage window, select ANA Servers.

Step 2 Expand the ANA Servers branch, then select the unit you want to remove in the tree pane or workspace.

Step 3 Right-click the unit that you want to remove, then select Delete. A warning message is displayed.

Step 4 Click Yes to proceed or No to cancel the operation. A confirmation message is displayed.

Step 5 Click OK. The unit is deleted and is no longer displayed in the tree pane and workspace.