Table Of Contents

Deploying Cisco ANA and Working with Licenses

Steps for Deploying Cisco ANA

Steps for Setting Up Users and Scopes

Managing Licenses

Checking the Status of the License Server

Installing Licenses

Viewing License Properties

Deploying Cisco ANA and Working with Licenses

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The following topics provide an overview of the steps you must perform to deploy Cisco ANA:

•Steps for Deploying Cisco ANA

•Steps for Setting Up Users and Scopes

•Managing Licenses

The first two topics include links to the procedures that will guide you through these steps. The deployment step includes installing Cisco ANA, creating AVMs and VNEs, setting up protection groups and polling groups, and so forth. The users and scopes overview details the procedures for creating users and controlling the functions and network elements they can access.

Steps for Deploying Cisco ANA

The workflow shown in Figure 2-1 and described in the text that follows explains how to deploy and set up a Cisco ANA system using Cisco ANA Manage.

Figure 2-1 Basic Steps to Set Up the Cisco ANA System

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Note For deployment information and recommendations, such as supported configurations and system sizing, contact your Cisco account representative.

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1. Prepare a deployment plan. You must decide:

–The number of Cisco ANA unit servers to be deployed and the number of AVMs for each server.

–The number and types of VNEs to be managed by each AVM.

–The number of protection groups there are going to be and how Cisco ANA units are going to be organized into protection groups (clusters), based on the following considerations:

- Device type

- Geographical location

- Importance of device

- Number of devices

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Note The planning of protection groups in the deployment plan is only applicable when high availability is enabled. For more information, see Appendix D, "Using High Availability."

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–The number of standby Cisco ANA units that are going to be deployed.

–How Cisco ANA units, standby Cisco ANA units, and protection groups are going to be deployed and allocated.

–The number of network scopes that are required and the policies they will employ.

–The number of users to be defined.

2. Set up and manage Cisco ANA servers:

a. Add Cisco ANA units.

Transport links are created automatically between the unit and its associated gateway in a star topology or between two units. See Adding New Cisco ANA Units, page 3-6.

In addition, you can configure units for high availability and assign the units to protection groups. The standby units can also be configured and assigned to protection groups (optional). For more information, see Appendix D, "Using High Availability."

b. Create and launch AVMs.

See Managing AVMs, page 4-1.

c. Create and assign VNEs.

See Creating VNEs: Prerequisites, page 5-9.

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Note Additional units, AVMs, VNEs, scopes, and users can be added or edited at any time.

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3. Concurrently with the previous step, change the default setup of Cisco ANA units by customizing protection groups (clusters) and then assigning units to these groups. For more information, see Appendix D, "Using High Availability."

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Note You must assign a Cisco ANA unit and redundant unit to a specific protection group.

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4. Customize polling groups and rates. See Customizing a Polling Group, page 6-8.

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Note This step can be performed at any time after you have prepared the deployment plan.

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5. (Optional) Define static links between two ports of two network elements in the network. See Creating a Static Link, page 7-1.

6. (Optional) Manage and run workflows in runtime using the Workflow Engine windows. See Chapter 8, "Workflow Administration Tasks."

Steps for Setting Up Users and Scopes

The flow presented in Figure 2-2 and described in the text that follows identifies the steps required to set up users and to view them using Cisco ANA Manage.

Figure 2-2 Basic Steps to Set Up Cisco ANA and User Accounts

1. Install your license. See Managing Licenses.

2. Define and manage scopes. See Creating and Managing Scopes, page 9-6.

3. Define and manage Cisco ANA user accounts. See Managing User Accounts and Controlling User Access, page 9-8.

4. Customize a message of the day to define a message (service disclaimer) that is displayed when a user logs into the client applications. See Customizing a Message of the Day, page 6-3.

For detailed information about implementing a role-based security mechanism with scopes that are granted to users and managing users in the Cisco ANA platform, see Chapter 9, "Managing User Security: Roles and Scopes."

Managing Licenses

These topics describe how to manage licenses:

•Checking the Status of the License Server

•Installing Licenses

•Viewing License Properties

The Cisco ANA gateway server acts as a license client that works with license server software that is installed on the gateway. Licenses can control the features a Cisco ANA user is allowed to utilize. Cisco ANA acquires licenses from the license server and releases licenses back to the license server.

The Cisco ANA installation process includes a step for installing the initial license. For information on how to obtain license files, see Cisco Active Network Abstraction 3.7 Installation Guide.

Cisco ANA supports two license types:

•Floating—Used when the use of Cisco ANA features are counted. For example, some applications may be limited to a certain number of user sessions. These numbers are recording using the license count feature (see Table 2-1).

•Fixed—Used when the only requirement to use Cisco ANA is that the license file be installed.

Checking the Status of the License Server

Use the anactl command to check the status of the license server which runs on the gateway server:

# anactl status

You will see output similar to the following:

+ Checking for services integrity:

      - Checking if license server is up and running                [OK]

The license server status can be any of the following values:

Status	Description
OK	The license server is up and running.
LOADED	The license server is starting.
NO LICENSE	The license server is down because there is no license file.
ERROR	The license server encountered a problem starting the license file.

You can also check the license server status using the liccontrol command:

# liccontrol status

You will see output similar to the following:

Operation requested -> status

License server is up

ana37@aba890-1 [~]% 

If the license server is not running, start it with the following command:

# liccontrol start

Installing Licenses

To install a license, you must manually copy the license to the following directory, where all licenses are stored:

$UTILS_DIR/FlexNet/licenses

To install a license:

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Step 1 Log in to the gateway server and copy the license into the following directory:

$UTILS_DIR/FlexNet/licenses

Step 2 Load the license.

•If this is the first time you are installing a license file, load it using the following command:

# liccontrol status

•If you are installing and additional or changed license file, load it using the following command:

# liccontrol reread

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Viewing License Properties

You can view any licenses that are stored on the Cisco ANA gateway server. Licenses are located in the following directory:

$UTILS_DIR/FlexNet/licenses

The following is an example license file. All license files have a similar structure.

SERVER this_host ANY

USE_SERVER

VENDOR cisco

INCREMENT ANA-37-K9 cisco 1.0 22-jan-2011 uncounted \

        VENDOR_STRING=<LICENSE_TYPE>Purchase</LICENSE_TYPE> HOSTID=ANY \

        NOTICE="<LicFileID>internal03.lic</LicFileID><LicLineID>0</LicLineID> \

        <PAK>dummyPak</PAK>" SIGN="07C3 932E ABE0 3275 BD4B 08ED F4A6 \

        A1CE A334 C5D1 16F4 DAC6 0C59 F527 475F 14BA 4C70 F95A 3F3C \

        6BC0 F6A1 ACEF F3F0 69C9 CD3A 976D 51C8 99D0 CAB1 68EC" 

Table 2-1 describes the fields in the license file.

Table 2-1 License Properties 

Field	Description
SERVER hostname hostid	Specifies the hostname and host ID of the machine on which the license server will run. this_machine means the current server, and ANY specifies that the host ID field will not be used.
USE_SERVER	Indicates that the license server should always be used.
VENDOR cisco	Specifies the location of the vendor daemon in the $UTILS_DIR/FlexNet/bin directory.
INCREMENT features...	Supported license features: •Name—Feature name used by application code •Vendor—Feature vendor •Version—Feature version •Expiration—License expiration date •Count—Current license count, if applicable •Vendor string—Purchaser information •HOSTID—(Not used) •NOTICE—PAK string information •SIGN—License signature