Hi, everyone, welcome to this video. Today, I will show you some advanced Intersight features that become available when you connect Nexus switches to Cisco Intersight using the Intersight assist Virtual appliance.00:04We will start with an overview of the claiming options. Then we will go over the benefits and show a couple of demos. After that, we will cover the connectivity requirements and integration. In the final demo, you will see how to claim the devices through Intersight assist. Let's get started with the 1st part.00:17Intersight is a cloud based management service that gives you a single view across your Cisco compute, data center networking and storage systems. Here we have some of the supported platforms. You can add targets to your inner site instance through the device connector. Many Cisco endpoints already include this small software component, which establishes the security.00:37Pure connection to Intersight.00:57For data center endpoints that do not have a device connector, such as inter site supported 3rd party storage arrays or vCenter, you can use Intersight Assist as a proxy. Intersight Assist is a virtual appliance that runs the device connector and connects to those devices locally. It is not limited to 3rd party devices though. It can also connect.01:00To Nexus and MDS switches and enable some advanced inter site capabilities for them.01:20This success capsule focuses on those capabilities. There are two ways to claim your Nexus switches. The direct claim method and the method using an inter site assist virtual machine. Each method brings its own benefits. Direct claim gives you direct access to connected TAC for proactive support. It require.01:25Requires Nexus OS release 10.23 F or later and you do not need an additional license to use this feature.01:45This method uses the built in device connector feature in Nexus OS to enable a direct secure connection to intersight. On the other hand, assist based claiming provides Intersight inventory and inter site orchestration. It requires Nexus OS release 9.39 or later and an intersight advantage license per switch. This method.01:51Uses the inter site assist virtual appliance, which acts as a proxy between the Nexus switches and the Intersight Cloud.02:11As you can see, communication between the Intersight assist VM and the switches happens through the switch REST API. So depending on your needs, you could have some Nexus switches connected directly to Intersight SaaS and others connected through the Intersight assist VM. You can also use both claiming methods on the same Nexus switch.02:17This gives you the benefits of both options. With this alternative, you get the three benefits, connected tech, Intersight inventory, and inter site orchestration. So what do these benefits mean for you? Let's take a closer look at these benefits.02:36Here we have the two options, direct claim and claiming via inter site assist, along with the benefits each one provides. With direct claim you get connected TAC functionality, so you have automated collection of show tech support details when you open a TAC case, so the logs are collected and attached to the TAC case just after it is opened.02:53And it also supports remote on demand collection, so attack engineer can pull tech support data at any point in the case life cycle without requiring your involvement. In the future, things under consideration, opening proactive TAC cases based on telemetry or hardware faults and on demand collection of individual show commands.03:13With claiming via Intersight assist, you get basic Intersight inventory. It also provides several benefits. You get centralized device visibility. Instead of spending hours tracking the health and inventory of tens or hundreds of Nexus switches using multiple tools and browser windows, you can see all those devices in one list. You can view health status, model port.03:32Contract status and firmware version. With detailed hardware and land visibility, you can select an Ethernet switch from the list and see information specific to that device.03:53You can track alarms, events, advisories, and more. And 3rd, you can also check license status, NTP and syslog configuration, and the features enabled on that switch. For intersight orchestration, the main features include workflow automation. You can use workflow designer to build your own workflows using a drag and.04:02Drop interface. You can use pre built validated tasks, create custom ones or clone and modify existing tasks.04:22Simplified cross domain orchestration. You can provision across Cisco UCS, Nexus, and MDS switches, as well as supported 3rd party systems. And 3rd, reduced risk. Orchestration helps standardize operations and reduce configuration errors and drift, and with role based access control or R back, you can define roles and.04:29Privileged sets such as network administrator or network operator to control access to automation functions.04:49In this success capsule, we review and demo the advanced features. For more information about connected tech, its requirements and direct claim for Nexus switches, you can watch the recording of our previous expert insights session, the value of intersight telemetry.04:56In the next demo, let's take a closer look at the Ethernet switch inventory in Intersight. Once we claim our 1st switch via Intersight assist, this networking tab becomes visible, and we immediately get two layers of visibility. The 1st one is the all Ethernet switches view with a summary dashboard and table view. Here you can see the list of claimed switches.05:15In this case, we only have two switches. On the dashboard, we're tracking health, connection status, firmware version, models, and contract status of all the claimed Ethernet switches. Then, in the table view, we go a bit further. We can see name, health, contract status, management IP, model, expansion modules, ports, and firmware.05:35For health, we have two alarm severity definitions, critical and warning. You can hover the cursor over the health status to view the fault code or codes in the fault description. 2nd level of visibility comes when you select an Ethernet switch in the table.05:55This opens the Ethernet switch details view with two tabs, general and inventory. Under general, we have three sections, details, properties, and events. Details gives us the full hardware fingerprint, name, switch type, serial number, model, management IP, firmware version, system uptime, contract status.06:10Last day of support and more.06:31Properties covers access and thermal information, and events is where we track alarms, events, and advisories for the switch, and you can acknowledge alarms, not just view them. Under inventory, we have three sections, general, physical, and logical. General gives us a summary view.06:33Physical covers the hardware layer. You can find here ports, supervisor modules, switching modules, then logical is where we go deep into system, which covers general NTP, DNS, syslog, and SNMP. Port channels covering Ethernet, FCOE, and virtual port channels.06:52You can also see L two neighbors, VLANs, vrfs, licenses, and features. So in short, this view shows that once claimed, Intersight gives us both a quick operational snapshot and an inventory view of every claimed Ethernet switch.07:10With this, I conclude the 1st demo. This slide is for your reference and provides a structured view of the information we just saw in the demo. Now, let's see a demo of intersight Nexus orchestration, which is called automation in the latest versions.07:25If we go to automate workflows, you can see the workflows dashboard. In this environment we have 74 workflows. 60 of them are in the sample library. These workflows come out of the box and are ready to use. The other 14 are custom workflows we created in my workflows.07:42Now let's narrow our focus.08:01If I filter this list by the keyword VLAN one workflow rises to the top, new_VLAN_nexus. This is the workflow we're going to use. Here, by clicking the ellipsis, we can execute this workflow directly. But before we do that, I want to show you a few parts of the workflow tool.08:03Here, you can see the workflow designer and the pre built tasks available to build and run workflows. In this workflow, after start, we have a task called set NXVLAN, followed by copy nx running to startup configuration. Then, the workflow branches into two outcomes, success or failure.08:24On the left, we have the tools panel with the tasks, which are the individual building blocks of workflows. They are designed to perform specific actions on infrastructure components, and there you can see the categories like compute, hyperflex, networking, which is where our VLAN tasks came from, storage, virtualization, and more.08:41Now, let's look at the NXOS tasks supported for Nexus network targets in intersight. We have port channel tasks, the copy running to startup config task and system tasks such as configure DNS server and NTP server. Scrolling down, we also have VLAN tasks and VPC configuration tasks. So you can drag and drop these tasks.09:01Into your workflows in the panel on the right.09:21Now, let's run this workflow. If I click on execute, this opens a panel where we can provide the two inputs we define for this workflow, the target Nexus switch and the VLAN ID. Let's select the target switch. In this case, the switch N9KO1, click select and then enter the VLAN ID.09:24In this case, 99. Before I hit execute here, I want to go to my Nexus switch.09:44For this demonstration, I want to make sure that my VLAN is going to be configured correctly. So let's run the show VLAN command. I can see here that this switch already has a couple of VLANs configured, but VLAN 99 is not present yet, so I'll go back to Intersight and let's execute the workflow.09:51In the panel on the right, we can see that the workflow completed successfully. We can also review the execution details and logs. We can go back to the switch CLI. If we run the same show VLAN command, we can see that VLAN 99 is now present and active, and the corresponding configuration has already been saved. This shows how.10:08For you using Intersight automation can create a configuration on the switch and make it available for use. And that wraps up 2nd demo.10:28This slide is for reference. It lists and groups into categories the network orchestration tasks currently available. Now, let's talk about the inter site connectivity requirements and switch integration. So one requirement is Cisco Intersight assist. Intersight Assist allows you not only to claim.10:38Devices that do not have a device connector, but also to use advanced features on Nexus switches. Intersight communicates with 3rd party devices and Nexus switches through their APIs by using Intersight assist.10:58Intersight Assist is a virtual appliance, a VM that can be deployed on VMware ESXi, Microsoft hyper V, KVM or Newtonix AHV. After it is deployed, you 1st need to claim it directly. Then you can claim the Nexus switches in Intersight through Intersight assist. In the bottom left, you can see a link to a video that shows.11:09Shows how to install Intersight assist on VMware vSphere.11:29For detailed instructions, please refer to the Getting Started guide, also referenced on this slide. Once you deploy and claim your inner site Assist appliance, you are ready to claim the Nexus switches. These are the steps to follow. Now, let's see how to claim a Nexus switch through Intersight assist.11:331st, let's take a look on the targets we have claimed here. In targets, you can see the list of all the devices that have been claimed so far. Here, you can see UCS servers, Nexus switches, Cisco assist, and more. I'm going to apply a filter to view. Assist.11:54And Cisco Nexus switches. So, we have our inter site assist appliance, two switches, N9KO1, and N9KO2 that have been claimed directly. The device listed with IP address 10.48.54.6 is a switch that was claimed using our inter site Assist appliance.12:13IP address 10.48.54.6 belongs to the same switch n9KO1. If I click on n9KO1.12:33We can see that its IP address is 10.48.54.6. So to make it clearer, we are combining both claiming methods on the same switch. That switch has been claimed twice, and we can see it listed with two target names N9KO1 and 10.48.54.6.12:43With that said, let's follow the steps to claim a Nexus switch using Intersight assist. 1st, we will log into the Nexus switch, enter configuration mode, and enable the NXA PI feature. You can verify that it is active by running the command show NXA PI. This also confirms that the switch is listening on HTTP.13:04P port 443.13:24Then we log into Cisco Intersight, under system targets, we select claim a new target. Then select Cisco Nexus Switch and click start. In the claim Cisco Nexus Switch target window, select claim target with assist.13:28And switch the claim type. Then verify that the correct inter site assist VM is selected. Our assist VM is already running. Then enter the switch's IP address and port. In my case, it is 10.48.54.7 port 443, and enter the credentials.13:47Then click claim. And after a few minutes, the switch will appear as connected under networking greater than Ethernet switches. So today we saw how to unlock advanced Intersight features by connecting Nexus switches to Cisco Intersight using the Intersight assist virtual machine. We hope you found that.14:06It's useful as you adopt Nexus switches and Cisco Intersight. Thanks for your time.14:26
