Catalyst Center Network Automation Deployment Best Practices

Oh, let's get started because we have a lot to cover today and welcome everyone in this catalyst center network automation.00:00And deployment best practices session. I'm the host and presenter for today. Hope you see my slides very clearly. Today myself and Lassia we will take you through this best practices for the automation session. Let me quickly introduce ourselves.00:20I'm customer success specialist in enterprise APJC region. I have around ten plus years of experience working in this Cisco's network management solutions, automation and routing switching technology at the various stages of engagements. I carry several certifications.00:39Related to networking as well as devops. And my current focus is on the enterprise technologies like Catalyst Center SDA, SD WAN, Meraki and thousandeyes.01:00Lasa here is also my colleague and she's also a customer success specialist. Her focus is currently on enterprise networking specialized in Cisco Catalyst Center. She's also Cisco certified devnet Associate and Network associate with extensive knowledge and experience with programmer.01:13Ability and automation of Cisco's products.01:32Just before I start the presentation, a few logistical items. During today's session, you will have a good opportunity to ask questions. Please leverage that. You will see the chat window and there is a Slido for polling and Q and A If you feel.01:38Is in a difficulty in any of.01:56Like audio or video or demo quality. Let us know in the chat. Please put in your questions in Q and A panel which you will find on the three dots which are there on the right hand side down. The Slido itself will have the Q and A taken in, ok? So last.02:00And started Slido if you have questions put in there so that we can.02:20Our panelists can reach out to you and we will not miss any questions. Thank you actually for posting in the past session links. All these sessions that we deliver, they are recorded and you can find them and add this link. For the upcoming sessions.02:24Like this expert inside series will put in the registration link as well to you.02:43Now let us get to the topic. What we will cover today is we'll review how we can do the automation in the networks related settings, some standard non standard changes, and then we'll see how.02:50To use Catalyst Center to keep your devices up to date. Now, that means a lot of things like software image management, having a right version, having a proper golden configuration on your devices. If you have, let's say RMA, how to do that using catalyst center.03:06And then there are several other things like for wired wireless upgrades we will cover in the demo also.03:27Agenda is basically to identify the network changes which you are doing, what kind of changes though those are so as to choose which methodology you want to go with from the catalyst center or the controller perspective, then software image management, there is something called templates.03:36For the wired environment and feature templates for wireless environment will cover both and RMA workflows.03:54So let's just touch base on the slides. We will try to keep it more on demo, but some slides will give you clarification on the topic. So what is the base automation here that we are talking about? Well, Cisco's intent based networking, it be.04:02Against by repeating administration task and how to automate them on this fundamental. So provisioning and configuring is the very basic thing when it comes to automation.04:21Now, it is used for operations to create, to change, to update or to delete some of the network settings which are called as base network settings which you can find in the design section. So, there are compliance monitoring also. There is plug and play for zero touch provisioning.04:36Which we covered earlier in sessions in depth, which you can find in the previous recordings. Today we are not going to touch that topic, but plug and play is basically one of the base automation.04:56Now that we expect customers to do because that will ease out your onboarding process for both wired and wireless environment a lot. Then comes the day zero, provisioning, which is.05:10The bulk template you can have put on your devices after plug and play and get the devices into the system with some basic golden config. Then there is obviously software image management which is key in this era where we have Mightos.05:27Updates coming in and P sets coming in from cisco's side where we obviously want an automated method.05:47To do the software image upgrades to keep your network on a latest and bug fixed version. Also the methodology matters as well as the speed matters now.05:54Because you cannot have your network vulnerable for long time. You need to do this software image upgrade in a automated way. Manual way is way, way back now. So for all the day one, day two, day in functionalities also, there is a method called templates that.06:10That we will see and when there is some fault in the switches or you need a device replacement for return material authorizations which is termed at RMA, that sort of automation is also there. So we have.06:30We have a tentative figure that we usually state that around 60 to 61 % expenses can be eliminated which needs like operational cost as well as time spent on manual tasks. Those can be lowered.06:48To 60 load by 61 % if you really indulge into this automation tools that we have from catalyst center for network.07:07Now, when we talk about the network changes, we categorize them as standard or non standard changes. So this is gonna help us, help us in how we automate those changes as well. So we talk about standard changes that are.07:18Are really an automated change request?07:36What I mean by that is there is NO approval required as such, there is NO change control that is needed here. So the standard changes is the context of in the catalyst center are not necessarily affecting something on a traffic flow across the devices. So that's why we said there is little to NO downtime.07:39For the standard changes. Now, when we go to the non standard changes, those are the ones that we typically think about like.07:59There has to be some change control tickets, the CRs should be raised, then there will be some approval chain that will be involved. Then sometimes they will disrupt the flow of the network traffic. So in short, we need a maintenance window for that.08:07So having said that now a lot of standard changes are network management related, so some examples are like adding a new syslog or triple AAA configuration. So if you are doing the AAA with the Cisco eyes, with or with radius, then.08:27We have this ten like standard changes set in very consistent manner. So it doesn't necessarily have to affect the way traffic flows across the network, so there is NO downtime. Then you see DNS DHCP servers, and then updates are there for management protocols like.08:45Like NDP netflow, SNMP, SSH or telnet. So those are the standard network changes.09:05So for those standard network changes, you, the workflow is very simple. You begin with discovering the devices, then you create a hierarchy, then add your areas, buildings, floors into that hierarchy. Now, we are not going to do that very often. It's just a one time thing.09:13Then once the devices are brought up online, the network settings are pushed when you assign the devices to a site. So, whichever, wherever it is applicable, you will choose the configuration and then you review it and deploy. So it's a.09:32Very straightforward thing.09:52Now let's come to the non standard changes. So if we recall, we classified non standard network changes as the thing that may cause the downtime or required any approval or maintenance window before we deploy it. Now, there are many things that fall under that classification, so.09:54Which are like software image upgrades, RMA. If we have any QoS policy that we want to update, even that will fall under that non standard changes category. So catalyst center as a controller handles these changes bit differently. So.10:13Let's spend some time talking on those, ok? The 1st one is software image management. Everybody's doing it few are doing already with catalyst center. Just that this feature is getting enhanced version by version and new enhancements are coming.10:32We will discuss workflow and then Lastly will demo it later. So what we will cover here is under software management, it's it's basically a closed loop process or it has to be a closed loop process where we will have.10:51The pre and post checks validations that will be happening to check if the device is ready for the upgrades or not. Once we validate that, the software will be software upgrade will be happening, the reboot of the device will be happening.11:10Then if you want to have this process as a closed loop where you want to handle approvals from catalyst center or directly according to the change window, we do have the ITSM integration with ServiceNow for this automated process or to make it end to end automated.11:28And then, in case of wireless, we have rolling AP upgrades where we will have ideally like almost zero network downtime. That is how the rolling upgrades are.11:48Designed. So let's see how you have to plan a software image management. Now, the very basic thing for this software image management is to have a golden image.12:04In the system. So you have to decide which one is golden image. Catalyst Center can help you to suggest the image by marking them as suggested or a verified image where you will understand the downloaded image.12:21Is very much authentic. The checksum and MD five verification is already done by catalyst center. To have these things, you need some prerequisites. Once you have decided, ok, for one particular family.12:37I will have XYZ image as a golden image. You will have to go and tag it as a golden image. Once you tag it and if you enter proper CCO credentials in your catalyst center, catalyst center will at the back end fetch that from.12:55Software.cisco.com into its repository. So that is importing of the image. There is obvious other option also available, which is a remote server where you can keep your image and center can fetch from there.13:13So once you have the golden image defined, it gets downloaded. Once you put it as a golden, the download starts. You would have seen it. Then for that particular family, wherever.13:30You or your device of that family is not on a golden image, it will be flagged in the inventory up for an upgrade. So that you will see how many devices are up for an upgrade, there will be a pre check that will be automatically done. You can run that readiness assessment anytime.13:44Once everything is good, you can go ahead and start the workflow. Now, this is how the step by step process looks. So the step one is, importing the image and SMU. The step two is making it as a golden image, so.14:04But if there are, if you have proper CCO integration done, it is, it is automatically fetched. The image is automatically fetched. You don't have to do anything extra, ok?14:24So, you have the image now, you have marked it as golden. In step three, you see the system pushing the devices or presenting the devices to you saying that these devices needs an upgrade.14:42Step four is precheck validation, which is done automatically and kept ready. If you want, you can do that. There are some prechecks that you can insert also for this pre check validations. Also, when you do the software upgrade, it's a two step process.14:581st is to have the image put in in the boot flash, which is distribution, and then the reboot comes which activates the image, ok? So it's a distribution and activation. If you have your ITSM or ServiceNow integrated, there will be.15:19Gets created accordingly for both the process and you need to approve it once it is approved, the process starts for the given time. If you decline it from your ITSM system, obviously it is halted.15:38Now, distribution and activation is set. You have started the upgrade, in between you cannot stop the upgrade if the activation phase is done. The best practice for this is and which what I have seen in customer's environment usually is.15:51For the non critical devices, at least you can have the distribution done in, business hours because that does not disrupt anything. For the activation, obviously since it needs switch rebooting, you will need a.16:10Maintenance window. Then after the both the processes are done, we will need to do the post upgrade validation, which is again, there are already by default few post checks which are available. You can increase those post checks if you have any particular.16:29Up that you follow. Roll back to the older version if it fails is not available in center currently. So some of the best practices we have seen is.16:48As I mentioned, activation should be in the maintenance window where a distribution can be done in the business hours because it's non disruptive activity. Before you do the activation or start the activation.17:06To review the distribution and activation task status. Even post that like sometimes it takes time around 30 to 40 min, so you will see the task status like how much it is done. There is very much granularity into it. So it is recommended to keep an eye on that task status.17:22In 23710 version, we, you have to go to this task status window separately from the inventory itself. But if you see in three.one.x version, there is a different.17:43Software image management pane itself, that has come or the screen which will just focus on the software image management and nothing else, ok? In that it is way better than current version. Audit logs are always captured during any process that is done on canada.18:00Listen center. So for the actions taken by swim, who has activated, who has done the distribution, even those all are available, we once your upgrades are done, and if you see any discrepancy, you can review the audit logs. Valid CCO credentials are.18:20The base for software image management automation workflow. So you you must take care of the CCO credentials at the start itself. And if you have ServiceNow as an ITSM system, you can integrate though that the integration is very strong now.18:39Now into 07:10 also some enhancements are coming in three.one.x. So if you have ServiceNow do plan to integrate it for the ticket approvals.18:59Now I'll give it back to Lassia to do demo. Lassia? Yeah. I hope my screen is visible.19:11So this is a recording team. What we will be doing here is today we will be seeing how to upgrade a switch and also we will see how we can like the image.19:25But 1st we will be going and check the model because there can be we'll have to 1st confirm the model before we check the golden image because in the image repository we'll be able to see different families. So we will upgrade one of these 9500 devices.19:44And they are currently running seventeen.twelve.four version. So if I click on this particular device, I'll be able to see the device details and if I click on the show more I'll be able to see the actual platform of this device. And now we can go to image repository.20:02And go to that particular device family. So image repository and here I will be searching for that 9524 52C And here we'll be able to see all the images that are there on the software.Cisco.com.20:20So that means whatever images that have been uploaded on the software.com, those would be displayed here. But again team just because they are displayed here that doesn't Mean Center actually has those downloaded, you see this download option. There is there is a star beside some of these images and there is a download option besides some of.20:39These images. That is because only and only when you download that image, when you click on this download and you download it, you will be able to see this gold star image where you can select that image as the golden image. Golden image is nothing but it's an validated image.20:59So that you have which can be pushed to all the devices for this specific device family so that you have consistency over your devices. Now, and this download of this image would be taking based on some time based on your bandwidth.21:19And once you select a specific golden specific image as a golden image, you will be seeing this yellow icon yellow star, which represents that this is the golden image for this specific device family. And also team, one more thing that I wanna highlight is sometimes what we usually do is we.21:35Go to a specific site.21:55And there we configure the golden image. And then if we go to some other site and then we check if that particular golden image is updated, we usually will be not able to see that updated because the site based settings would be always be taking preference over the global. That means if you.21:57Go to a specific site and make any changes.22:17Those changes will only be reflected on that specific site, not any other sites so which means if you want to have a consistent image for your 95 hundreds or for any US families for that matter, in that case you have to go to global and select a single image as the golden image.22:20Or if you wanna have different images for different sites, then you would be going to that specific site and would be selecting the golden image. Now I have selected this seventeen.1.four as a golden image and again if you wanna.22:39Against filter the bolder image based on device roles or tags, you be would be going to this pencil icon which I'll be going in a minute. But now what I'll do is I'll select this up now you can see that it's a white star.22:55But once I click on that star, I'll be getting this warning saying that this would be tagged as a golden image and soon that particular star star would be converted to a yellow one because now that is tagged as the golden image for 9500 devices.23:13Globally and whatever 9500 devices that are not running on the specific version which is seventeen.fifteen.three would be having a tag as needs update, which means all the 9500 devices are supposed to be running on seventeen.fifteen.three.23:30Now we see that when I click on this pencil icon beside the device rules, I'll be able to select this image for a specific device role and also if I wanna have this image for specific devices with a specific.23:48Tag here so that only the devices with that tag again only the 9500 devices for with that tag wouldn't be having this new if they are not running on this old image version.24:03So in this way you would be selecting a golden image for your for your device family. Now we are here in the inventory page. As already mentioned in the in from my three.X version, this software image management would be a different image.24:20Which which would be available in the inventory.24:40But 237 it would be available in the inventory only. Now, if you observe, we have this needs update beside below this version. Now what I'll do is I'll click on that and then I'll be able to see that the running image and the golden image is different.24:43That is the reason this update has to be done. So what we are doing here is we are ensuring that the software image compliance is good. And for the update to be started for the upgrade workflow to start, there would be some readiness checks that would be done from the center side just to ensure that it has.25:02Connectivity to the device and it is able to transfer the image to the device and it and device actually has enough flash to to download the image, to copy the image, and then there would be like start up checks register checks.25:23So in this way, Atlas Center will be checking if the device is actually ready for the upgrade or not. And this should be success if we want to start the upgrade workflow because if any of these checks is failed.25:40Then we would not be even having an option to start the workflow also. So if all the status or the check status should either be green or should have a warning. Anything is fine as long as they are success and only and only then we'll be able to start the workflow.25:55Now this update is done. Now what we'll do is I'll start a software image update for that we will be going to software image and image update and give a name to this. Task, and then.26:12Now, those checks that we have done is for the center to know if the device is ready for the upgrade, but these checks are for the, for your purpose. If you wanna, if you have few checks that you usually do before and after upgrade, you can do add those here by just adding the name to that particular check.26:29And giving the command center, so that what happens is based on the options that you add here when in the when.26:49In and now once I click on the save, I will be able to see that particular check. You see what I'm trying to do here is I'm just checking if the interfaces, all the interfaces are up before and after copying the images.27:07Like basically the required ones. And now activation checks, activation is where you actually reboot the device and upgrade your device. If you want to skip the activation, you can do it by enabling that button, and also you can add checks based on.27:22Your reference and now if I click on the skip activation, NO activation would be done, that is only copy of the image would be done to the device and the activation would be skipped for this and you will have to schedule it for some further time.27:39Now, this is a new feature team, this parallel and sequential, basically the activation order is added newly in 237. What happens here is if you order of the upgrade, if you want to do the, all the images.27:54At the same time, you can select parallel or if you want to do those sequentially that is 1st you wanna do the four devices and then only and only when the core devices upgrade is success, you wanna do the solution. In that case you can select the sequential.28:12And in, in that order, I mean whatever order you select in the sequential, the update would be done. So now what I'll do is currently it is in parallel order. I'll select these devices and move them to sequential update order. Now here.28:27I'll be able to see all the devices that would be upgraded in sequential. And if I click on select these devices, I'll be having an option to move again, move them back to parallel upgrade order and you can reorder this list as well.28:43You want to 1st upgrade this border two and then whatever you can do it. So basically you can reorder and then as I already mentioned like if you want now let's say if your device upgrade is failed, you don't want to do any of the sequential updates or devices upgrade at all.28:58In that case, you can click on this terminated update failure so that any of the high, I mean top devices upgrade is failed. In that case all the devices below that device would be failed. In this way.29:16You can reorder your list and now you we have an option to schedule it for later. Yeah, so this is how you can order and then you can schedule the distribution and activation for later or you can do it immediately nowadays, and then it's very important that if you're going to schedule it, you'll have.29:31Have to check the exact accurate.29:51Time zone. And then if you want to do the flash clean up which means all the previous software image related files would be deleted if you check this initial flash cleanup after activation so that only and only when the upgrade is successfully done, all the previous images would be deleted.29:54Now, once you check everything that you require in the workflow, you can click on this summary option and you'll be able to see all the elements that you have selected, and when you submit it for the upgrade, it would be.30:14Added in the activities tab and if you have scheduled it for later, it would be scheduled, it would be started at that time or if you have scheduled it for now, it would be starting immediately. And then.30:30Also one more thing I have forgotten to mention, so let's say you have integrated your catalyst center with ServiceNow, in that case, you would not be able to see this now option at all. I mean it would be disabled for you because when the ServiceNow is integrated with catalyst center, a ticket could be created on ServiceNow.30:45Which has to be approved and only and only then the particular upgrade would be started from the center side. So for the up since obviously the change request would be done in future that later only option would be available for you and now would be disabled.31:05So we will be scheduling the upgrade for the specific time that we have like basically maintenance window and then the ticket should be approved on the ServiceNow and then that information will be propagated back to center and center will be performing the upgrade based on the time that you scheduled.31:23So in this way, we will be scheduling the upgrade and once the upgrade is scheduled, we will be able to see that in the activities task. So again, if you wanna edit the time basically let's say you change.31:42Entered the time wrong, then you can go and edit it with the exact time and then save it or let's say you want to delete it, you just scheduled it to check how it is working. In that case, you can delete it as well. So and again if you want to do a rollback, basically what you'll be doing.31:58You would be doing the downgrade. You again would be setting the previous.32:18Image as the golden image and would be performing the upgrade I mean basically it would be downgrade, so in this way you can do a rollback also. So that is for the software image management.32:22I'll hand it over back to continue with the presentation. Just second, I'll bring up my slides sharing. Yeah, do you see it?32:38Yes. Yeah. Okay, let's get ahead. Now that we know the image management and how we can do, it's time to understand how we can do the templating from catalyst center, some of the best practice.32:55Business to do it.33:15So, the templates that are there in catalyst center, are stored somewhere called as template hub because all the templates at the centralized location would help you to understand how many templates are there per family.33:16For per action, ok? So action as in there are few templates maybe for day two actions on eyes.33:36There are few templates related to some NTP DHCP, so those will be there in the template hub. Now these templates are in two languages that we have. One is the velocity language and the other one is ginger.33:44The sample templates are available in your catalyst center template hub. So, what is this template hub? As I said we will have two types of projects. One will be day zero, like onboarding projects, and there will be some some of the provisioning templates.34:03Day zero templates are basically the ones which you will attach to the device when you are onboarding them plug and play as a day like initial configuration that needed to be on the device.34:24So, this you have to include on an onboarding configuration project. Just note that, ok? Because when you go and try to attach aD0 template, the projects only from this onboarding configuration project, the templates only from this onboarding configuration projects will be popped up.34:37So, just make sure you have this properly categorized and then if you want to like now with the day zero template, your device is sitting in the inventory and you want to top up the configuration, this will be day one template or day two template.34:57This will be under section provisioning template, ok? It is on top of day zero template if you want the config on it to be there, you can add on. You can make something called as composite template, which is the sequence of different templates.35:16If you want to have some configuration put on a device on a sequential basis only, you can make this composite template. Now, if you see, the templates would template hub would look something like this.35:36It can be directly provisioned to the device without reprovisioning the intent from catalyst center. Now there is a big component in between called network profiles. We'll touch to that as well. The templates while provisioning can detect if there are any.35:52Conflicts with some other templates available also and it will be popped up to you. Obviously there is an option to preview the configuration. Once you see the configuration and the intent is properly translating on a CLI, then only you deploy it, ok?36:12A good part of templates is the template simulation. Now, if you have a template, let's say, you want to know how it would look because there are so many programming components, Somebody else might have done the template, but you want to see how to.36:29How it will look on a CLI. You do the simulation. Once you have the simulation done, the whole config for particular device will be given. So you can check all your IPs, loopbacks, whichever, whatever you are configuring from or interface configuration for that matter.36:47From the automation of templates.37:07So this is the workflow that, happens. 1st is configuration of the templates. Then you assign those templates to something called as network profiles. Those network profiles, as we said earlier, everything in catalyst center has a dependency on hierarchy.37:10Those network profiles is something which ties your template and your site. When the device is there assigned in the site, it means those templates can be put on that particular device. Now, putting that configuration on a device step is called as provisioning.37:28So when I come to, like when I go to customers many a times they ask, is this provisioning really necessary for a device? The answer is yes, because when you tell in a GUI, on a controller, something, some IPs, some aaa, some NDP or some template.37:48That is just you telling controller that this is the information. Actual putting of that information on your devices happens in a provisioning step. So provisioning is very important. It's not something that you we should be skipping. Now.38:09For the template configuration, when it comes to template configuration, there are few best practices which I want to let you know. Obviously, this is a programmability approach that we have. Through scripting, we will create the configuration which will not be specific to one device, but it will be specific to.38:27The Entire network.38:47In that case, what happens is we will tend to use some of the variables, right? Keeping the number of variables less will always help during the provisioning, ok? Whether it is a day zero, day one config, it will help you to keep the variables, number of.38:48Variables less.39:08Okay. Oh, ok. Now, after templates comes the feature templates, which is the wireless templates part from the template hub, you can create the wireless templates. That is one part. But there are few.39:09Such templates which are already available on Catalyst Center, which can be learned on a WLC basis also. So if you have, let's say one WLC configured very nicely, our feature templates can learn those configuration, put it in a templatized format, and this template can be reused. So.39:29At the end, the efforts from the ops team can be reduced. That is the whole purpose of this template automation. These are all the.39:49I would say parameters that gets fetched in the feature templates. Now I think I'll hand it over again to Nacia for demo. Thank you.40:00Team now I'll be showing the also before I do that, let me do enable the rolling AP upgrade with rolling AP upgrade we will be.40:19Most of client experience. So for that what we would be doing is we would be selecting I mean few APs to start the update and then it would be going through iteration rate.40:37So that we will be selecting when we actually provision the WLC. So what you have to do is the workflow will be same thing where but before you actually start the work, you will be, I mean, for the rolling.40:54You have to 1st, how you would be doing that is on your center and when you provision I'll start the provisioning workflow device and here.41:10When you actually start the provisioning workflow, this is the warning. Here you would be needing to select the managed and when you select the, when you have to select this.41:26For the primary controller, you would be selecting the managing locations as your site and for the N plus one controller, you would be selecting the same site but for the secondary locations I mean managing secondary locations.41:42So what happens is then catalyst center would be ok this is the primary controller and this is the secondary controller for this specific site. And then once you do that, once you provision the secondary controller for the primary controller, you will be having this rolling AP update, and also one more thing is.42:001st we'll have to secondary controller to the required version and then we will be starting the primary one. So for when you start the primary one, we'll be enabling this upgrade and here AP reboot percentage that is how much.42:19Percentage of APs should be 1st started with the upgrade like based on for each iteration, how many, how much percentage of APs should be upgraded and should be moved to the secondary controller that is what we are gonna select here and then we follow the provisioning process for the WLC.42:39And once this is done, then you can go ahead and start the upgrade for the primary controller that when you start the upgrade for the primary controller after enabling this rolling AP upgrade, you would be seeing that APs are moving some few APs would be starting to move to.42:56Secondary controller and would be starting the upgrade. So what happens is the only extra thing that will be doing here for the wireless upgrade is you would be coming to the primary controller and enabling this AP reboot percentage.43:15And after you do this, you follow the same procedure that we have seen for the switch. So that is for the that's the only difference. But now let's do get to know how to do a create template.43:31So to create a template, if you are on 235 you will be going to tools and template hub, but obviously it would be redirecting you to the if you are on 237 and if you try to go to tools. So, but you can go to the CLI templates directly from design CLI templates.43:49This is where you will be able to see all the templates that you have created on your.44:09Now the 1st thing that we would be doing is create a project or if you already have an existing project, what you or you can just select that project while you create a template, but I am creating a project and then creating a template in it. Now there are two types of templates here, one is regular and then there is composite.44:14Regular is just a single template and composite is a combination of several regular templates which means you can schedule the order of the templates in which they should be executed. Now template language that is and velocity. Now ginger is like Python.44:34And velocity is a little similar to Java, so whatever programming language that you are suitable with, you can use that and the syntax for each of this language is available publicly, so you can just understand how to create a variable easily. But for this demo, we will be working with.44:54And then software type we are selecting so I'll be selecting switches and hubs as my device details. You can select the device models if you want to or else you can leave it open so that all the basically all the switches would be getting this template.45:13And again, if you want to further filter this templates based on the device tag, you can do that or else or you, if you feel that this specific version of the device should be having this particular template, you can do that as well.45:30Now, this is how you will be having the templates page. You can view the, all previous committed versions in this template history. As of now, there is none. And then if there is any design conflicts, you will be able to see those here. You can search through the temp.45:46You can clone it, export it, delete it. These are the actions.46:06Now I have already copied a particular template. This has few variables. Now what happens here is it's nothing but basic VLAN what but you can use a specific template if you want to configure the interface as an access port or a trunk. How we do that is.46:09I'm giving the interface name and then if there is a description provided while you go provision the workflow, that would be added or else there would be NO description. And then you would be giving the port type, you would be entering the port type.46:28And based on the port type that you enter, you would be either giving the this port in which this I mean you would be giving in which VLAN this particular access port to be added or the in which this particular trunk port would be.46:46So in this way you can use this specific single template for both creating the access ports and trunk ports and if you want to shut down the port or do a row shut, you can do that. So this is just to explo show you how you can create variables and customize those.47:03Now what I'll do is I'll have saved it and I'll go to the variables part so variables. If you have any conflicts it would be visible there. If you go to variables, you can customize these variables.47:21As of now, these are the variable properties. Now, if you want to create a display name which is easy to understand, you can do that by entering a value in this field name. And as of now this interface is a string, but you can I mean obviously will be knowing your devices.47:37Interfaces right? In that case, what you can do is you can get this interfaces mean from the configuration and select which interface you want to actually configure. For that you will be founding this particular variable to source, which means you already have a source on your catalyst center.47:56And from there, you're getting the data value in this variable basically. Now the source would be inventory and entity is interface. So now from this interface entity, I'm collecting the port names, what happens is when you actually start the workflow, you would be able to see all the interfaces that are.48:15Are there on your device.48:35So that you just select which interface you wanna provision you want to configure and then you do the upgrade, I mean, you configure the device. Now hint text is like if you want to create something for this particular variable, that would be displayed exactly below this line.48:37In the workflow page. And if you still want to create some additional information which will be visible when you hover over this particular variable, you can add that as well. So that is how you customize a specific variable, and now I'll save this.48:56And I also want to show you another customization for a variable. So here we have this shutdown variable, right? What this will do is if there is, if you give shutdown as yes, it will shut down the way it will shut down the interface. If you give it as a NO, it should not.49:12Now for that, what I'll do is I'll select the data every type of single select and here we will need to create key values, which means when we start the workflow, we will be selecting one of these that we enter and the respective values would be assigned to that particular variable.49:28I show you how that works. So for the shutdown the port, the value is true. And now there is another key, do not shut down the port. So for that I will give the value as false. So what realistically should happen is if you select the shutdown the port, the shutdown.49:48Command should be added. If you select the do not shut down the code, NO shut should be added. Now I'll also add the hint text and additional information for this variable as well. And then once you save this particular variable, you will have an option to stimulate this.50:06Configuration since this has few variables you would want to know how this actually works when you provision this to the device, right? So in that case, we can go ahead and simulate it. I'll commit as well but not required to simulate the.50:25Configuration. I will just create a simulation and do a name to that and also give a device on which the simulation should work. And again team if you select the device and run the simulation, this configuration will not be actually executed on the device. It's just we are.50:41Trying to simulate it on the GUI. Now when I selected that interface name, you see these are all the interfaces that are there on that specific device and you can select one of them. And then you will have to give the description manually. I'll just give connected to switch one.51:00And then moved. So I'll give trunk. Now, here both VLAN which is for access port and trunk VLANs both are required. What I could have done here is I could have made this as not required.51:18That I could have had done using this one. So when I go to a particular variable, we will be having this required variable when I uncheck this box, when we and when we start the workflow, this variable would be visible in the workflow, but it would not be a required. So when the variable is required, you'll have to.51:34Put a value in it in order to continue with the workflow. So I could have made this one not required. In that case whatever based on the mode that I enter, based on the switchboard type, I could have added the VLANs. So I'll just enter VLAN as a ten.51:55Even though I have given a value here, it would not be added in the configuration because the mode that we selected is trunk, so only the allowed VLANs in the trunk port would be visible, you see? So the switchboard mode is trunk.52:14That's why only is visible here and since we selected the status as you do not shut down the port, it is NO shutdown. So this is how you can create a configuration with variables.52:29And now what I'll do is I'll show you how we can provision, so in order for us to provision this, we will have to go to design and network profiles. So you can have you have different options here. There are like five types of profiles that we can create.52:45So there are assurance firewall routing, switching wireless. So based on the devices, you can select one of them. Now since our device our template is switching, which is I will be selecting the switching profile.53:11And give a name to it. And if you have created a template in the onboarding configuration project, you would be assigning it in this onboarding template, but since we created the project separately, this is the I will select the demo.53:25One, we just search for it and select the particular template and add it. Again team it's very important that you commit the template and only and only then you would be seeing that particular template in this.53:41Search option in this search menu. Now, once you attach to that particular profile. Now, one more thing that we need to keep in mind is like for a specific site, only one type of.53:58Network profile can be added. That means you can have switching, you can have routing, you can have wireless in a specific site, but you can't have two switching, two routing, only one type of network profile can be, I mean only one network profile also specific type can be added.54:18Now he see there is a warning here. So this particular profile this particular site is already attached to some other profile. Now it is asking if you want to disassociate this particular that particular profile from the site and associate it to this.54:37This one which we want to do. So I just select yes and now our we are good to start with the provision, so we can go and I'll select the switches and select the device which we I want to configure this with.54:56I'll select this fusion 9300, check that particular device. Again, it's very important that the device is both reachable and manageable and then only we'll be able to provision the device to provision the device and here you see there is a template option.55:15So we need to give this templates, we'll be selecting any of the interface and give a description to it and more basically the port type in which we want port type for this interface and we learn because both are required.55:32And confirm the port status. If I want to make, if I want to shut down the port or NO shut, I'll just confirm to.55:48And then yeah next now here you will be able to see all the settings that would be provisioned to the device basically network settings, whatever network settings that you create for the.56:05Site in which your device is residing. All those settings also would be provisioned to the device along with the templates that we have configured. So that configuration also would be present when we actually review this configuration.56:22So I'll just ignore this. So if there are any pending operation on this device, this workflow would not be accessed. So it's it is very important that you discard all the other operations or.56:39Wait till you finish all the other operations on this device and also the compliance should be success, but if you feel that, ok, there is some compliance issues but I want to do the provision now itself, then you can ignore that and you would be able to see the configuration which could be actually pushed to the device in this page.56:57Just it and again team this previewing the configuration depends on the number of devices that you are going to provision. If you're taking like maybe ten devices at a time in that case it would take at least 5 min for the configuration to be displayed.57:16But if you are just doing it for one device, hardly it will take 1 min. So you can review the configuration here.57:32You can go through it and check if you are ok with everything. Now you see this is the and if you are ready with ok with everything, you can click on this deployed.57:51And again, you can schedule this as well. If you want to deploy for later, you can do that. You can schedule the time which at which you want to do this or else you can do it right away. So this is how you create the templates and we have discussed on that feature.58:04Feature templates are like advanced configurations for the wireless and that would be visible here. So we have different types of templates here like these are all advanced I mean, there are settings that you can create for the wireless in the network.58:22Settings please but if you want to create and some further configurations for those settings, you can do those here. So that is for templates team. I'll now hand it over back to continue with the presentation. Yeah, thank you Lassian.58:42So now we are coming to the last topic of the day, which is RMA, so just just hold on for a second. I'll bring up the slide. Do you see the RMA slide?59:00Okay ok so at times we have to do the RMA for the quality devices, right? With catalyst center, it is a completely automated workflow, which is way better than the manual one and let me explain why. So this RMA feature, it's available.59:20Right from catalyst center one.three.x version.59:38The supported platforms are almost all. You just have to check the compatibility matrix. RMA workflow works both for fabric, which is SDA environment and non fabric devices. You can replace a faulty device with the replacement device available in the inventory of the catalyst center.59:43So the workflow goes like this. The software image version of the faulty device must be imported on the image repository, that's a prerequisite because we we will have the other device which is coming up exactly similar as the.01:00:01Device which is getting rma'd. So as a prerequisite, that image version should be available on a catalyst center. Then the faulty device must be put in a unreachable state. The RMA the getting RMA device, the device A.01:00:19Should be assigned to the user defined site if the replacement device is coming up on the catalyst center through plug and play. The replacement device or device B must not be in a provisioning state while triggering this RMA workflow. So these are the prerequisites.01:00:35Now, once you have your device coming up, let's say serial number A is the one which has to be added. Serial number B is available as a fresh device. What do you do is, put A into unreachable state?01:00:55Mark it for RMA. Once you have the other device added from plug and play, you can claim that device in the workflow itself, and then all the configuration from device A.01:01:12Would be properly transferred to device B so that you don't have to do anything manually. As a part of clean up, the device A will be taken out from the inventory from catalyst center and device B will be added. So this is more of the manual workflow which.01:01:27Is getting executed similar way catalyst center would do just in an automated way and you will have proper logging of it. So.01:01:47Let's see, let's better see it in a demo. Last year over to you for demo. Team we are running over time, but I think it is ok to extend for 10 min. Thank you for your concern.01:01:55So team can start in the inventory page only provision inventory. So for the 1st your old device should be in unreachable state.01:02:14And that you can view by selecting the focus as inventory and then you should be able to see that the device is unreachable. And then you select that device and mark it for replacement. So when you mark it for replacement, you can start the replacement workflow.01:02:27So these are the prerequisites and now when I go to this device replacement I'll be able to see the replacement status as ready for replacement. Now let's say if you do not mark it for replacement, in that case, you would not be able to start this at all like now I have unmarked it for replacement.01:02:44In that case, the replacement status is not available and I will not even be able to see that replace device it is disabled for us. So it is important that you mark it for replacement and make it unreachable. So once we do this, we can start with the upgrade replacement select the device again.01:03:02And go to actions, select the device and go to actions, device replacement and replace device. So here you should be selecting the new device to which this particular RMA should be done and you can do it.01:03:22Either ways that is through plug and play or inventory. If it's a plug and play it would be like a very new device. And if it's an if it's if the device is in inventory it would be a managed device. So my current device is in plug and play. That means it's a very new device. I'll select the device which would be compatible with this particular device.01:03:38That is it's 9300 and this is also 9300. So once I do this and click on the next, be able to see all the content to the new device. So next and here the settings would be visible.01:03:59So you see this is the replacement device, this is the image that would be pushed and the license and the configuration that is the recent configuration basically the recent committed one would be and the discovery settings also which will include SNMP and telemetry settings which we have configured.01:04:16For the previous device and if ICE is configured that also could be pushed. So in this way, all this configuration would be pushed to the new device automatically, and we will be able to actually see what configuration would be pushed on the device in this.01:04:36Preview and deploy workflow, yeah. So you see this is all the configuration which would be pushed to the new device and once you are ok with everything, you can go ahead and deploy it.01:04:51And soon the device maybe in some time the device would be up and run, the new device would be up and running. So this is how you do a RMA using Atlas Center. Yeah and now I will.01:05:06Can you share your screen for the application. I don't know why, but the shared file is had to be brought up a lot of times.01:05:24Yeah, yeah please go ahead. So now we would want to leave this session with these four points team like you can leverage the.01:05:38Workflow to automate your software upgrades and to have consistency over your image versions on the devices and you can use the templates for configuring the devices and you can use a single template for several devices at the time.01:05:54And then we have not shown PNP in this, but we have already done it last week so you can view that recording in the link that we have shared. So in the PNP we would be using the day zero and day one templates which would be created in the onboarding configuration project.01:06:09And then you can use RMA to automate the RMA process using so yeah now it's time for live Q and A and if you have any questions, please do ask.01:06:28We will be there till eleven. Yeah so Sheila, your question is all party hundred percent configuration will be pushed to a new device. Yes, so whatever configuration that is running on your old device.01:06:43That is basically party device would be pushed to the new device along with the software image and license. I think we have answered all the previous questions, but please if you have any questions, please do ask.01:07:00Thank you guys for joining. Yeah. Also one more thing team like once you leave this session, you would be redirected to a survey page where we, you can take like 2 min just to fill this feedback form just to improve our future sessions.01:07:29So, that is one request from our side Okay go ahead. Yeah, yeah. So I see there is what level of can be managed.01:07:49So the again all the compatibility features would be available in the I will share it in a moment. Yeah, you're seeing something please continue.01:08:06Yeah, so there is another question, any panelists would like to take? Like the question is, can we upgrade WLC with only single node from DNAC? So I'll probably take it. So Narena if you have a single node cluster.01:08:22Then you'll be upgrading the WLC only through that, but if it is a three node cluster, then it will be acting as a single entity from a catalyst center point of view. So, so if you are asking that if we have a three node cluster, can we upgrade WLC using only a single node using that three node cluster that is not possible. A three node cluster or the.01:08:42As a single entity.01:09:03