Cisco IQ Link Connector

Oh please if you have any questions or something feel free to drop it in the chat. I have some of my colleagues here joining with us as a panelist, so they will.00:00Be able to answer your questions and if.00:20We've got a few minutes left at the end of the webinar, we can give you that 5 min to mute yourself and ask your questions live. But in the meantime, please feel free to drop all your question in the chat. So my colleague here that will support you with questions.00:23Yeah, so coming back to the agenda, I was discussing that we're gonna have the introduction, the deployment requirement, the installation pairing flow for the 3rd 4th, and 5th point it's gonna be kind of a demo. So 1st I'm gonna just introduce you to IQ link, what is the.00:42Out and the requirement and then we're gonna move to a demo where we're gonna take you through the process of installation and the pairing and all that. We will use some some screenshots that we might need on the presentation here so we might switch back to to the slider here.01:02So, 1st of all, the 1st question will be, what is IQ link? I am a customer, I just onboarded to Cisco IQ and I have my IQ there, I have probably a bunch of contract added, who is IQ, is it mandatory? Will I need it, and how can I get it? So 1st of all, IQ link.01:20Link is kind of a bridge between your data center and IQ portal, so once you have your IQ, Cisco IQ portal eh.01:40Activated and maybe you have some bench of contract with some, assets are added there, you will need IQ link to add probably a non covered devices by contract if you have another device that are not covered by bench of contract or something like that or you have some, some devices.01:52Are added by contract and they are there on the IQ portal but they don't have any telemetry up applied, so the data you have you see on the, on the IQ is just the data that was related to the, to the contract.02:12But there is NO live data telemetry about the assets, what's the assets they might have in term of assessments and in term of of bugs or what they call it or security CVs and all that. So the IQ link is basically a virtual machine.02:26OVA Linux base that the customer gonna deploy on their data center and it's gonna work as a collector. It will reach out to the devices that the customer set up on the IQ link will collect the data and.02:46Show that data on the IQ portal. So once you have your IQ link, you can see some live telemetry from your devices and like that you will see like up to date data regarding the the advisories, security things and you will have better experience with the IQ link.03:02Using live data. The objective of it is to unify and the telemetry and the operational intelligence across diverse technologies and environments, so with IQ link, you can have different assets on boarded.03:21The the the core capability of EI and the insights cannot be visible if you have only a contract based data, so you need to enable IQ link to have some live data and this is gonna be the the big value of having IQ link.03:39These, these bench of benefits and capability you will get from the IQ link is probably improving your assets visibility. As I mentioned, if you have assets coming from contract, they will have non connected data. That means some basic data.04:00Not nothing related to the assets configuration CVEs, advisories and all that will not be there because we don't know what's on the assets. Also improve the productivity of the EI decision because you have more data uploaded EI can operate on more data, it will be more, more.04:19Like more adapted for your assets and for your environment.04:40And, and also the automate troubleshooting and API based credential management for solarwind and ServiceNow integration. For IQ link currently we are supporting three.04:45A hypervisor, we are supporting VMware hyper hyper V and KVM for Red Hat hypervisors. And here's some deployment requirement, so.05:00When it comes to deploying Cisco IQ, you have to choose between two sizes depends on how big your data center is for customers within 20 K devices, they might opt for.05:16For 16 gb 06:16 CPUs and 28 gb plus 600 gb of storage SSD. In the other hand, if you assume that you can have more than 50 then 20 K and up to 50 K devices, you might need to go for 48 gb of run.05:3332 CPUs and 600 gb always recommended is SSD. If you don't have it, it's fine, but SSD is the recommended one. It's helped with the latencies.05:53And this is the versions of the earlier hypervisor mentioned, so VMware eight and above hyper V for 22 and and 25, the KVM for nine.seven. This is the version supported.06:06Yeah, and this is the hardware requirements let's say. Then there is another requirement related to the, to the network. So remember the Cisco IQ is a bridge that you deploy, like it's kind of a bridge, it's a virtual machine that you deploy in your data set.06:24Center and it will upload the data to Cisco IQ portal. To do that.06:44Cisco IQ need to be able to reach out to IQ portal and get to IQ portal, we need some FQDN to be enabled here it depends on your, on on your region as a customer and I'm assuming most customers here are EMEA customers so they are more interested in 2nd one here. So for EMEA customers, you need to have.06:50This FQDN here opened the IQ and Cisco.com and this list here of the FQDN that need to be opened so your IQ will be able to reach out to Cisco Cisco IQ backend, upload the data that will be visible for you on the on the portal.07:10And in the other hand, you need the port 22 for HTTP for SSH access, HTTPS access as well because IQ link come up with a interface, so you can access to the IQ link via SSH or via interface, most likely you wouldn't.07:30Use the interface because the interface will have all the capability for you as a customer to manage your IQ link and the connection and everything. But in case there's any troubleshooting needed or whatever, the HT, the SSH access will be.07:49Required. Now we're gonna talk in like overview of the installation and the, the process of installation, then we're gonna switch to the demo. So for the installation, this is the big steps that we're gonna go for. 1st, you need to get.08:06The of year.08:25It's a virtual machine, as I mentioned, so these are OVA. I'm gonna show you where you're gonna get it on the IQ portal. Once you get the OVA, you deploy on your data center. Once it's do deployed, you go 1st on the console, on the console. So you do some network settings, basic network settings on the console.08:26So then you connect to the IQ link.08:46To the IQ link interface to finish the data, to finish the network configuration and navigate to the IQ portal to to finish what you need and get the pairing goods to pair your IQ link with the portal. So let's jump into.08:51Demo now and let me get this one here. Oops, let me just so for the sake of the demo here, I have one of our IQ demo account here. It's IQ tech and I'm connected with my Cisco account here. So.09:10Once you deployed your IQ, your once you onboard to Cisco IQ, you will probably have the main home like that and you can switch from the home to system settings and on system settings you need to go to data connection.09:29On the data connector here we have a bunch of IQ link that was already deployed and we're gonna use one of them for the sake of this demo again. However, now the 1st step we need is to get the OVA. These two ways to get the OVA, 1st you can get it from here by clicking on add Cisco IQ link and.09:46You you don't specify that I am ready, just don't check this, this checkbox here leave it like this, and you can just specify your hypervisor and the version that you want to deploy. Of course, we always recommend you to go for the latest.10:06Greatest version. So now we are on one.two to five, so we got this one next and it's gonna start downloading for you. Just make sure you didn't check this one so it won't take you to the other steps for the deployment or you can instead of this go to package catalog.10:22And on the package catalog you will see here Cisco IQ link under systems, yeah? You can come here and choose installation package and it will show you over here where you can choose again your hypervisor and the version and.10:41Click download.11:01So this is how you got your OVA from your IQ portal. Once, once the download is finished, you deploy the OVA on your data center. I'm assuming you know how to do that, but if you need any support with that, we have some guidance on a facial website that's gonna have some screenshot of that, but this is.11:02Something that sysadmin can do easy. Now, once the the OVA is deployed, you turn on the virtual machine and you will see this interface. So once the OVA is deployed and turned on, you will see this interface asking you for logging. By default, you use.11:22By default, let me let me get it here by default you use the admin user and the password is admin again. So admin admin, that's gonna be the username and the password.11:43And this admin user and the password, we're gonna change the password during the installation process. So, so for for you, once you have it you won't have any parameters here. You it will be just empty like I'm talking about the IP address, the gateway, everything. This is some.11:58Some, some data that they have entered earlier, so it was cached here but for you you won't have anything because of course it's fresh. So you go you choose the 1st option, number one configuration networks of things and enter, and then you need to enter to follow the prompt. So 1st is.12:18Asking you about entered IP address with the mask, so it gives you also the format that you need to use.12:39For me I'm gonna just press enter because I have already given this information and it says this is the address that I provided. Now it asks me about the gateway, the same enter, I already have it catched there and.12:46The DNS, here there is one one requirement that I didn't mention earlier is the DNS configuration. So to have your IQ link deployed correctly, you need to have your IP address, the IP address that you provided here have a DNS name attached to it. And in the other hand, the DNS.13:02Dns name should also be pointing to the IP address. That means the reverse DNS should be also configured. So from the IP address, you should be able to get the, the DNS name.13:22And from the the FQDN, you should be able to get the IP address of the virtual machine because IQ link will use that FQDN as default name of your IQ link. So this is one of the major requirement and if you don't have the DNS and the reverse DNS configured.13:35You might feel at this step here when Cisco IQ will start checking the Dennis configuration, so here you provide your Dennis servers and the domain search, cisco.com, you can use your domain and.13:53Here, I'm gonna ask about the NTP server so come it asking you for confirming the data that was entered. I will say yes, it's correct.14:12And now the step to change the password, you remember we connect with admin admin, so now it's asking you to change that password for the admin user and this password, please be careful with it. So save it somewhere because you're gonna need it to connect to.14:32Cisco IQ link interface. So I'm gonna choose a password, there is some recommendation to follow for the password. Oops.14:47Okay this is the authentication step, so I will just skip it here on time, additional and yep.15:06Okay here. Okay, so you need to enter this is the authentication part sorry about the password, so this is the authentication part here of the NTP server that we provided earlier.15:21Alright, then I'm gonna just should basically enter the three, six here.15:40Okay. I'm just typing random info here because I, I don't have any authentication and this is not gonna work with that one.15:57Oh, so here basically I just need to enter this hash. I I basically didn't pay attention because I was talking here and it should be NO because I I don't have any application but for you if you have you just provided and then the next step will take you to changing.16:32Keep the password for.16:51For your admin password. So once the password is is set up, the IQ link will start checking the, the information that you entered here, including the Dennis server if it's able to fetch the Dennis name and the reverse Dennis if it's welcome through.16:53Once once that, that part is done here, what are you gonna have? You're gonna, you're gonna go here if I go back to my data connector, data, data connectors here.17:14You will see the status of your IQ link as installed. It will be pinged and it says installed not connected and you will have a button here manage connections. So you click on this button and it will take you to the next step where you can continue the.17:31The configuration. So it will take you to your IQ link and for this demo I'm using this one here, this IQ link here, it's already configured. So it will ask you to log in with the admin user and the password that you sent.17:50Nope, let me get the password. I think I have something here.18:09Okay. So for me, because I have already configured the this one is already configured as you see the service is connected so this network configuration have been done. I will automatically get to this one but for you once you've finished.18:23The console configuration, you will connect and you will see something like this. So you will be in a wizard like this and you will see on the IQ link side this Cisco IQ installer where, where it's gonna ask you to.18:43To continue configuration so check the connectivity and here in this 1st step it will check the connectivity to the back end. If you remember on the requirement you need to have some some flows open to Cisco IQ.19:04Back end, so here it's gonna start checking it and on the connect Cisco IQ link, which will if it works fine, I'm gonna take you to the next step, then check the network configuration and here it will ask you about the.19:19Network configuration here. This is the address that will be used by the, by the internal cluster inside the the IQ link installation. So it just follow here the prompt and.19:35Once it's done, it will generate appearing code for you. So once it's installed here, it says in progress, it will take some, some minutes here, like eight to 10 min to finish all the steps here.19:55And once it's done, it will generate a pairing code for you. The pairing code will be generated and what you're gonna do with that pairing code, you just go back to the portal here and if you remember on the data connector here, before when we just get the OVA, we.20:11Just here and we click download. Now you need to to get this one here like I'm ready to check and you click next, you give a name here, like whatever you wanna name your Cisco IQ.20:31You give it a name, I'm gonna give you this and on the next here you're gonna have a device ID and the client ID. This device ID and claim ID, they will be generated for you at this step here once it's finished.20:47You will have the the right ID and the client ID generated for you here. It's like this one here, you will have them like this. So we just copy and paste them on your, on your portal here. You click submit.21:02And the pairing will be established. Like that you will have your IQ link added to your Cisco IQ portal. After you finish that steps, you might end up in this situation here.21:18Like where you have your IQ link, FQDN here. This is gonna be the FQDN that was switched from the DNS server, it will be here and you will have connected but input required or required input. That means your Cisco IQ is deployed there, but there is NO data.21:34Collection configured on the IQ.21:54So this is gonna be the the phase after configuring the network on the IQ link GUI. So now I'm gonna go back to the IQ GUI, you remember that this is IQ GUI and you can see the differences from here. This is called IQ link and here is IQ.21:57So now we're gonna focus a little bit on the IQ link just make your like this. So once you you have finished the configuration and you have the welcome wizard local admin and maybe the 1st thing that I will recommend you to.22:15Like at least say however is user security management. So here, this is the part where you can change your password. This is the admin password that we are using to connect to, to, to the GUI here on IQ link and it's also.22:35The the password that that we changed during the CLI installation when we were given the instruction on the CLI. So you can change it here if you have the old one, put it here and you put the new and confirm it. Also one things that is.22:53Recommended to do is set up security questions. This security questions here will help you to reset the password in case you forgot your password and you cannot access to IQ link the security questions will be helpful to reset the password.23:09Also, keep in mind that once you try to log in to IQ link, the, you have three attempts to to try during the 10 min. So if you failed to access during the three attempt.23:27You will not be able to connect to log into your IQ link during the next 16 min. So you have three attempts within 10 min to to log in. If you didn't succeed, you will not be able to log in in the next 1 h. This is kind of a security measurement that we have in place.23:43To make sure that NO one is missing with the, with the passwords for the user here access. So after checking this managing this security user, let's go here and we can go to the system settings. On the system settings we have.24:02Many different things here. You can configure the banner, you can configure the NTP server SS SSL certificate, if you need it, you can do it here. You can add a SSL certificate because Cisco IQ IQ link used by default self signed certificate here. If you have your corporate.24:19If you get anyone added, this is the place.24:39You can the syslog server if you want to add any syslog server here and the system management data here, you can see what's happening with the last update, the status and everything happening here. You can also configure an update for your Cisco IQ link.24:43And we're gonna came back to this part at the end. Let's now move maybe to the connection management.25:02If you remember, now we have your I, our IQ link deployed, but we have NO connection added. So the 1st thing we need to do maybe is to go and add some credentials. Here I have some bench of credentials that was already added, but for you of course it will be a blank page, only have add credentials button here.25:09You click on it and you can choose either enter manually or upload a file in case you want to upload a file of assist with credentials. We go for manually and.25:29If you are adding e.g. catalyst center, you can choose HTTP HTTPS and you provide your catalyst center access. Let's assume we're adding catalyst center, e.g., which is HTTP HTTPS credential, we click next. Here it's.25:40Can you about the name of the the credentials?26:00Test that is center and we're gonna go for next and here the type of authentication here basic and you put your username password, and you click next, that's gonna be submitted, so that's gonna be the name of our credential and this is the credential.26:03Is to use by the Once you click next, it will be submitted.26:23Now I'm gonna go back because we don't need that. And now we go to credentials. We go to connections and on connections you will see here Catalyst Center. If you click add, you can add the FQDN or the IP address of your catalyst center e.g..26:28You can use the example this one and here you select from the list of the HTTP HTTPS credentials. This is DNAC here. This this this name here of credentials, we have it was set up before. And once you click submit.26:45IQ link would try to connect to to that DNAC reach out to the DNAC directly using this credentials. So the credentials that you have been seeing there, it's this one. This is the one. It's the HTTPS. We had two, three in, in total, but only.27:02One of them is HTTP CTBS. This is why that one was listed for us for, for catalyst center.27:222nd type of credentials that we might need to add is let's go e.g. for an AP range or seed file. If you want to have a AP range to scan or seed file to add whatever you can e.g. choose the SNMP. This is the mandatory.27:31Mandatory protocol for the direct connections and you can choose the version three, the version two depend on the version you have and SSH. For the discovery, we use SNMP, so SNMP gonna discover like broadcast the the the range or.27:50Seed file and see who is available from that assets.28:08And SSH is basically the protocol used for the data collection. So once the discovery is done, SSH will send a bench of command line to collect some data that will be visible on your IQ portal, like to collect the data that will be there.28:12So if we click next, e.g., here again is the name we can name this, this DTC, direct data connection, and if you click next, this one will be added. We are not going to edit as we have some.28:30So if we go to credentials, we have here these ones are added SSH to SNMP, SNMP test. So if I go back and I go this time to manual IP address or network scan and I click.28:49Add here it will give you the template. This is a seed file, so you can download the template and add the the seed file, either you upload it or specify individual devices if you want, you can mention here all the all the IP addresses, but recommended here you get the template, you fill it out with the data and then you submit it.29:05And for the scan network, you just get the name of the IP range, you can name it whatever you want.29:25The IP start and the IP end of the the range that you want to scan, the frequency, you need to specify how, how frequent the scan should should happen monthly, weekly daily, and the time you might choose the time that it's not busy and you click connect and.29:34The connect assets so you will have the the access connected based on the file. If you have specific discovery LDAP or file upload, you can also upload the file from here. So this is how you set up the.29:54The connection either for manual IP address for the IP address or for the network scan. This is the two options for the direct data connections. Once, e.g., Center is added because remember on we didn't have the option to choose the frequency and everything. You will have here something called scheduling.30:10And down there for you and it will be visible here. So you can edit the scheduling and you can change it to the time you want, e.g., here. You can add weekly, monthly, same as that one and you can choose the time here, the day when it should happen. This is, this is helpful to have more control of when you.30:31Want the data collection to happen to avoid any collision with other.30:51Actions that will might occur in your data center. So this is the part for the for the center collection that you can hit it and you can check. The yellow things here is the activity log, you have here a bunch of activities logs that the activities logs is basically the get request that.30:56Sure so you can hear quickly take a look on the logs, see what's happening here and you can have more details. E.g., here we have an error if we click on it, quickly, we can see what's exactly happening here is API resource four four not happening. So.31:16We can already have some information about what's happening or what's wrong with, with some requests here in case you want to check the logs and the activity correctly. And now I will go back to system management and something that we start talking about. It was the.31:34The current system and here the configuration of updates, so let's say we have older version. So e.g., for this IQ link was deployed on the version one.one. You can see here the history.31:54One of one and many updates happened until now we are in the one to two song we were upgrading until now we are on the latest version. For you, if you are in an earlier version and you wanted to do an upgrade, you can just click here, configure upgrade and you will need to get either.32:08Local file, where you're gonna get this local file? The file will be visible on your IQ portal. So if I go to IQ portal, now I'm back to the IQ, iQ.cisco.com, yeah. So if we go back here and we go to.32:28Package catalog. You remember here this is the place where we got the 1st Obvio that we installed. This time we're gonna get the upgrade package instead of the installation package and we can click here.32:46And specify which version we have. Let's say we deployed a1.two to two and which version we want to upgrade to. We wanna upgrade to the latest one and here you click download and we're gonna get the bundle here after clicking downloads gonna start downloading the bundle for us. This bundle, this is the file that we can.33:01Get and upload it here to our local file upload. And once you click done, you can.33:21You can have the upgrade started. The upgrade will take time like 15 min, something like that. It will take some time depends on which version to which version you are uploading or 2nd version here or second option is SCP server. If you have a SAP server configured, you can, you can use it. And here.33:30You have a small banner or warning to update the SCP server in case you have you you wanna configure it, you can click here, it will take you directly to the SCP server or you can also get it from here.33:50From the system configuration SCP server, and you can configure a SCP server, just put the IP address, the ports, the remote directory and the information of your SCP server if you have it. And like this, the IQ link will connect to the SAP server, get the artifact from it for the.34:05Little from it and we'll start.34:25The upgrade. So this is the two options for, for the upgrade. And also on the upgrade you can, you can see you can specify when you want the upgrade to happen as well. So this is the option of upgrading and we went through the log activities.34:27The IQ connectivity here, you can check the connectivity from the IQ link side, so here you can see the data about the the connectivity device ID, this is something that you have been and the region where it's deployed all the information.34:45This is something you can also see on the IQ portal. If you go to IQ portal, you will, you will see it here. Like this is the status, but you won't see that much details about the ID and all that. Just give you the status, but on the IQ link side it will give you more details about the device ID, the claimed account, the region, and.35:03So, the identity provided as well here if you want to add some identities here on your on your IQ link, the local identity, if you want to add some local users or local group and you can have some other users to connect instead of the admin.35:25The admin is the one that was created by default, but you can add more users here.35:45You can specify the group if you wanna create more groups or like that you have more granular control on what user or what the user can, can do on the IQ link side. You have the viewer and you have the administrator, so you can add a viewer where the viewer user can just.35:51Connected IQ link, check what you have on the IQ link and what's connections you have configured and all that but cannot edit or add or change anything. The admin user is basically have same power as admin user, can, can configure connections, add.36:09AP ranges, catalyst centers if needed.36:31All that can be done. So, and by the way, you can add more center, not only one you are not tied to one data center, so once, once you have a center deployed you can add another one, e.g., for this.36:34IQ link that we are using for this demo we already have one center attached here, this is why we see this here but you can add more if if you want. This is, this is the overview of the IQ link portal and how to add connections and some basic configuration here you mentioned about this is.36:50Certificate syslogs. Yep, so.37:10I think here I have finished the all the capabilities and sure that I want to talk about for this call here. So I have seen some questions and some answers on the chat during the.37:15During the call, so yeah, I'm gonna give you back this 4 min I think, yeah, 4 min left, so if you have any questions or anything, feel free to raise your hand or mute yourself. Or if there's NO question, we can just.37:30Finish the call and give you back this 4 min. I didn't see any Is there any questions in the chat? I see one question that was dropped here by Christian is I have 20 service contracts but I only see one partner too.37:46So, so we are talking here about contract basically it's not related to the IQ here we have, but for the contract there is another session that was delivered last week, yeah, last week by my, by my colleague Christoff and he explained the requirement for the contract and all what you need for that contract.38:07Yeah, so if you missed that one, I will highly recommend you to go back to that recording and check what's the what's the requirement for the contract because this is like really popular question like having many contracts but you cannot see them on IQ or you cannot add them. And if you still struggle with them and you cannot understand I will increase.38:27To open attack case with our team and we're gonna support you on that. Is there any other questions or something related to our topics here?38:46Let's see questions were answered here ok I see another question says why does my Cisco IQ link tries to connect to.39:12IP address on the port, 514 we do not use one two in our network. So yeah, so let me go back to the, to the requirement and I can.39:29So this is the, where is that requirement page where I was about it here. So this is basically the ports that, that IQ link have open. It's.39:45HTTP HTTPS that we just connect with the GUI and SSH, let me probably make it bigger here. SSH, the HTTP is and here the portfolio the this is used for the telemetry connections.40:02If you have the the port 4414 open on IQ or IQ link that is that was opened manually or not because by default there's NO port 41514 open on IQ link.40:18So, we will, we will probably need some logs from you to to have more visibility on what's going on on the IQ because the port that you mentioned for 514 is not open by default on the IQ link here. And this might need some troubleshooting from, from us to see what's exactly happening here is that.40:33Or was manually opened or how the IQ link is trying to get to this point.40:53So please if you can open or raise a tag case with our team or we can help you with that to check what exactly happening with your IQ link and why does that port is visible on your logs I'm assuming you have seen it on the logs or somewhere else to say the IQ link.41:01Is the source? Okay, so please get can you please raise I opened the tag case. Okay.41:18Okay, so if there's a tech case open, I'm assuming there's someone working with you from our team, they will connect to you as soon as possible to check what's exactly happening because for that we they will need more data to, to check here.41:33Okay, we are basically 1 min ahead of the time, so sorry for letting you here. If there's NO other questions or anything else I think we are good to finish the call here. And for Christian since you have a.41:52That case opened, please check with the engineer assigned to your case will connect with you as soon as possible to troubleshoot that. Thank you so much guys. Yeah. Have a good day.42:13