Connect & Extend: Integrating with Catalyst Center

Hello everybody and thank you for joining today's expert insight series session integrating with Catalyst Center. My name is Adam guffrey.00:10And I'm joined today by Gerard McNeil. We are both customer success specialists also referred to as CSS within the customer experience department and we both have a specialization in Catalyst Center, I guess we've been on the team a little over five almost six years now, but you know thank you for joining us today.00:20Now, the goal of our expert insights series is to shame, is to share knowledge, not shame knowledge, but share knowledge in a format where that information, you know, we provide the information in a format that actually builds off of the previous sessions and continues to help drive your adoptions. So today we are going.00:39To discuss several of the possible integrations that Cisco Catalyst Center can take advantage of to provide you know more value for your networking needs. Now, I also want to go ahead and point out to make sure that you join us again next week as the team covers how ICE and Cisco Catalyst Center can team up to provide, you know, just.00:59Deeper insights into the end users day to day. That was big enough topic that ICE gets its own standalone session stuff being a part of today's integration topics.01:19So while we're going through our presentation and demos today, you may have some questions that kind of pop up and come to you, and we just ask that you please use the Q and A section found by clicking the three small dots in the bottom right hand corner and one of our panelists will respond to you.01:30No, excuse me.01:49In the event that your question is not answered, your information maybe recorded so that we can provide you with the appropriate answer at a later time by reaching out directly or with an email. So for our agenda today, we're gonna 1st do kind of a quick recap on the Catalyst Center platform, and it's gonna be just real high level, quick, you know.01:51So touch base on the platform and and the how integrations work. And then we're gonna go into events notifications with some of the built in integrations that you can take advantage of. Then we're gonna discuss some of the rest API bundles packages and how and where you can find them along with any additional integration.02:10Things are available and as time permits, we will end the session. If there are any outstanding questions for the Q and A panel, we'll try and cover them live in session. So we have a, a busy agenda today.02:30It's gonna be full of a lot of information and I hope everyone finds this useful. So Cisco Catalyst Center platform. Now, like I said, we're gonna begin by discussing the Catalyst Center platform itself. Now, most of our customers actually understand the common use cases with Catalyst Center. We.02:45We have customers that use it to automate changes within the network such as software image upgrades, as well as configuration changes. And this helps to ensure that there are consistent deployments and that compliance metrics are met on a regular basis. You've got the same process in place. It's automated.03:05So you don't have to worry about, you know, someone fat fingering some information or whatnot. You've got a consistent process in place. Now, others use Catalyst Center to monitor and manage their network and their client devices.03:25Where alerts are being generated in real time to notify admins of potential situations and actually allowing them to make true data driven decisions to help remediate those issues and and achieve a faster time to remediation.03:39And then finally, another, you know, often overlooked aspect of Catalyst Center is its ability to integrate with several other applications and 3rd party vendors. Now these integrations, they can actually open up or even expand to several use cases that are already in place. And together, you know, today we're gonna discuss.03:55Several of these of these possibilities. So Catalyst Center does have the flexibility to integrate with several different vendors across a variety of industries as well as Cisco products. So NO matter if your industry is health care or retail and even hospitality, Cisco Catalyst Center can take advantage of the stream.04:16Groups that are actually found in those various vendor specific systems and deliver an even greater value.04:35A good example is like the power of Splunk can now be seamlessly integrated with Catalyst Center to gain even more insights from the telemetry data that Catalyst Center is already collecting. You know, possibly you've got a, a homebrew or in house created application that your enterprise uses. You know, by.04:43By taking advantage of the numerous APIs available from Catalyst Center, it has the ability to intertwine itself with just a variety of, of systems that are out there.05:03So we've broken down these, you know, these various forms of integrations into a few main categories. Now Catalyst Center can send event notifications, system health alerts, and even integration connectivity alerts. It can send these messages out in a variety of ways. You know, e.g., Catalyst Center.05:15Can package these notifications so that application such as Webex and pager duty can then send that message to a specified recipient that's configured on that respective platform. Another solid integration is that Catalyst Center can take advantage of the northbound REST APIs.05:34For a number of different, integrations that can actually assist with the management of your network and devices and fit seamlessly into your current workflows. Now, another useful integration is integrating with your ITSM. Now, I don't just, you know, this is not limited to just.05:54ServiceNow but to any, you know, standard ITSM system. Now this type of integration, it can add, it can aid, it can add but also aid in your change management process as well as, you know, assisting with support case and support ticket creations. So, you can build out, let's say you can build.06:15Build out, this type of integration and automate it so that if a switch in your network goes down Catalyst Center can actually bundle the information with the switch, and the event notification timestamp and send it to, to your respective ITSM to then open a support case.06:35The information, you know, it's gonna contain information about the switch, the serial number, the locate, the actual physical location of that switch where it's found, the IP address and all just all of that pertinent required information is already going to then be recorded in that ITSM case, along with the event.06:54Notification that actually triggered the case.07:14So in this, you know, scenario, if you really wanted to go ahead and get fancy with things and take even more advantage of this integration capability with Catalyst Center, you can have Catalyst Center send that same event notification to a field engineer using a process or a notification.07:17Which is like a pager duty notification. So to, you know, review the scenario, you've got a switch that's in one of your data closets and it goes down. Catalyst Center gets an event notification triggered. It then bundles that information and it's sent to ServiceNow where a case is generated with all that pertinent required information.07:37About location, time, what, you know, any alert message was seen, but it's going to go ahead and send all that over to ServiceNow and get that case generated. At the same time, your field engineer will then also receive a system alert on a mobile device with the same information.07:57If you're incorporating the use of like a pager duty notification setup.08:18So this provides your engineer the ability to now begin troubleshooting the problem. You see your engineer now knows what a replacement device potentially stop and pick up on the way to what location within your environment, instead of, you know, waiting on a case to be created and routed to them with what your hope's accurate information.08:22Information you've got your ServiceNow case created. Your field engineer has a notification and is already in route to whatever physical location they need to proceed to, all within, you know, taking advantages taking advantage of these integrations built in with Catalyst Center. Now finally, last.08:42But not least is there are a number of developer resources available such as the Cisco devnet sandboxes and the learning labs. You see these, the devnet learning labs, they give developers pre configured in browser environments.09:02For some true hands on learning with NO setup, NO, you know, NO real environment issues you have to worry about. You can just start up the lab and you're coding in seconds. So as you can see, Catalyst Center, it can do a lot more than just send a system notification, email to a support team.09:19It can really, you know, incorporate a lot of different tools to be able to notify the appropriate parties, all in the efforts of.09:39Just keeping, you know, keeping your network up to date and keeping things moving and not being slowed down and hampered by any issues that pop up. So with all of this said, I'm now gonna turn things over to Drawd and let him explain in more detail about how all this magic happens in the background. So Groud, if you would sir, please, take us away.09:48All right. Thank you, Adam, I appreciate it. Great beginning to the press there and just get my screen share well shared, but then start my press here. Okay, so I'm gonna go one by one of these notifications that we have in the events that Adam was talking about here too as well, so.10:09So let's let's dive in here, right? So, this slide here created here just to give you a high level view of your event notifications framework that we have. And if you can see here, it's just like pretty much like the logo of the catalyst center, you know, symbolizing that we're just bringing up, you know, we're putting the catalyst center log.10:28We'll go in brand in the back, but we're pulling in what goals, you know.10:48On in the background, right? For, for what we have here, right? So we see our network infrastructure here, right? And our framework starts with our event sources, right? And, the flow pretty much starts within the sources of having the the network infrastructure, like the switch, the routers, the wireless devices.10:53Along with the system components for catalyst center, of course, these things are gonna feed into the event sources, right? And then it's going.11:13To generate the events based off, you know, what type of, you know, identification of the, like, like what type of errors or anything stems from it like so like, you know, these type of data is gonna be for automation processes and assurance monitoring and also our system functions there too as well, right? So, this helps.11:22Helps understand the nature of the event that we're, that, that we're kind of transcribed to and we're managing. And so, you know, that funnels into what we call our event management system.11:42Right, and this is where the intelligence shows up, right? So, so we can use our massive, you know, event catalog which you'll see, you know, and we can define the understanding of it and if we can subscribe to that actual event and be able to get alerts wherever we want to, right? We can send that alert to wherever we want to. We also in addition.11:54Have a, a runtime dashboard.12:14Where we could see some real time visibility within that system there too as well. And so, you know, with that, you know, we get to leverage the divise, the diviruse, the diverse notification methods that we can use and you know along the way we can actually tap into webhooks and Webex notifications there too as well. So we get.12:17A little bit mobile within that regard. We have a lot of traditional ones there too as well, so we, well, we all know of SNMP, you know, email.12:37Critical integrations through the platform like syslog, ServiceNow and page duty, as Adam mentioned, the goal is to reach the right people through the preferred channels that we want to choose, right? So we have control over that. And ultimately this, you know, this framework, if we, you know, we pull out here, this framework.12:45Pretty much strengthens in our use cases, right? So I'll knock our our logging analysis, our management services, each one of those are able to efficiently, you know, get a simple analysis of what's going on in our network from that regard, right? And this is a busy slide, so you know if you have any.13:05Within these regards. We're gonna break down each one of these here too as well. Don't forget that we do have the Q and A panel there too, so you guys are probably already using it.13:25Okay, and so, you know, our events, right? So this is pretty much the areas that we can tap into of our events, right? So we have, you know, events of different areas based off, you know, our network. So our onboarding processes, our wireless connectivity, our device availability, all of these areas.13:33Have different events attached to it, right? So, and we have 274 of them now, right? And.13:53You know, before we had within I think the version was 2377 we had 269 events. And so we added five to that within the version of the minimum of 2379. So now we have set a total of 274 events, right? So this is the exhaustive list that we see here. You can.14:00Absolutely, playing here and look at some of these notifications, but you also can search them too as well and you'll be able to see, you know, how you can get directly to this the one that you actually want, ok?14:20Yeah. And and and we also have an exhaustive list of our event catalogs inside our devnet portal there too as well. And if I can get someone in the chat here to, you know, to place in that actual devnet link if you have it, if not, I can send it at the end of the presentation there too as well. But we'll be able to get this exhaustive list there too as well so we can take a look.14:32That's what it does.14:52Okay. And so in conjunction with the event catalog, you know, you have the event notification set up, which is, you know, it's a simple two step process, right? The 1st process is, you know, configuring the destination, so where you want this bloody thing to go like you know where you want the alerts to go, and then also, you know, how are you.14:53Subscribing to it, what type of channel are you subscribing to it? Adam mentioned some of those lists there too as well. And you can select those those lists and channels that you want, you know, so you have granularity and control there too as well.15:13You know, and as I mentioned, you know, we support a wide range of those notifications. We'll see those channels there, you know, webhooks, itsms, pager duty, Webex teams, and email. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna work my way up this list here and I'm gonna start with email notifications, ok? I have a couple of screenshots here that I'll go that'll go through so you can see how it looks like.15:27Site catalyst center, but then we'll get a motion picture of it of how it looks, right? So this is screenshot screen screenshot of it and how you get here to this page is through the hamburger menu here.15:47And platform and then developer toolkit. Okay, and as you can see we're in we got two different tasks for here, so we have the notifications to which we can create here. We can create that notification and see how that steps goes, right? So the steps here that we have set up, we can pick any site that we want to, to have this noti.15:57Application set up where we can go global if we want. And then here's why why I was wanting to show you here, you can search the catalog, right? Because obviously it's over 200. We can search the catalog and what what's cool is, is that it's gonna pull up anything relative to, you know, interface being down, e.g., right? So we can select, you know.16:17Single one single notification that we want or we can select them all, right? And then here are all the channels that we mentioned here that support it. And on the next step, this is where we select the one that we want, right? So we're starting with email here, right? And we'll select that hit next.16:38And all we're doing is just, you know, naming the instance and putting in the parameters there too as well. You'll see this multiple times within each one of these notifications, so you're getting very, very acquainted with, you know, how the steps go but you know you're pretty much just naming the instance, putting the parameters in, you know.16:54Setting it up to make sure that it's through your liking there too as well, get your descriptions and you have the full summary of what you actually configured there. You can go back and edit if you need to to as well, but once you do that, you hit finish and you're done, right? So it's pretty simple there. Like I said, you'll see it again. All right, so let's jump into.17:12Do a Webex notification there too. So like, the Webex notification is pretty cool because we get to see the synchronization of the changes that happens within the field or wherever the process is and the notification that you're sending, so you'll be able to see it in real time of where you're sending this information to, right? So here we have catalyst center here.17:31We're plugged into an issue, right? So.17:52As you can see where we can change the status there and we also can resolve the issue using the suggested actions, one of my favorite things in catalyst center. So being able to do that and actually actually couple it with a, a a mobile application like Webex is astronomically great, right? So.17:55That's what that's the capabilities that we're actually involved in here. And we had this for, you know.18:15Maybe I think the version is 2237 or 2232? Yeah, so like it was, you know, we've had it for a while pretty much and all likely that everybody on this call has passed this is beyond this version of catalyst centers, so we have that access. But if we see this arrow here, we can see that the issue status is showing active there. You.18:20To get a card in web and Webex within that regard.18:40To see what the status is, right? And what the error description is. So it's matching exactly what the issue's showing inside Catalyst Center inside Webex, which is cool, right? And then also what's cool as well when we resolve the issue just like we would do in Catalyst Center, you can see that alert there too as well within the Webex, so it matches up.18:45That that resolved there too as well.19:04Alright, so how would we set this up? So, you know, a couple of things we need to do and we need to create the channel for the Webex room, right? So we need the Webex room ID set up, right? We need the bot name, we need to create the bot name and set up we need to authenticate that ID so that, you know, we can attach it to the.19:07Webex and you know, and part of that is some of the, you know, webhooks and JSON formatting that we can do within that regard, and we'll see a lot of the Webex there too as well as we go along. But those are the three things that we need once we have that set up.19:27And I'll give you documentation on installing that too as well. But yeah, what we do is we need the bot, we understand is that the bot is like a regular user on Webex, right? It can interact with you know.19:43Unicast messages, multicast messages, you know, and the token that we use to create this, it's it's valid for a hundred years, so you don't have to worry about that process there. The only thing you have to worry about is making sure you keep it handy because it's only gonna show you that token once and you want to just keep it handy in the safe spot. You can regenerate.19:58A new one?20:18But you want to make sure that you, you know, copy it soon as you regenerate it so so that you can keep it handy there for it, right? And the bot only has access to the messages that it's it's mentioned in, right? So it's only talking, it's only having access to the conversation that it's actually in the space for, right? So we specified.20:19That within the documentation so you can see that secureness for it and the Webex integration uses the notifier bot.20:39Right, and we have a, a link for this particular documentation so you can read through on that too as well if if someone or Adam can put plug that in the chat there too as well so that you guys can have it. Alright, so the type of Webex bot.20:47You know, this type of Webex bot will be a notifier if you will, so it can respond to different summaries and what's cool about it is actually can insist in questions too as well. So it understands natural language and it can respond to questions therefore, so it's not just informative, it's also, you know, you know, it's helpful too as well. So, you know.21:06So you can, you can.21:26Converse with it there too as well, so like you have a question, it can you can talk to the bot there too. So it's improving in there too. All right? And you can find the, you know, the developers documents there too as well. Some of the steps to create the bot too as well. We'll go through it here, but.21:28That link there we can put in the chat too as well. We want to equip you with a lot of these links so you can take a look at some of the steps and, you know, be ready to, you know, set these things up if you're interested.21:48Yeah, and so here's the steps, right? So we just go through it, we create the bot, right? Once we create the bot, we'll name it. We'll give it a unique username. We'll upload a, you know, an icon if we want to. We can leave it blank if you want, but you can upload the the icon if you want to just like we see here like so, and then we'll create the.21:59The Descriptions there within that regard and then we'll add the bot, right? Once we do that.22:19You'll see a screen here that says, you know, congratulations, you have your bot created. Here's your token for it, right? And this is where you'll copy it and put it in a safe space alright and then once we have that set and created, it's just a, you know, simple creation of your space inside Webex if you're familiar with it and you just add the bot to.22:24To the space there and you're done, right? So, now you have it, you can talk to it and it can alert you and I'll show you how that looks there too as well.22:44Okay, and this is how the documentation there, you know, to set up the the room ID for it. And we have a link for that too as well as developer.webex.com. We can put that in the chat there too as well. But the steps here just pretty much create a, you know, profile. You can go to documentations and you could take a look at the references and and method API.22:53Guys that we can use, you know, and we can set it up that way, ok?23:14Let me take a look at that. This is how it would look when you got when you have, when you authenticate the actual API there for it. So we'll be able to see that and you can run it and make sure that it works here and it authenticates correctly. And once all of that is done, now we can, you know, have fun with the.23:19And Subscribe to the Webex room or subscribe subscribe to the Webex channel so they can get notified here, right? So the same page is platformed in developers toolkit. We'll go to the event notifications tab again and then notifications.23:39And create. And here this time I'll just put interface, right? We you just put interface here and then a bunch of them come up, right? So we could select them all, and then our channel here was Webex that we're gonna do. So we'll select that right on the next page. We'll select Webex.23:56I hit next, you know, similar, put the parameters in here for the URL for Webex API and the token here, right? So this is how why you gotta keep it handy. You can place it in there and then, you know, you can hit next.24:12Once you hit next, you just put the description in and then finish similar summary there, right? And we're good, right? So like here, you know, I just wanted to show you that what's cool about the card that you get within the Webex, which you'll see inside the demo here in just a second, is that you actually can select.24:28The, the link here that says catalyst center issue details and it cross references straight over to Catalyst Center straight to the issue setting where you can resolve it, right? And then, you know, if you wanted to do that, you can you can do that wherever you are, you know, mobilely, right? So you can click in there and you can log into Catalyst Center and you.24:47Can solve this issue, right? And you can actually see it in real time where it solved. It says active now, right? We'll we'll be able to see what happens when it resolves. All right, so let's jump into the Callison and see how this looks.25:07And so fun fundamentally, what we have here is, you know, a beacon of management reporting, right? So when we, we can get alerts sent directly from our mobile device like Webex, we can you know we can be in the know of everything that happens, you know, including resolution, you know, and, you know, that fancy.25:17Fastic hands off nature there of notification is great. So let's take a look at how this looks, right? So we got six issues here and let's click.25:37Into it and what I want to do is I want to show you how it corresponds with the Webex issues that we have too as well. So I'm already integrated, and what I'm gonna do is I'm going to Webex and we can see our six cards for our six issues. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna click into one of the issues, go straight to the user.25:46Dashboard, like so. So we got our town travel tool, we can go into our issues, we take a look at that same issue that screenshot there and what we'll do is we're gonna solve this, right? So we'll go through the you know running commands straight from the dashboard. You're not leaving it here to to resolve it, which is great, right? We'll go through here.26:05Here and resolve this issue, and we'll see what it looks like when it you'll see if it works, you know, when we actually resolve it and if it sends over to our Webex, right? And it should, alright and now you see our our issue here is deprecated to two, right? So we saw, we saw three issues.26:25They stopped one, you know, cause obviously, you know, that probably was affecting multiple, right? But we get all the resolution notifications there too as well, right? So that's awesome. So that, that integration is very, very powerful, right? So that's how Webex looks.26:45And so let's transition over to pager duty, right? You know, how do we set this up? And Adam mentioned about field agents been, you know, in the field and being able to, you know, use their tools out there to be able to manage in there and, you know, add pagers and what have you. You know, another scenario would be.27:01Like a healthcare, you know, the IT team wants to be able to manage the different issues and be able to let the doctors know or whoever's in charge and know that the issue has been resolved et cetera, right? So pager duty is a cloud based incident management and response platform and you know it's designed to help organizations quickly address and resolve.27:21All critical issues in their IT infrastructure applications, right? So the service is pretty much, you know, similar to the Webex is gonna, you know, send out.27:41You know, a, a message within your mobile devices, you know, notifications for it. And it's just a different type of link that we're able to do to look at these documentations and set up the incident management for, right? So those those are steps there for it where you can schedule that and get that set. The pager duty link is also about the.27:52Be in the chat for you too as well just so you can take a look at that. This is the link here.28:12And you can look at the, the, you can view the documentation there to get everything relative to what you want to know about pager duty there too as well before you set it up. But let's take a look at how we set it up. It's pretty similar to all the other ones here, but repetition is keen, right? So let's go through it again. What we can do is that we can select the site or event.28:17Right, like what you're talking about, and then.28:37You know, as you get in it now, the pattern we just select pager duty set up we'll go to a couple of these next here too as well, but we go next parameters, description and name, summary, make sure everything's set, you know, the global events that we're actually covering and we hit next.28:40And we're done. All right, so let's see how this looks motion picture here. All right, so let's go to an issue. Let's, let's figure out another issue here, maybe, maybe a different one here. So we'll take a look at this issue here and we'll make sure that it corresponds to our pager duty, so we'll pop over to pager duty.29:00And make sure that that trigger issue has happened. Cool yep so we got it, we got it there, you know, same type of information. And as you can see here, it shows the impacted service, which is the catalyst center. And then you also can see the triggered issue, the device, the IP, et cetera, and all that. And that same, you know.29:19Ticketing shows you the device inside the pager, right? So it can send out to the the field agent there for that particular way and we're gonna resolve it and watch it send out to the pager, so you can be in a know of this stuff here, right? So.29:39Alright, so it's resolved resolved a minute and you know it shows right on pager duty and you know, obviously this corresponds. When this resolved here, it's gonna respond to that, that same pager that it's connected to, ok? So that's pager duty. Alright, so Webex final notification here, let's take a look at how this looks.29:56So, webhooks are different, right? So that's slightly different, right? So.30:15So webhooks are used by, you know, the server, you know, and that's pretty much catalyst center, right? So, you know, webhooks are, it's a push model, right? So all the information that's getting in like in a lot of our notifications we're sending out of Catalyst Center here, right? So, so this is just another way to send it out. So web.30:21Next, like I said, it's a push model and it's used, it uses posts and put methodology mostly and it sends data out to, you know, for new events, e.g., like a new python script created and used, right? You'd be able to use that and and we can subscribe to the event the same way as we know here, but we're using the data.30:41Different method here or a different name method, if you will. So we don't have a net, we don't have a Webex name method there for it, but either way, you know, at any rate we still have the same concept of getting the assurance issue step process step processes and severity of the information is there too as well. But the way we set this up.31:01Is in a different device inside catalyst center, so what we can do is we can go to systems and settings that you can see here in the background and we'll put our parameters in for that too as well. Only thing that changes in there is that we're selecting a, a trust certificate considering that we're using a URL URL.31:21For API and we just specify our, you know, whether we're doing a post or we're doing a put, we'll authenticate it and we'll save it and then we'll go straight to platform and developers toolkit and create that notification there too as well.31:39Okay, and so now we have global, we can we can do is we can create our events or, you know, get our interfaces set up. So we'll set my aircess excuse me, aircess was kind of yelling at me. All right, but anyway, so now we have, you know, we can.31:54Scribe to our event, we'll create our event here, we'll hit next. And then, you know, so the channel that we select here is APIs, right? So rest APIs for catalyst center is coupled in with coupled in with the rest APIs is coupled in within this channel here, right? So.32:13We just go through the same process, and obviously webhooks isn't here, but the rest API is what carries you for the webhook.32:33Right? And so you'll fill in the instance information, right? We will go in here, the instance, and if you don't have the instance here, most of the time, the 1st time you go there, you don't you won't have it set up in the in the dropdown. What we can do is you can click the.32:41The the here hyperlink there and you can set it up, right? And it'll take you to this page here to set up your webhook. All right, so what you do is you'll add, you'll add a webhook and go through that process of putting the parameters in rest settings there too as well. So you do the trust certificate, you need that there.32:56And authentication too as well. That's important and then go next.33:16And we put in our name and the description, and we go next summary, and finish, right? So, so now that we haven't finished, and the good thing about this here is that what we can do is that we can try any of these APIs, right? We can try any of these APIs for, for any type of issue, meaning.33:21Like we can send out synthetic issues because if we're sending out via, you know, API, we wanna know what's going on from, you know, from that regard. And when we do, we can try it 1st. We can test it to make sure that, you know, it's working correctly before, you know, before we launch it. So each search event will will have a try now option.33:40So you can click there where you can select the destination and events subscription like we do before. The catalyst center can amazingly test out, you know, the receiver by sending synthetic data.34:00To see how, you know, the tool works before you actually run it in deployment kind of deal, ok? So you can be comfortable with the payload run through because it's tested 1st, right? And then you get to notifications and make sure that the publishing is working correctly there too as well. And the destination gets it, right?34:14Oh cool. I get a couple of hand crafts there so that's cool. All right, and this is where you'll find out and make sure that everything's all success and connected. All right? And if it is, then you'll be able to see some of the.34:33You know, the failed notifications here, right? This is how it looks from that regard, and we'll we'll take a look at it real quick in a demo, a quick demo here. We'll just make sure that it's all set up and then see how it looks where it goes to our receiver, right? So pick an issue.34:50Same way, take a look at what the, you know, alright, so this issue is BGP down and we just want to make sure that it's corresponding inside our receiver. See yep here we go. All right, so so we make sure that it's all connected and we can see some of that information for any of our receivers for our.35:06Okay, so, you know, in summary, right? So, so I thought I'd pretty much help out with the with the web hooks and rest API Fiasco cause I know we kind of used that interchangeably in this presentation here. So, so.35:27I wanted to talk a little bit about the difference between the webhooks and REST APIs. So aside from the fact that, you know, webhooks is used as a push model as I mentioned, it also originates from the survey from the catalyst. And like I said, and so we don't necessarily, we don't necessarily care about, you know, which.35:44Leaving because we know that it's secure in that regard, like, you know, you know, so that data transfer, we don't necessarily care about because it's being pushed out. We know what it is. Now with the with the rest APIs, you know, if that's coming from the client to the servers so you know we wanna make sure we send it in somewhere where we can't control, you know.36:03That pool model is something that we actually care about. We want to make sure that the data is set up right and the data is obsecured as, you know, as it runs through. So that's the difference in between those, right? So, webhooks is a push model from the server to the client. REST APIs is a pool model from the client to the server, alright?36:22And so, you know, that's just a high level view of the difference between that. And what I'll do is I'll pass over to Adam to kind of get a spound on REST APIs, and it's a good segue, right? So, you know, let them get into what REST APIs are.36:42Alright, so over to you Adam there. See you in a bit. All right, appreciate it Rod. Thank you very much. That was a lot to cover, so take yourself a break, take yourself a drink, and you know relax for a little bit. So on the topic of REST APIs, catalyst center.36:56Actually currently supports well over a thousand APIs and with each new version of software, more APIs get added each and every time. Now our dev OPs teams, they've actually assembled dedicated Python, Ansible, and Terraform resources to make integrating with Catalyst Center just much more approachable for every.37:16Body so you know, we wanna help make things a little bit easier.37:36So speaking of, you know, since we're talking about APIs, there's a few things that I do want you to keep in mind. Api's are, you know, API changes, they are allowed, but only if they are backward compatible. So when that isn't possible, we will release a new API with either a new API.37:40API or a new version of the API itself. So, you know, changes are allowed but only if they're backward compatible.38:00On another kind of, kind of nugget of information to keep in your back pocket is that when it comes to retrieving, you know, these really large data sets from Catalyst Center, it is recommended that you do this by using the built in reports from Catalyst Center. So while we're always adding new API.38:09Api's and even bulk APIs, the best practice would be to use one of the 65 plus reporting templates that are actually built into Catalyst Center to offload that data. We, you know, if you're really trying to retrieve a, a large just data set.38:29Now, Catalyst Center does not have the option to really create truly custom reports. There are a few options for flexible reports that are out there, but, if you are looking to create, you know, unique reports for your environment.38:44There is the option to integrate with applications such as Splunk, which we'll talk about here in a few slides. Alright, now, any rate or concurrency limits on the API are actually defined at the API level and not at the platform level. They aren't a.39:03One size fits all and they do have various limits based on the API themselves. So if there's ever any question of, you know, a rate limit or anything like that, you will need to go look at the, at the API itself at the API level because that is where these are defined. It's not a general system setting across the board and sometimes.39:23Times people aren't aware of that, they think it's in the system settings. So I just, I do like to make it a point to focus or to inform everyone that they are, they're kind of.39:43Well, they're defined on the API level itself. So catalyst center, Python, ansible, and all those fun API packages. Now, just a quick little bit of information here for those that might not be aware, is that SDK, when you hear myself or anybody else on these calls.39:54Referred to it. Well, anybody in general SDK as a reminder, just stands for software development kit. Now, another way to think of SDK is it's a wrapper. So it's it's a wrapper that takes all this API information and it wraps it in a format that its destination is able to, you know, to take.40:14Take in and make sense of and use. So the Python package that that we designed in order to make it easier to use Catalyst Center can actually be found as the Catalyst Center SDK and the links are being shared in the chat space. So if you're interested in learning more about the Python SDKs for catalyst.40:34There is the docs link that is being shared as well as the GitHub link for the Python SDK repository.40:54Now, Ansible, Ansible is another option and Ansible is an open source automation and orchestration tool. So we have developed, you know, yes, a, another wrapper, to be used this time with Ansible. Now, this works the same way as the Python SDK. It's a wrap.41:03Operate that's going around this bundle of APIs so that Ansible can understand it and you know help build that communication path, working relationship between Catalyst Center and Ansible. Now, a few little nuggets of information about Ansible here is that.41:23The very 1st library version for this package was actually developed in 2020 and it was certified by Red Hat with a version two.nine in April of 2021 and then certified by the community in 2022.41:40As of, well and the last thing you want to keep in mind is that this is compatible with catalyst center version 2.3.7.6. Now currently the recommended or GA version that's in release is 2.3.7.9. So you know.41:55So hopefully you're on the the current recommended release and if you need assistance in getting there, please reach out, you know, to your Cisco representative to get us in touch or to get you in touch with a customer success specialist like myself and we can see about assisting you with, you know, maybe getting you upgraded to where you are on the recommended version of release. But we've included the information.42:15To be able to learn more about the Ansible integration as well as the, the GitHub repository for this, for the Ansible repo as well.42:36Now, you know, just a quick reminder, well, it's not a reminder. It's a reminder for some and it's gonna be new information for others, but these bundles, all these SDK bundles were actually created in house by Cisco on our our dev OPs team, and they are supported by Cisco tech. Now we.42:47We have provided a compatibility matrix so that you know exactly which version of each tool to use.43:06Based on your running version of Catalyst Center. On the screen here you see that Ansible catalyst center version, or I'm sorry that it says Catalyst Center 2.3.7.6 requires ansible, one.zero. Again, if you're on the current recommended version of release that seven.nine, then.43:14There is a, a higher version of Ansible that would be required as well. That'd be 214 and so on. So just make sure that you reference this compatibility matrix so that you can verify that you have the proper version of Ansible or or Python, whatever your tool of choice is.43:33But make sure that you're running that to be able to work seamlessly with Catalyst Center. All right, to say on this train, terraform, it is very similar to Ansible. However, Terraform will actually proactively let you know if it has already accomplished a task.43:51That, that you maybe instructing it to try and doing a workflow. So Terraform, just some background on, on what and how it was designed. Terraform was originally designed to orchestrate cloud services, whereas Ansible, that was designed more for infrastructure orchestration. Terraform is, is, you know.44:11Definitely geared more towards a cloud environment. Now Terraform is a declarative you know setup where it's going to say, I, you know, I want, I need this or give me this. We're ansible, it's a little more procedural procedural where you know there are specific workflows in place that it's gonna go through that need to get triggered.44:31But, you know, this one does terraform, does also require that you'd be running catalyst center 2.3.7.6 as well again GA 2.3.7.9, but you do need to at least make sure that you are on a supported version.44:51To be able to take take advantage of the Terraform SDK packages. All right, and those links were also shared in our chat for the, to learn more, you know, the specific links for the Terraform documentation and then the terraform github.45:08Now, we do have in place like a devnet Catalyst Center refresh, program that we, you know, really what it is, it's an ongoing project where we try to update all of the Catalyst Center devnet resources and keep them up to date, including the API documents, reports, event catalogs, user guides.45:24Will be updated even the, the open API spec files, you know, the download links formal. So if you go to developer.cisco.com/catalyst center, that's where you can find a lot of these devnet resources to begin with at, you know, at the higher level if you, you know, before you want to drill down to maybe a specific such as Python or Ansible, it's a great.45:43Great place to start if you're interested in learning more about, you know, some of the devnet tools that are available for use.46:03Now, there is the the GitHub, you've heard me refer to it or well, you've heard me refer to it and you've seen it in a couple of links that have been posted in our chat space here and this is really just a repo for all of the Cisco Enterprise Networking's open source software.46:11So a majority of what we're developing, that is an open source project, it's usually gonna end up here in this repository, and that's just, you know, gitHub.com, Cisco Enterprise programmability. The link is in the chat for you to be able to, you know, go check out this GitHub and, you know, really see what is available for you.46:30In there. It's, great for you know you got the Python SDK sport in there, the Ansible modules. There's now even gen AI use cases that are in this GitHub repository for you to take advantage of sow that you can continue, you know, learning and seeing from a Gen AI standpoint what you can do with a lot of the, you know, with catalyst center.46:50Now we're gonna discuss Splunk. As many of you are hopefully aware, Splunk and Cisco, you know, there was a merger in the past, you know, a year or two, it was a little bit of a tidbit that went across the news wire on it, but Splunk and and Cisco did merge and.47:12So, you know, for those that might not be aware, Splunk is a software platform used for, you know, searching, monitoring, and analyzing machine data machine generated data and well most of us know that layman's terms as logs. So you get machine logs. It came really.47:30Log files in real time. Now it's widely used, you know, not only in IT operations, but for security and even business analytics to get insights from, you know, the, all that data that's generated from, you know, servers, different network devices, applications, and users, but it really provides.47:51Allows you to get, you know, real time insights as to what's going on, you know, based on your desired outcome and what you're looking for. Now Splunk.48:10The way it works is that Splunk actually collects data from all these various sources, the logs, the metrics, the events, whatnot. Splunk set up to receive all of that data, and then it actually indexes that data to make it searchable. Once it's indexed, it allows you to.48:20To, you know, search and analyze that data using its own query language, and that's called SPL or search processing language.48:40And then, you know, once you've done your search and, and you've done some, some analyzing then, there's also the great visuals for dashboards charts, and reports that Splunk is capable of making, and again fully, you know, customizable, some of the some of the customization features for reporting and whatnot that.48:48You know, maybe catalyst center can't provide, but lucky for us, Splunk is part of Cisco and some of those options are available within Splunk.49:08Now lastly, it's actually able to also trigger alerts or some automated actions when certain conditions are met. Splunk can actually kick off some of those automation procedures when certain conditions have been met and it receives those logs or those, those triggering events to kick them off.49:17Alright, so, another great feature with, with Splunk and and you know, I'm not trying to sound like a sales pitch here, it's just really trying to help you take advantage of, of, all the, all the data that Catalyst Center actually collects and.49:36And that's in your network to begin with. And, and one of those is that the best feature or one of in my opinion, the best features about having Splunk integrated are the executive dashboards across multiple Cisco platforms. It doesn't just have to be catalyst center. Splunk actually has different.49:52Different apps built out for it for a variety of the Cisco platforms. Now this actually creates the ability to perform, you know, multi platform event correlation and logging. So, you know, if you have an event that occurs and maybe you're running thousand eyes and some other systems, you can actually.50:11Splunk if it's tied into all of these other Cisco platforms and be able to cross reference the various logs and files to get a crystal clear image as to what was going on or what triggered, what happened, what did each of these services see that, you know, could have led to the current event that you're dealing with?50:31There's also the ability to support multiple catalyst center deployments. So instead of, you know, having to log into each system individually, you can actually.50:51Yep, I am referring to Splunk base, and I'm gonna get there in just 1 s. So you can actually log into each system individually or I'm sorry instead of having to log into each system individually with the you know through the Splunk dashboard, if you have multiple catalyst center deployments, you can actually select from your available catalyst center deployments and.51:02View the logs or view the events information for that platform right there. Now, another one is, you know.51:21Not only with Splunk but you know the Catalyst Cloud Center management has a lot of that same feature functionality of being able to view multiple catalyst center deployments, but that is for another session. I just wanted to let you know that Splunk does have that capability as well.51:30So there are several options when it comes to integrating with Splunk. You've got the Catalyst Center apps found in the Splunk catalog supported apps also known as Splunk base. There is the ability to send web hook notifications to Splunk through a HTTP event collector and then.51:46And Python scripts can be written to trigger reports and different syslog notifications. So, you know, there's not just a one side, one way to integrate with Splunk or make use of Splunk. There's a variety of ways that you can take advantage of those features. Now, someone had asked a question about Splunk based itself. Is that what I was referring to about the the Splunk.52:06Apple warehouse or.52:26Apps center, whatever you wanna call it. But when you go to Splunk based.Splunk.com, you can then search for a variety of apps that have been built out for useless Splunk and if you use the search feature, just type in catalyst, and that will bring up the variety of Catalyst Center apps. The primary one that you want.52:29To look for 1st is Catalyst center app. The other ones are add ons that can be.52:48Added on after you've already installed the Catalyst Center app, but you want to make sure that you are running at least a Splunk version nine point oh or nine.o. The catalyst center app version itself right now is@one.O and for those of you that may have used the Splunk Splunk integration with what.52:55Was formerly catalyst center that was formerly known as DNA Center, you do need to.53:15You do need to upgrade to the Catalyst Center app, it is a a different app and it you know some of its branding, but there is a now a dedicated catalyst center app in Splunk Base and the DNA Center app is NO longer available. So make sure you're searching for Catalyst Center and Splunk base. Now, when you select.53:21That catalyst center app. It's just like another app center, you know, store. You've got documentation for the application details, installation best practices and the various dashboard information. You can also see, down here where it says compatibility, you can see that it can support both Splunk enterprise or splunk.53:41Blunk cloud and the required platforms are listed down here. You see that this one goes from a ten.three all the way down to nine.zero, and that's why I made the statement of make sure you're running at least excuse me, Splunk.54:01Nine.zero. Apologies. I just apparently had a squirrel run by and distract me for a moment. Now, the app installation, excuse me, just one moment, all of the lovely pollen in the air is, you know, causing some issues from time to.54:18Time. I hope NO one else has to deal with it like I do. But let's just talk about the actual installation of Splunk from Splunk base. So from or from Splunk in general.54:36You can go into the app itself, your, your enterprise Splunk and go to apps and then from apps or the managed apps, you want to then search for catalyst center. When you search for Catalyst Center, you know, you'll see granted in my image here it does say DNA center. This was one slide that I.54:48Hey.55:08It still says DNA Center, but I I am referencing the Catalyst Center app for this particular slide. It's gonna show up in the same place, but instead of saying Cisco DNA Center app, it's gonna say Catalyst Center app right there. But you're gonna search for that and then use the green install button right there where it says install.55:09Call so go ahead and click that install button. Once you click install and it goes through the process, you're then going to need to enter your splunk.com username password and accept any licensing that's put in front of you so that you can then proceed with the download.55:29You'll then log in and install. You'll log into Splunk and it'll install the, it'll install the the application for you or the, the bundle for you so that you can begin using it, building it out within Splunk. Now, if you want to, you know.55:45Do any add ons or anything like that, any additional bundles that are available. It's really just kind of a rinse and repeat to do the add ons, go through the same process. You can search for Catalyst Center or catalyst, and then the add on bundles that are available. You follow the steps in the same steps to then install and add them onto the.56:02Catalyst Center Splunk integration.56:22Alright, so what does the dashboard look like? Now this is a built out Catalyst Center dashboard overview dashboard found within Splunk itself. This is going to, you know, it, it has a lot of the information that Catalyst Center's dashboard does. Honestly a little bit.56:25It's a little bit more colorful, a little bit easier to read and go through, but you do see, you know, when you log into catalyst center and you get that landing page dashboard, you're greeted with, you know, system health, network health, client health, active issues, and a lot of that information because that is the immediate concern, you know, when you're logging into look cause you need to see if there's something.56:44That you need to immediately address. You're gonna find the same things on the dashboard here, but again, this is customizable so that you can view only the, you know, information that's pertinent to you in your environment.57:04Now, you can also set up Splunk as a, as a syslogger. So, within Splunk, you are going to go to the settings and then the data inputs. Now, when you're on the data inputs, you want to scroll down to where you see the line item for UDP, and once you find that line item.57:16For UDP, you're going to want to expand it, click on it, add, and just really make sure that, that it's currently using 95 fourteens UD, the UDP port 9514. And I'm gonna show you why in just one moment, but this is how we're making sure that Splunk is ready to re.57:35Receive the syslog information from catalyst centers making sure that this port is enabled and open because.57:56When you're in Catalyst Center, you've got to configure Catalyst Center to then send the syslog information to Splunk. And this is done very similarly to the, to setting up the web hooks or email notifications. I know drawd went over the, the web hook information with you. So you know initially.58:05You're going to want to log into catalyst center, and then you're going to click on the hamburger menu icon. For those of you that may not have worked with me or some of the other csss or maybe you've just never heard that term before, we refer to this three line menu in the top left hand corner as the hamburger icon because there's a fair.58:25Fair amount of menus within Catalyst Center, but when you hear hamburger icon, you pretty much know exactly what someone's talking about, which menu they're talking about. So you click it, you know, you got Bun patty, bun, but that's why we called the hamburger. But you click on that, that's your main menu. Then you're going to click on system, and then from system.58:45You're going to select settings. That brings you to the system settings page within Catalyst Center. Now on the left hand side, you're going to scroll down until you find the line item for destinations.59:05Again, this is the same process that was taken for, you know, setting up webhook, webhook destination. It's just this time we're setting up Splunk as a syslog destination. So find the destinations, then select syslog. We see that currently there is NO syslog server set up right now, so.59:18Then we're going to click add. Now, once you click add, you're gonna have the pop up window appear on the side.59:37And, you will want to you will just like anything, you want to configure a new syslog server name, a description for it, make sure you've got a host name, port and protocol in place. Now, if you take a look at this port information, you see that that port 9514 is what is showing there.59:44That's why it was very important within Splunk to verify that it was listening on that UDP port because within Catalyst Center, that is the port, that you that's the UDP port that we're going to be sending this syslog information on. So there is a, there is a method to the madness or reason for it and I just want to make sure that was.01:00:04Showing y'all so that you understood, you know, the how and the why. But once you input that information, do not forget to click your save button and then that syslog destination will be saved for you.01:00:24Alright, now, now that you've got the syslog, destination actually configured, some people, you know, kind of wonder what do these syslog messages look like? And really it's, you know, it's in a JSON format and here's a sample from a syslog message sent to Splunk from Catalyst Center, and you can see that the relevant information from the.01:00:36Files are, are, you know, in here. It's got just.01:00:58The pertinent information for syslog entry is all wrapped up in there and So now let's go and I want to show you just a little bit, you know, snapshots are great, but I do want to, just, you know, play a quick walkthrough for you of some of the various, well, just of of interworkings with.01:01:01With Splunk. So when you log in, you know, you've got the, the dashboard right as you drop in, you can adjust your time range, as well as the catalyst center host. Like I said, if you've got a multi host deployment, you can select which host you want to take a look at, and then just scroll down, and like I said, this is.01:01:21Little bit more colorful than what you might see in Catalyst Center, you know, that's always a little more eye catching eye appealing for some makes it, it makes it to where your eyes don't get lost with everything being the same color potentially, I don't know. But a lot of the the standard just overview information can be found here. Up top, you can.01:01:40And then select the dashboards just like you do within Catalyst Center, if you want to view your assurance dashboard, your client health, your, your device health, what not, there are the various dashboards that you can select from the dropdown, and now we're looking at the client health dashboard. And again, similar to what you'll see in Catalyst Center, you've got your client types.01:02:00You've got your wired count wireless, your average health score, client health score, what not, the different sessions that are ongoing. You can then also view client summaries from within here. So again, this is just kind of a quick walkthrough of some of the various features of the Splunk, the, the different Splunk dashboard.01:02:20Words and the information that you'll see. Client count by protocol and I do like to pause right here because, like within catalyst center when you're looking at like the inventory pages and whatnot or the client page, device page, you can scroll to the bottom and you see a list of the devices with Mac address, IP.01:02:40What type of connection is it wired? A lot of this information, what location, is it found within your, you know, your installation? So a lot of that information is recorded as expected. And of course I lovingly hit my scroller and rewind my video just a little bit.01:03:00Let's see here. A couple other other things I wanted to show you within the Splunk dashboard before we get back is, you know, there is device health, but I wanted to show a lot of people like to ask, you know, about the issues dashboard. You know yes, just like within Catalyst Center, you do have the issues and alerts dashboard where you can view.01:03:21View the severity, the number of them, but you can also view.01:03:39You you can view kind of like a timeline to see if this is a sudden occurrence, if there's been issues throughout your network, you know, see if maybe sometimes we're a little bit busier than others with issues popping up, but this is visible within, again, within the Splunk dashboards here. You've got a breakdown.01:03:45Have the issue type, the issue name, the devices that it's affecting. But now if you want to kind of take a deeper dive, look into that specific issue, whenever you click on that blue URL, that piece of information in the Splunk log, it does notify you that you are going to be redirected back into Catalyst Center for that.01:04:05For that closer look. So, you know, I didn't want people to, to be a little put off thinking, you know, oh, what's this? It's, you know, Catalyst Center sent the information to Splunk.01:04:25But to take a little bit deeper dive, you know, you gotta go back into center for some of these items, so it does redirect you back in there. Now, outside of the issues is, we've also got the security advisories feature and that's another big one. People need, you know, gotta stay up to date with your security advisories. So once again within Splunk, you've got, you can.01:04:36Select by device name, you can filter, it's where you're just looking at security advisories for a specific device, but.01:04:56If you are looking at more of a global scale, this actually, again, provides the ability to see IP address, advisory ID. This is important that advisory ID along with the advisory publication URL. So when you select that URL it actually is going to take you to Cisco's website where there's more information.01:05:04For the security advisory and how to either a workaround or if there's a fix in place or anything, you know, just more information for the security advisory, but that can also be found within the, within the.01:05:24The Splunk logs that you see here, it's gonna take you away to back into Atlas Center. Now the last kind of big one that I was gonna touch on here within Splunk was compliance because compliance is a big issue for a lot of our customers. And it's not so much that it's an issue, but it's something that you've got to stay on top of. And.01:05:37I actually really like the compliance dashboard found within Splunk because you are able to actually see the percentage of compliant devices by the type of device. You've got the compliance device table where again, device role, IP address, Mac address.01:05:57But then compliance type. If there's any type of non compliant, it says right here compliance type status, non compliant. You can organize by compliant or non compliant to be able to get a closer look at what's going on. But I, you know, within catalyst center, you can run a compliance report and it will generate a report of of the issue.01:06:16That have been, you know, devices already found non compliant and whatnot. But this is one dashboard that I actually.01:06:36Think provides maybe a little bit more usability than, than the, than the catalyst center report for compliance, but very handy and you know, like I said compliance is a big thing because everyone's gotta make sure that you've got the proper version of software, the proper templates, you know, that things are reachable, the proper.01:06:43Well, just want to make sure your system is compliant and up to date. So, that is, you know, quick touch base on Splunk itself and, and integrating with Splunk and some of the benefits that you can get. Now I'm going to hand it all back over to Drawd to.01:07:04You know, kinda.01:07:22Touch on our last integration and kind of bring us home with things. So drawn if you don't mind, please sir, I'd love to hear some more about ServiceNow. Absolutely. All right. Thank you. Adam I appreciate that. I'm gonna finish off with ServiceNow, as Adam mentioned, I appreciate all that information there too as well and thanks guys for the integration for the.01:07:24At least.01:07:44Engagement here that we got, we gotta turnout and we got a lot of questions coming into as well. All right, so ServiceNow. All right. So this is the last integration that we have here and you know I wanted to start off to talk about what is ServiceNow, right? You know, for some of us that don't know, right? So ServiceNow is pretty much a modern version of.01:07:45ITSM or IT service management solution, right? And what it does is, is that it helps us deliver, you know, services efficiently, you know, transparently and allow for accountability, right? And so, you know.01:08:05These are some of the capabilities that we actually have here, and that's one of them is the incident management. Adam mentioned in the beginning, very beginning of the presentation of being able to create tickets automatically via from Catalyst Center into ServiceNow, right? So, you know, coupled with being able to.01:08:20Integrate this process. We also can get hands off with a lot of the mundane processes. So, so to speak, so our incident management will be able to get created and sent over to ServiceNow without us even touching within that regard, right? So we could just, you know, cross launch each solution to see.01:08:40What issues happen there too as well, right? So, you know, e.g., you know, a user logs in, you know, issue inside the portal, we can actually get that issue created into a ticket and sent over with the logs that it needs into the actual ServiceNow and be able to, you know, utilize.01:08:59Things like CMDB within that regard and getting a lot of the dependencies set up there for it. All right, so that's the in its totality, not only being able cause I know you remember when I was talking about some of the notifications that we've had, we're able to get real time notifications when the issue is resolved, but you know.01:09:19ServiceNow, we also have the reporting there too as well, right? So we have that backwards reporting that we can go back to to see what issue happened and then you know you know within the step processes and the fixes that's happening, the changes that's happening within those issues, we can monitor that too as well within ServiceNow there too as well. So from start to.01:09:39We're logging in what's happening and we can go back and see that reporting within ServiceNow too as well. So that's the totality of ServiceNow and and and you know what it does pretty much. And so the question becomes, you know, you know, why.01:10:00Integrate this with catalyst center. Why and how, right? So, I would like, you know, to quickly, you know, show you some of the use cases and the inventories that we get when we sync up Catalyst Center and and so you can see the value add for it. But the integration brings that increased IT efficiency and process workflows.01:10:14This made, you know, it pretty much makes it simple as I mentioned there too as well. So like that change management really gets simplified within that regard, but the way to set it up and how how to do it.01:10:34Well, we start off by enabling it, right? And so what what I'll talk about with here, we'll we'll see once we enable it, you know, obviously some of our data will be sent over to ServiceNow, but I'm gonna show you how, you know, without what we call the Cisco catalyst.01:10:45Application that we have in catalyst center that's gonna be set up inside ServiceNow. We're gonna we're gonna show you what happens, you know, for the loop, right? When we actually have the Cisco Catalyst app and you know, and when we don't write so this right now is what we don't have it, right? So when we enabled the bundle, right? We can send the.01:11:02Information over via REST API to ServiceNow, so all that information to be able to.01:11:22Be in ServiceNow and we can talk to ServiceNow with all these informations, right? But ServiceNow doesn't necessarily have a way to, you know, talk back to catalyst center, if you will, it's more so a receiver in that regard. So, without the Cisco catalyst application which creates that closed loop.01:11:28We'll have that broken loop there from, from that regard, so with all the data that we have in when we enable this process, you know, we can still send it over to ServiceNow all the data that we have via API, but we can't send anything back. So, that is what.01:11:49Cisco Catalyst application is gonna create for, right? So now when we have this set up and we enable just like how we would do within catalyst center, we can send over a Cisco Catalyst application set up inside ServiceNow.01:12:06And all of this will be set up inside ServiceNow, right? So, so we'll set up the Cisco Catalyst app, in which case the Cisco Catalyst app can talk to a mid server, right? And that mid server itself in turn can talk to Catalyst center. So now we have a closed loop conversation via REST API when we set that up here too.01:12:21So, so that's the value add that Cisco Catalyst application brings to this loop here. We're closing the loop within that regard. So, you know, we talked about a lot about the integrations and sending things out of catalyst center, but being able to pull information in from these other solutions. This is how we can do that within ServiceNow here too, so that's the big value add of couple in.01:12:41These two together and how we do it.01:13:01Right? And so, you know, we also can check, you know, the guides to see what version of ServiceNow that would, you know, be compatible with the catalyst application, not catalyst center application, but the catalyst application is what we're working on, right? So we want to make sure that this catalyst.01:13:03App version is the compatible version.01:13:23Inside catalyst center. I'm sorry inside ServiceNow, which is 2220. All right, so we can see that inside our, inside this actual installation guide that we have there too as well, so we can make sure the integration capabilities are set up too as well. So ServiceNow and catalyst center versions have to be compatible in order to, you know, connect.01:13:27Right.01:13:47And we can check that there, Alright, and so how do we set this up? How do we install the mid server inside ServiceNow? So this is this happens inside ServiceNow, and when we enable the bundle, that's that 1st step. And so the mid server is it pretty much runs Windows and Linux.01:13:47And it can talk to catalyst center, right? So that's what we want to set up within, in ServiceNow, right? So inside ServiceNow what we wanna do, sorry, I advanced too quickly here, but you know the installation information here is pretty much the, the step by step processes for creating the mid server.01:14:07And like I said, it can be, you know, you can download Windows and Linux processes there via Docker there, so.01:14:27That's what we'll do that. And then once we, once that's done, what we need to do is verify that the mid server will route traffic to catalyst center alright and the only way to, and the only way to do that is for it to be in the same subnet. We gotta make sure that the IP range is showing the subnet there for it. And if that and that's set up there within mid server.01:14:34You can check it at the IP range there if we can see in ServiceNow.01:14:54Okay. Now note, the connection to ServiceNow requires specific roles, right? So you gotta have that there and you can take a look at that, you know, within the server, the certified application installation guide there too as well. So we'll provide that too as well. Once we have that done.01:14:58We can shoot over to catalyst center and we can go into the systems and settings and go straight to the destinations, right? So those destinations that we were talking about, we, we did webhooks, we did.01:15:18Email with the syslog, and this is the ITSM that we were talking about here too as well. And so we put our parameters in for the ITSM, oh and and the service down information URL, and then we'll name it, name the user and then we also verify the connectivity, right? So we gotta make sure that it.01:15:29It is connected, it can send rest APIs in between the two there too as well. Once we have that set up, we can hit add.01:15:49Right, and then 2nd thing we wanna do is inside catalyst center we need to stay in system settings and go down to the integration settings and big value here is that we need to make sure that the callback URL or IP address is that of the enterprise bip, right? So that's.01:15:57Who goes in this space right here because what we want to know, we want ServiceNow to know, you know, where this, you know, information.01:16:17The source from, you know, so that's why we put in our own IP address in as the catalyst center here within this integration settings here, right? So that cause that's the callback IP, ok? Alright, so now here is where we, you know, where we can pull in the once we have all that set up, we can pull in the entire inventory of.01:16:25The catalyst center to the other management systems and integrations that we have there too as well, you know, namely servicenow. This helps catalyst center to.01:16:45Be able to cut those tickets that we're talking about automatically and get the logs into the ticket too as well. So you're not doing that either. You know, we're getting that that full enrichment of the situations surrounding all our trouble tickets here. That's the that's the value add that we're doing. And all those mundane tasks have been having to.01:16:56You know, grab logs from any of this here like from CMDB. We can sync that into catalyst center and we'll see the actual page inside the inside the quick demo that we show here too as well. But as you can see, the entire inventory from Catalyst Center is shown here. I mean, we can see the you know the change management, we can I'm sorry we can we can man.01:17:15Finish all the changes here and we can see the device inventory and the time frames of the issues and the resolved issues that we show here too as well. So, like I said, you know, the Cisco Catalyst app is required and the mid server is required to as well so that our use cases can be synced and our data can be sent over, you know.01:17:35In between the two or the three components there too as well. So keep that in mind.01:17:55Alright, yep and so here's where we, you know, yeah, here's where I want to show you the sync that we have, right? Set up or how we sync the CMDB synchronization. And so 1st what we want to do is we wanna enable that, that bundled in for CMDB sync. Once we do the.01:18:01That will just sync it within that regard and then verify it inside ServiceNow, right? So, you know, this is what we want to see the CMDB list, link there. So as long as that's set up, the bundle is turned on and you know we can schedule workflows within that process from, from in there. And then inside Catalyst Center, we can go to all develop.01:18:21Was toolkit or our runtime dashboard and see the actual CMDB sync dashlet there, right? So, and it's just, you know, we do this every time whenever we want that synced up or for every sync and I'll show you how that looks here too as well.01:18:41Alright so started up here and so what we wanna do is we wanna, you know, take a look at, our settings. All right, well, oh, I'm sorry, not settings, the platforms. All right, so and then the runtime dashboard and I'll just quickly show you the API summaries that we have shown there and then also the CMDB.01:18:57Synchronization that we see here, right? So we want to make sure that's verified connected, right? And all this is telling us is that ServiceNow has that way to.01:19:17Contact and send data and and grab logs from catalyst center to ServiceNow and vice versa there too as well. And we can come over here to ServiceNow and see the inventory that we have that's matched into catalyst center, right? So we can see all of the IP addresses, the serial number of the devices inside Catalyst Center, everything.01:19:27Right, so, you know, all those sources, you know, you know, these things are synced up into all of what we have in here too as well.01:19:46Right, you know, we can see this, like I said, we can see the serial, the serial number, the model IDs, you know, some of the other attributes there and you know get into one of the devices to make sure that it's showing what we need it to show here. All right, so we all connected up and being able to use it and talk to each other there too as well.01:19:55Okay. All right, so that's the last integration there too as well. Hopefully, you know, if you want to know a little bit much more about ServiceNow than going into any of these integrations from an accelerator standpoint where we can personally talk to you, you know, and answer of your questions and work here you can definitely rea.01:20:13Reach out to us. Again, like Adam said, take a look at our expert insight series site where we can take a look at some of the recordings that you missed and some of the ones that's coming up like the ICE integration that's coming up on the 9th. So keep that in mind. And then as we, as we close out here too as well, we do have a survey that's gonna appear on you. If you guys can go ahead and fill that.01:20:34That out before you jump off. That'd be that would be greatly appreciated. And we're also.01:20:54Help us improve these sessions as we go along and we keep going here in this session. Great turnout guys, Appreciate you guys coming and see you next time.01:20:58