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Cisco Catalyst™ Center Global Manager provides IT teams a powerful solution for managing global and large-scale, multisite deployments from a single, universally accessible dashboard across campus networks and branch offices.
Cisco Catalyst Center Global Manager provides a complete solution for managing global and large-scale deployments through a single, universally accessible dashboard.
It delivers an overview of network health and full-stack visibility across all campus networks and branch offices. It also supports a global search of different Catalyst Center deployments and their devices, endpoints, or users, allowing seamless cross-launch into Catalyst Center.
This capability is especially beneficial for managing distributed, high-scale systems and helping ensure network consistency and operational efficiency, making it ideal for large-scale networks, geographically dispersed networks, and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) with multiple Catalyst Center instances.
Table 1. Benefits
| Feature |
Benefit |
| Improved efficiency |
● Combines information and tools into a unified interface, enabling IT teams to perform tasks more quickly without switching between systems.
|
| Improved adherence to Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) |
● Improves adherence to SLAs by focusing on Time-to-Resolution (TTR) metrics, without requiring an unsustainable increase in network management teams, even as the network footprint expands.
|
| Enhanced visibility |
● Provides a comprehensive view of operations, enabling better decision making and offering an easier way to monitor and manage resources and identify issues.
|
| Simplified management |
● Reduces complexity with centralized control, making it easier for IT staff to oversee systems and processes.
|
| Scalability |
● Easily scales to accommodate ongoing growth and changes for large global enterprises with a single interface.
|
Platform capabilities
● Scale and enterprise readiness: Helps ensure that the system is capable of handling large-scale operations and meets the robust operational requirements of enterprise environments.
● System health and monitoring: Provides tools and capabilities to continuously observe and assess the operational status and performance of Global Manager and the underlying Catalyst Center control plane.
● Single Sign-On (SSO) cross-controller navigation: Allows users to seamlessly navigate between different controllers and Global Manager using SSO authentication.
● Global search: Enables users to efficiently find information or resources across the entire system from a centralized search function.
● Dashboard customization: Provides a highly configurable user experience, permitting users to personalize their dashboard views to display the most relevant information and metrics for their needs.
● Improved error handling for UI: Enhances the user interface’s ability to gracefully manage and communicate errors, improving the user experience.
● Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Implements security mechanisms that restrict system access based on the roles of individual users, as defined by their organization.
● Context-sensitive online help: Provides users with immediate and relevant assistance that is tailored to the specific screen or task they are currently performing.
● Day-0 setup improvements: Streamlines and enhances the initial configuration and deployment process for new system installations.
NetOps and AIOps features
● Control-plane and system visualization: Offers a graphical representation of the system’s control plane, providing insights into its architecture and operational status.
● Site hierarchy unification: Integrates and standardizes the organizational structure of different sites, creating a unified and consistent view.
● Network summary: Presents a high-level overview of the network’s status, performance, and key metrics.
● Endpoint visibility: Provides comprehensive insight into all connected endpoints, allowing better monitoring and management.
● EoL and EoS visibility: Provides clear information regarding the End-of-Life (EoL) and End-of-Sale (EoS) status of hardware and software components.
● SD-Access visibility: Provides insight and monitoring capabilities for Cisco® Software-Defined Access (SD-Access) deployments.
● Inventory: Provides a detailed catalog of all assets and resources managed on the network.
● Data table export, search, sort, and filtering (beta): Allows users to export, search, sort, and apply filters to data within tables for enhanced analysis.
● Drill down for site, client, devices and issues: Enables users to navigate from a high-level overview to detailed information about specific sites, clients, devices, or reported issues.
● Improved cross-launch: Enhances the functionality and user experience of launching cross-system applications or tools.
● Situational dashboard (beta): Offers dashboard-building tools to design customized, real-time, context-specific views into operational telemetry.
DevOps features
● Complete UI/API parity: Helps ensure that all functionalities available through the user interface are also accessible and controllable via the API, providing consistent capabilities across both interfaces.
● APIs for third-party solutions integration: Allows external, third-party applications to seamlessly connect and exchange data with the system through open programming interfaces.
● APIs for monitoring management plane health: Exposes specific APIs providing programmatic access to real-time data and metrics related to the operational health and performance of the management plane.
● APIs to query global network/device inventory details: Enables automated retrieval of comprehensive information about all network devices and their inventory across the entire global network.
Licensing overview
● The Catalyst Center Global Manager license is included in your active Cisco DNA® license.
● There is no additional cost.
● There is no separate support contract.
● The license is tied to your Smart Account and Virtual Account.
● Catalyst Center Global Manager entitlement is also included with your active DNA entitlement
For additional licensing information, please refer to the Catalyst Center Data Sheet section on Licensing.
Catalyst Center Global Manager is provided as a virtual appliance, to be deployed as a Virtual Machine (VM) that conforms to the requirements in the following table.
Table 2. Virtual Machine Minimum Requirements
| Requirement |
Details |
| Virtualization platform and hypervisor |
VMware vSphere (includes ESXi and vCenter Server) 7.0.x or later, including all updates. |
| Processors |
● Intel Xeon® Scalable server processor (Cascade Lake or newer) or AMD EPYC Gen2 with 2.1 GHz or better clock speed.
● Dedicate 8 vCPUs with a 16 GHz reservation to the VM.
|
| Hard Disk Drive (HDD) |
100 GB + 550 GB (2 HDDs). |
| Memory |
16 GB RAM. |
| I/O bandwidth |
180 MB/sec. |
| Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS) rate |
2000–2500 IOPS, with less than 5 ms of I/O completion latency. |
| Latency |
Catalyst Center Global Manager to Catalyst Center connectivity: 350 ms. |
| Active sessions |
Supports up to 10 active user connections when network administrators log in to Catalyst Center Global Manager. |
Reachability and connectivity need to be configured in conformance with the guidelines provided separately in the Deployment Guide, specific to each release of Global Manager. Correct configuration and optimization steps, as defined in the Deployment Guide, will help ensure optimal performance.
Inter-node network latency, bandwidth, and throughput of the network, also defined in the Deployment Guide, can generally affect the quality of user experience. Solution sizing will likewise impact Global Manager’s responsiveness, particularly based on the maximum number of users, management nodes, and sites under management.
Catalyst Center Requirements
For use with Catalyst Center Global Manager:
● Release 2.3.7.9 or higher
● IP Reachability to Catalyst Center Global Manager
● HTTPS/PORT 443 between Catalyst Center Global Manager and Catalyst Center
● Up to 350 ms latency between Catalyst Center Global Manager and Catalyst Center
● Smart Account and Virtual Account Created for Catalyst Center registration with Catalyst Center Global Manager
Catalyst Center Global Manager Requirements
● vCenter and ESXi host running 7.0.x or higher
● 8 vCPU
● 16 GB RAM
● 100 GB + 550 GB SSD HDD
● 25 controllers (Catalyst Centers) can be added to Catalyst Center Global Manager
Catalyst Center Global Manager software is included with Catalyst Essentials (DNA Essentials) and Catalyst Advantage (DNA Advantage) subscriptions. The software itself is provided at no cost; annual support will be provided to Catalyst Center users under their existing services contract.
For warranty specifics, Cisco generally encourages visiting the Cisco Product Warranties page at https://www.cisco.com/go/warranty. This page contains detailed warranty terms applicable to Cisco products, including software maintenance policies, warranty duration, and support terms.
Standard warranty terms and limitations apply.
Get started with Catalyst Center Global Manager
● Catalyst Center Global Manager - At-A-Glance
● Catalyst Center Global Manager – Deployment Guide