Understand Proactive ACI Engagements

Introduction

This document describes the Proactive ACI Engagements Program.

Background Information

An ACI Fabric contains logical signatures which highlight state and configuration which is deemed incorrect, unexpected, or bad. These signatures alert on caught conditions wih an ACI fault.

Faults have severities assigned to them which are an indicator for remediation priority. What we have found, however, is that even the most severe faults tend to be left in place if there is no perceived issue.

This program aims to highlight faults which have been seen to cascade into bigger issues so that they can be addressed at the onset. It does so by monitoring a subset of faults, then flags them via a Proactive Service Request with relevant next steps documentation to address.

Monitoring Channels

Live via Intersight

To partake in this program for live monitoring via intersight, you must have an ACI Fabric which is connected and claimed within the Cisco Intersight Portal. To connect your ACI Fabric to intersight you can refer to the Configuration Guide: Cisco APIC and Intersight Device Connector

Once claimed, the device connector sends periodic fault telemetry back to Cisco which allows us to analyze and act. When an overwatched fault code is found, a Proactive SR is filed on your behalf with the found faults and next steps to address them.

Offline via Techsupports Attached to SRs

If you have opened an ACI TAC SR and attached a relevant techsupport, the techsupport was re-analyzed for known issues outlined in the "Offline Monitoring" section. If an overwatched condition is found, a Proactive SR is opened on your behalf with the found faults or issues and next steps to address them.

Configurable Options

Set a Preferred Email contact

By default, this program creates a Proactive Service Request and reaches out to all Cisco intersight contacts associated with the claimed Cisco Intersight account. This could result in a non-ACI administrator becoming the main case contact. All other email addresses associated to the Cisco Intersight account is added to the case via the cc list.

If there is a preferred Email Contact with access and responsibility to the associated ACI fabrics, a resource tag can be added to the Cisco Intersight iam.Account resource containing the preferred email address to be used as the Proactive Service Request main contact.

Pre-requisites

1. The Preferred Email Contact must be registered with a valid Cisco Username/CCO ID.
2. The Cisco Username/CCO IC must be linked to the support contract for the ACI fabrics claimed through Cisco Intersight.

Steps to define Preferred Email Contact

1. Refer to the Configure Tags on Cisco Intersight Resources guide and apply a resource tag to the iam.Account resource with these values:

• Key - ACIProactive
• Value - email address

ACIProactive:email @ address . com

Disable Proactive Service Request Creation

To disable the creation of Proactive Service Requests associated with this program, use the Configure Tags on Cisco Intersight Resources guide to apply a resource tag to the iam.Account resource with the these values: 

• Key - ACIProactive
• Value - DISABLE

ACIProactive:DISABLE

Overwatched Faults and Issues

Live via Intersight

These faults are actively overwatched via Intersight:

Fault Code F3274: fabric-encap-mismatch

Fault Codes F0321, F0323, F0325: unhealthy - cluster diverged or degraded leadership

Fault Code F3696: coop-ep-dampening

Fault Code F1394: interface-physical-down

Fault Code F3073, F3074: SSD Lifetime Exceeds

Fault Code F1527, F1528, F1529: Storage Full

Offline via Techsupports Attached to SRs

All techsupports attached to SRs are analyzed for these faults or issues:

ACI FN72145: Nexus ACI 9000 Will Fail with SSD Read-Only Filesystem