Cisco Cloud Control Inventory

 
Updated July 24, 2026
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Inventory

Inventory in Cisco Cloud Control provides centralized visibility into the IT infrastructure for your organization. It helps you monitor security, lifecycle status, and compliance across managed assets.

Before you view inventory data

Some products may require additional integration steps before their data is visible. For details, refer to Enable Cisco Cloud Control capabilities in the Cisco Cloud Control Getting Started article.

Inventory capabilities

Inventory simplifies management by eliminating the need for manual API key management and complex individual configurations. It includes these capabilities:

  • Common data collector: A unified service that streamlines ingestion and removes the need for manual DevOps intervention or the creation of separate Kafka topics for new integrations.

  • AI-powered search: Use AI to find devices to review in more detail.

  • Pull-based ingestion: The system periodically queries integrated products to keep inventory data fresh and accurate.

  • Role-based access control (RBAC): Inventory visibility is governed by your access permissions. You see only the assets for which you have the appropriate organizational or account-level permissions.

Active issues and affected assets

Use Inventory to identify active issues that need attention, review network health and asset mix, and find affected assets.

Review issues in Insights

Follow these steps to review issues in Insights.

  1. Select app-launcher.jpg and choose Inventory.

    By default, Insights is displayed when you open Inventory. Insights provides a high-level summary of your network health and asset mix. It includes charts for this information:

    • Security and compliance metrics: Visualize your security exposure, lifecycle status (support runway), and overall compliance posture.

    • Asset class and platform distribution: Provide a breakdown of your infrastructure by asset type and platform.

      inventory-insights.jpg

  2. From Status Type, select one or more options, such as Critical and Warning, to filter the issues based on your criteria.

  3. Select the issue headline or Show devices to view more details about that issue.

    Inventory issues

    For example, select Active Network Anomalies Need Investigation to view the list of assets affected by that issue.

Review AI Insights

AI Insights provide suggestions from Cisco Cloud Control to help you identify and mitigate issues, such as unreachable devices.

Follow these steps to review the AI Insights in Insights.

  1. Select app-launcher.jpg and choose Inventory.

  2. From Status Type, select AI Insights.

    The system filters for all AI Insights and displays them under Insights.

    inventory-ai-recommendations.jpg

Review affected assets in Assets

After you review a high-level picture of your network in Insights, use Assets to identify managed assets affected by an issue. After you determine which devices need attention, work with your team to make the necessary corrections.

Follow these steps to review affected assets in Assets.

  1. Select app-launcher.jpg and choose Inventory.

  2. Select Assets Assets-toggle-button.jpg.

  3. Use the numbered callouts identify where you can:

    inventory-assets.jpg

    • 1: Search for assets that meet specific criteria.

    • 2: Select a previously used search string.

    • 3: Save a search string for future use.

    • 4: Configure filters.

    • 5:

      • Refresh asset information.

      • Save and download asset information as a CSV file.

    • 6: Review asset details, such as name, compliance status, and site.

    • 7: Configure the information that Assets displays.

AI-powered search

AI-powered search helps you search inventory with natural-language queries and returns results ranked by context and meaning. This helps organizations reduce "model fatigue," where IT teams must remember specific field names, complex search syntax, and data structures across different product families.

AI-powered search supported products and limitations

Review these details before you use AI-powered search:

  • Supported products: Meraki, Security Cloud Control, Nexus Dashboard through Intersight, and Nexus Hyperfabric.

  • Limitations:

    • AI-powered search does not support logical OR operations.

    • AI-powered search is supported only for queries longer than three words.

  • Performance: Expected response time is 1 to 3 seconds.

  • When to use traditional search: Use traditional filters for bulk exports of 10,000 or more assets, programmatic integrations, scripts, or dashboard configurations that require latency of less than 500 ms.

AI-powered search layers

The search platform combines three intelligence layers:

  • Query intelligence: Extracts structured filters from conversational queries, understands product taxonomy, handles relative time, and maps business terms to technical fields. For example, it interprets "switches" as the Network Switch asset class and handles phrases such as "last week".

  • Hybrid search: Finds assets using a combination of:

    • Keyword Search: Exact matching, such as serial numbers and IP addresses.

    • Semantic Search: Conceptual understanding, such as exploratory questions.

    • Smart Combination: Automatic balancing of keyword and semantic search.

  • Contextual ranking: Uses relevance scoring to ensure the most pertinent assets appear first and provides transparency through multiple match types.

Search modes

The system automatically selects the best approach for your query:

  • Hybrid Mode (Default): Best for almost all queries. Combines keyword matching with semantic understanding.

  • Keyword Mode: Best for exact terms such as serial numbers or IP addresses.

  • Semantic Mode: Best for conceptual exploration, such as "devices that might cause problems."

AI-powered search best practices

Follow these best practices when you use AI-powered search:

  • Use natural, conversational language.

  • Expand queries to provide semantic context.

  • Combine multiple criteria in one query.

AI-powered search use cases

AI-powered search supports queries such as:

  • Exploratory questions: "Which devices might need attention?"

    AI-powered search interprets this query as a combination of vulnerabilities, anomalies, and end-of-support dates.

  • Business language queries: "Show me risky Catalyst switches in our San Francisco data center."

  • Time-relative searches: "Assets not updated in the last 7 days."

  • Compliance and risk: "Non-compliant devices with more than five high-severity security issues."

  • Product lifecycle planning: "Switches reaching end-of-support in the next 90 days."

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