Cisco Crosswork Network Controller 7.2 Administration Guide

Virtual machines in Crosswork Network Controller

Updated: March 2, 2026

Want to summarize with AI?

Learn how Crosswork Network Controller uses single-VM and clustered deployments, and review the key concepts, tasks, and troubleshooting procedures for managing VM nodes.

A virtual machine (VM) is a compute node that

hosts platform services and applications,
supports both standalone and clustered deployments, and
enables administrators to monitor, configure, and scale system resources.

In this documentation, the terms VM and node refer to the same entity and are used interchangeably.

Crosswork Network Controller supports two deployment models:

Single VM deployment: All system functions run on a single virtual machine, providing a streamlined management experience with limited redundancy and device capacity.
Cluster deployment: Multiple VMs form a cluster, distributing workloads for scalability, high availability, and extensibility.

Administrators use the Crosswork Manager interface to:

monitor the health and status of each VM,
view resource consumption and operational details,
add, update, or remove VMs as network demands change, and
assign administrative roles for VM management tasks.

Additional reference information

Role assignment controls user access to VM configuration settings.
Management actions and monitoring features are available for both individual VMs and clusters.
For advanced operational guidance, see tasks such as deploying new VMs, troubleshooting faults, and performing system recovery.

Management actions in Crosswork Manager

The Crosswork Manager interface enables administrators to monitor and manage cluster health, resources, nodes, and installed applications.

Table 1. Crosswork manager actions
Action	Description
Navigation	Use the Crosswork Manager window to check the health of the cluster. To access: from the main menu, choose Administration > Crosswork Manager.
Crosswork summary tab	Displays summary information about the status of nodes, the Platform Infrastructure, and the applications currently installed.
Cluster Management window	Displays node details and can be viewed only when Crosswork Network Controller is deployed as a cluster. Click on the System summary tile to see the node details.
System Summary window	When deployed on a single VM, allows access to details for that VM. Click on the System summary tile to see the VM details.

Additional notes

In a cluster, the Cluster Management window provides summarized details about cluster health, overall resource consumption, and per-node resource utilization.
The UI shows the IP addresses in use for each node and whether they are hybrid or worker nodes.
On AWS EC2 deployments, the VM status may show "unknown" initially and then "initializing" after updating the inventory file—this is normal behavior for EC2 clusters.
To see more visualizations, use the View more visualizations link in the top-right corner.
To inspect node details, click on a node tile and select View details for components, microservices, and alarms.
To request metrics or logs, click under the Actions column and select the desired operation (such as metrics, logs, or restart microservice).
For additional platform or application health, refer to the Crosswork health tab.

Common troubleshooting scenarios in cluster management

These scenarios describe common troubleshooting cases in Crosswork Network Controller cluster management and their expected behaviors:

Table 2. Troubleshooting scenarios
Scenario	Resolution
One of the Hybrid nodes is faulty in a cluster with one or more worker nodes.	Follow the Clean system reboot procedure described in System recovery options and requirements.
More than one Hybrid node is faulty.	Follow the Redeploy and recover procedure described in System recovery options and requirements.
Last_updated_time deviation	On the Cluster Management window, it is normal to see deviation on the last_updated_time across the nodes in the cluster based on when the data was updated. This is an expected behavior.

Additional information

If multiple node or application faults persist after recommended recovery actions, contact the Cisco Customer Experience team for further assistance.
When performing recovery actions, always verify backup recency and ensure the operational architecture matches the original deployment (number/type of nodes).
For further recovery steps, see System recovery options and requirements for detailed actions covering VM replacement, system reboot, and redeployment.

Need help?

Open a support case

(Requires a Cisco Service Contract)

The documentation set for this product strives to use bias-free language. For the purposes of this documentation set, bias-free is defined as language that does not imply discrimination based on age, disability, gender, racial identity, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality. Exceptions may be present in the documentation due to language that is hardcoded in the user interfaces of the product software, language used based on RFP documentation, or language that is used by a referenced third-party product. Learn more about how Cisco is using Inclusive Language.