Installing Cisco Business Dashboard Probe

An instance of Cisco Business Dashboard Probe is required for each site in your network that you want to manage. The Probe discovers the network, collects performance and configuration data from the discovered devices, and reports that information back to the Dashboard.

This chapter contains the following sections:

Obtaining and Verifying Cisco Business Dashboard Probe Software

Cisco Business Dashboard Probe is distributed as a virtual machine image packaged in the Distributed Management Task Force’s Open Virtualization Format (OVF), suitable for import into VirtualBox. The Probe is also included as part of the Cisco Business Dashboard virtual machine image, allowing a single VM to act as both Dashboard and Probe for a particular site. To obtain the Cisco Business Dashboard Probe for VirtualBox software, navigate to https://www.cisco.com/go/cbd-sw

The virtual machine image has been cryptographically signed by Cisco to ensure that the software has not been tampered with. Open Virtualization Format images have a well-defined mechanism for cryptographic signing, and the majority of hypervisors will validate the signature as part of the import process. If the signature is not valid, an error will be generated and the import will fail.

To manually validate the signature before importing, you can use a tool such as the VMWare OVF Tool. To validate the image with the OVF Tool, use the command ovftoolimage_filename. The tool will generate an error if the signature is not valid.

Installing Cisco Business Dashboard Probe with VirtualBox

Once you have obtained and verified the Cisco Business Dashboard Probe software, install it using the following steps:

  1. Ensure you have a working VirtualBox installation available to host the virtual machine. For assistance in setting up VirtualBox, consult the VirtualBox documentation at https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/.

  2. Open VirtualBox and select File > Import Appliance...

  3. Follow the prompts and make sure you have selected the downloaded file for the appliance to import.

  4. Check that network adapter 1 is enabled and bridged to the correct physical interface on the host machine.

    The network interface of the Cisco Business Dashboard Probe should be connected to a VLAN containing the management interfaces for at least one of the network devices. If the Probe is not directly connected to at least one network device, it may be unable to fully discover the network.

  5. Start the virtual machine.

The virtual machine will boot and automatically start the Cisco Business Dashboard Probe application. Refer to the Cisco Business Dashboard Quick Start Guide for details on how to access the application and perform the initial setup.