Cisco Business Dashboard is distributed as a virtual machine image packaged in the Distributed Management Task Force’s Open Virtualization Format (OVF), suitable for import into a hypervisor from the VMWare product family. The virtual machine image also contains the Cisco Business Dashboard Probe application, allowing a single VM to act as both Dashboard and Probe for a particular site. To obtain the virtual machine image, 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. The OVF Tool is available as a free download from the VMWare website. More information including a download link can be found at https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/ovf/. 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.

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

1. Ensure you have a working VMWare virtualization environment available to host the virtual machine. For assistance in setting up your environment, refer the VMWare documentation for your product. The following links may provide a useful starting point:

   • For VMWare Workstation—https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/index.html

   • For VMWare Fusion—https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Fusion/index.html

   • For VMWare vSphere—https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/index.html

2. Refer to the VMWare documentation for your product to determine the procedure for importing a virtual machine. For example, if you are using VMWare Fusion, you would open the VMWare Fusion application and select File > Import… and follow the prompts.

3. Select the downloaded ova file from your local directory and continue the import process.

4. Check that the network interface on the newly created virtual machine is connected and bridged to the correct physical interface on the host machine.

5. Start the virtual machine.

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