New Features and Enhancements

This chapter describes the new features and software compatibility matrix for Cisco MSX 4.1.

For detailed information about the features, see the documentation mentioned in Related Documentation.

Cisco MSX Platform Features and Enhancements

The Cisco MSX 4.1 platform features and enhancements are given in the table below.

Platform Microservices

Features Description Category

Tenant Hierarchical View Improvements

Tenant hierarchy enables the retrieval of tenants and all their sub-tenants, sites, devices, service, and subscriptions.

New Feature: UI and API

Configuration Change Management Approvals

MSX platform provides an approval process for configuration change requests made by a user. If there is a change request on MSX, the request (which includes the Entity ID, Entity CR date, Context source path, and url) is forwarded to ServiceNow through the Change Request service.

New Feature - Process Change

Support of TLS Gateway for Remote Connectivity Management

MSX platform now provides the ability to onboard and manage devices on MSX that do not support IPSec tunnels using the TLS gateway. For more information on how to onboard the device using the TLS gateway, see Adding Device in the Managed Device documentation.

Enhancement: API

Cisco MSX SD-WAN Service Pack Features and Enhancements

The Cisco MSX 4.1 SD-WAN service pack features and enhancement are given in the table below.

Feature Description Category

Email Address Support in SD-WAN Orchestration Settings

A new email field is added to the SD-WAN Orchestration Settings that notify the user about progress in the SD-WAN processes.

 Enhancement - Process Change

Cisco MSX Managed Device Service Pack Features and Enhancements

The Cisco MSX 4.1 Managed Device service pack features and enhancement are given in the table below.

Feature Description Category

Support to Onboard Meraki Device in Managed Device

Cisco MSX Managed Device now allows you to onboard Meraki devices into MSX. For more information, see Adding a Device.

Enhancement: General

Meraki Network and Device Management

Using Cisco MSX Managed Devices services, operators can manage organizations and create networks comprising Meraki devices and services.

For more information, see Managing Meraki.

Enhancement: General

Managing Standard Configuration in Device Compliance

The following features are added to the Standard Configuration:

  • A tenant can set mandatory values required in Standard Configuration.

  • Replaced the dialog-based standard configuration editing with the standard edit.

  • When a device has outstanding compliance deviations and the device is removed from the compliance, the existing deviations are nullified. The user cannot remediate the deviation and the deviation will be marked as obsolete.

  • A tenant can specify multiple values for a standard configuration parameter.

  • A tenant can remove device remediation from an existing schedule job for processing.

  • A deleted device will be removed from the compliance monitoring.

For more information, see Device Compliance.

Enhancement: GUI

Migrating ServiceNow Settings to Tenant Settings from Service Controls

You can now configure ServiceNow and Compliance on a per-tenant basis in the tenant workspace. Starting from this release, ServiceNow is independent of any service packs.

For more information, see Creating a ServiceNow Account.

New Feature: GUI

Versioning of Device Templates

You can now version an existing device template to reduce the proliferation of templates in MSX. A user can now:

  • Update an existing device template while preserving the contents of the existing version.

  • Update or delete an applied device template.

  • Retrieve an existing device template using the latest version.

Enhancement: API

Tagging Device Templates Using Resource Tags

You can apply resource tags to device templates for classification and treatment. The resource tags are a set of arbitrary user-defined strings that can be added, updated, or deleted.

Enhancement: API

Adding TLS Gateway for Device Management

The TLS Gateway provides secure connectivity between MSX and devices behind a corporate firewall.

Note 

You need export approval for downloading the TLS Gateway VM image. For more details on the process, contact Cisco MSX product management.

New Feature: GUI

Cisco MSX Portal Enhancement

From Cisco MSX 4.0 release onwards, MSX portal displays new GUI.

The Cisco MSX GUI has:

  • The Operator Workspace is only visible to operator users. It lists all tenants that the operator is managing and the services they have subscribed to.

    Click on a tenant's tile to see details specific to a tenant in the Tenant Workspace GUI.

  • A Tenant Workspace, which allows tenants to access the information related to their subscribed services.

    The menus that are available in the Tenant Workspace are:

    • Services: Display all services subscribed by a tenant, service status, and other service metrics.

    • Sites: Display an overview of the tenant’s sites, site status, and allows access to site details.

    • Devices: Display an overview of the tenant’s devices, device status, and allows access to device details.

    • Service Controls: Display the custom service controls that are used to manage the services.

    • Offer Catalog: Display existing subscriptions and allows subscribing to new services.

    • Billing: Display billing information about the tenant’s subscriptions.

    • Activity Feed: The Cisco MSX portal allows a tenant to view several events pertaining to the subscriptions, sites, devices, template, and services. The events that are logged in the Events Log window are also used in the Activity Feed. To view the Activity Feed, choose Tenant Workspace > Services. These contextual event feeds are also displayed on the Sites Overview window and Devices Overview window.

      For more information on monitoring service status, see the Cisco Managed Services Accelerator (MSX) 4.1 Administration Documentation link in the Related Documentation table.

The figure below shows the Tenant Workspace:

Figure 1. Tenant Workspace

Cisco MSX Documentation Enhancement

From Release 4.0, a new documentation interface has been introduced for Cisco MSX for ease of search and better accessibility on Cisco.com. You can access this new interface at:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/net_mgmt/msx/end_user_doc/4_1/Cisco_MSX_End_User_Documentation.html

The following are the categories available on this new interface:

  • What's New: Includes new features, enhancements, deprecated APIs for this release.

  • MSX Solution Overview: Provides a comprehensive explanation of the design of Cisco MSX, a software solution that enables service providers and enterprises to develop and manage flexible and extensible network services.

  • MSX Guides: Includes the following:

    • Details of post-install configuration information and administrative tasks required to set up the Cisco MSX.

    • Details of deploying SD-WAN, Managed Devices, and Enterprise Access services.

  • MSX Licensing: Contains licenses and notices for Open Source software used in Cisco MSX product.

  • DevNet: Contains details of various development tools like Service Design Studio (SDS), Template Development Environment (TDE), SDK, and so on.