Cisco DCNM Server

The Cisco DCNM-SAN Server component must be started before running Cisco DCNM-SAN. Cisco DCNM-SAN Server is installed as a service. This service can then be administered using the Windows Services in the control panel. Cisco DCNM-SAN Server is responsible for discovery of the physical and logical fabric and for listening for SNMP traps, syslog messages, and Performance Manager threshold events.

Cisco DCNM Web UI

Cisco DCNM Web UI allows operators to monitor and obtain reports for Cisco MDS and Nexus events, performance, and inventory from a remote location using a web browser. Licensing and discovery are part of the Cisco DCNM Web UI. You can configure the MDS9000 Fabric, also.

Cisco DCNM-SAN Client

The Cisco DCNM-SAN Client displays a map of your network fabrics, including Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches, third-party switches, hosts, and storage devices. The Cisco DCNM-SAN Client provides multiple menus for accessing the features of the Cisco DCNM SAN functionality.

Device Manager

The Device Manager is embedded with the Cisco DCNM Web UI. After the switches are discovered, navigate to Inventory > Switches > Device Manager to launch the Device Manager.

Cisco DCNM-SAN automatically installs the Device Manager. Device Manager provides two views of a single switch:

• Device View —displays a graphic representation of the switch configuration and provides access to statistics and configuration information.

• Summary View —displays a summary of xE ports (Inter-Switch Links), Fx ports (fabric ports), and Nx ports (attached hosts and storage) on the switch, as well as Fibre Channel and IP neighbor devices. Summary or real-time statistics can be charted, printed, or saved to a file in tab-delimited format.

Performance Manager

Performance Manager presents detailed traffic analysis by capturing data with SNMP. This data is compiled into various graphs and charts that can be viewed on the Cisco DCNM Web UI. Performance Manager stores data into Elastic search time series database. API access to Elastic search is not supported.

DCNM Windows Installer

This installer is available as a executable (.exe) file.

DCNM Linux Installer

This installer is available as a binary (.bin) file.

Standalone Server

All types of installers are packaged along with PostgreSQL database. The default installation steps for the respective installers result in this mode of deployment.

Standalone with external Oracle

If you have more switches in your setup or if you expect your setup to grow over time, an external Oracle server is recommended. This mode of deployment requires the default installation setup, followed by steps to configure DCNM to use the external Oracle. For more information about Scalability, see https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/sw/11_0_1/scalability_guide/b_scale_guide_dcnm_11.html.

DCNM Federation

Cisco DCNM federation is the HA mechanism for SAN devices. Groups of SAN devices can be managed by each node in the DCNM federated setup. All the devices can be managed using a single client interface. Federation mode is used for resilience and scalability. It allows you to monitor 20,000 FC ports. DCNM Windows and Linux Installers can be deployed in Federation mode to have resilience in case of application or OS failures. For Cisco DCNM-SAN federation, the database URL (properties) must remain the same for all Cisco DCNM-SAN nodes in the federation.

Java Requirements

The Cisco DCNM Server is distributed with JRE 1.8.0_152 into the following directory:

DCNM_root_directory/java/jre1.8

Server Requirements

Cisco DCNM, Release , supports the Cisco DCNM Server on these 64-bit operating systems:

• SAN Deployments:

  • Microsoft Windows 2016

  • Microsoft Windows 2012 R2

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Release 7.3 and 7.4

Cisco DCNM Release supports the following databases:

• Oracle11g Express (XE), Standard, and Enterprise Editions, and Oracle 11g Real Application Clusters (RAC)

• Oracle 12c Enterprise Edition (Conventional)—(Nonpluggable installation)

  Note	Cisco DCNM Release does not support the Oracle 12c pluggable database version installation.

• Oracle 12c RAC (nonpluggable installation)

Note

The Cisco DCNM database size is not limited, and increases according to the number of nodes and ports that the DCNM manages with Performance Manager Collections enabled. You cannot restrict the database size. If you choose Oracle database, we recommend that you use Oracle SE or Enterprise edition, instead of Oracle XE due to table space limitations.

Note	You are responsible for all the support that is associated with the Oracle databases, including maintenance, troubleshooting, and recovery. We recommend that you take regular database backups, either daily or weekly, to ensure that all the data is preserved.

Note	Cisco DCNM can work on an alternative computing hardware as well, despite Cisco is only testing on Cisco UCS.

Server Resource Requirements

Note	The SAN Insights feature is not supported on small deployment. You can use the SAN Insights feature on a medium-sized deployment with 2 TB disk space as well. Every Federation node must consists of 3 Large configuration nodes.

Client Requirements

Cisco DCNM SAN desktop client and Cisco Device Manager support Microsoft Windows 10, Microsoft Windows 2012, and Red Hat Linux. The following table lists the minimum hardware requirements for these client systems.

If you install Cisco DCNM on a virtual machine, you must reserve resources equal to the server resource requirements to ensure a baseline with the physical machines.

Some Cisco DCNM features require a license. Before using the licensed features, you must install a Cisco DCNM license for each Nexus-managed or MDS-managed platform. For information about Licensing in DCNM, see https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/sw/11_x/licensing/cisco_dcnm_licensing_guide_11_x.html.

Supported Web Browsers

Cisco DCNM supports the following web browsers:

Other Supported Software

The following table lists the other software that is supported by Cisco DCNM, Release .

Also, Cisco DCNM supports call-home events, fabric change events, and events that are forwarded by traps and email.