Cisco ACI

Application Version Details

Introduction

Cisco® Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI®) is a comprehensive Software-Defined Networking (SDN) solution to enable agility and resiliency in the data center. It captures higher-level business and user intent in the form of a policy and translates this policy into the network constructs necessary to dynamically provision the network, security, and infrastructure services.

The Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure Fabric (ACI) includes Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches with the APIC to run in the leaf/spine ACI fabric mode. These switches form a “fat-tree” network by connecting each leaf node to each spine node; all other devices connect to the leaf nodes.

We need to discover and monitor performance metrics and collect configuration data for Cisco ACI devices. All of the elements making up a Cisco ACI system. Specifically we see the leafs, spines, and APICs. The controller for ACI is the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC), Cisco ACI comes with default performance management tracking to pinpoint areas that hinder the network’s performance.

Key Use cases

Discovery Use cases

The device discovery enables the customer with an unified way of showing all of the elements making up a CISCO ACI system along with the relationships.

Monitoring Use cases

The device monitoring helps to collect the metric values with respect to time and sends alerts to the intended customer team to act up immediately in case of any threshold breach or unexpected metric behavior observed based on configurations. In a way it helps the customer with smooth functioning of business with minimal or zero downtime in case of any infrastructure related issues occurring.

Prerequisites

• OpsRamp Classic Gateway 14.0.0 and above.

• OpsRamp NextGen Gateway 14.0.0 and above.

  Note: OpsRamp recommends using the latest Gateway version for full coverage of recent bug fixes, enhancements, etc.

Resource Hierarchy

     · Cisco ACI
            · Cisco ACI Fabric POD
                   · Cisco ACI Controller
                   · Cisco ACI Leaf
                   · Cisco ACI Spine
            · Cisco ACI Tenant
                   · Cisco ACI VRF
                   · Cisco ACI Contract
                   · Cisco ACI Bridge Domain
                   · Cisco ACI External Route Network
                   · Cisco ACI External Bridge Network
                   · Cisco ACI Application Profile
                          · Cisco ACI Endpoint Group

Supported Metrics

Default Monitoring Configurations

Cisco ACI has default Global Device Management Policies, Global Templates, Global Monitors and Global metrics in OpsRamp. You can customize these default monitoring configurations as per your business use cases by cloning respective global templates and global Device Management Policies. OpsRamp recommends performing the below activity before installing the application to avoid noise alerts and data.

1. Default Global Device Management Policies

   OpsRamp has a Global Device Management Policy for each Native Type of Cisco ACI. You can find those Device Management Policies at Setup > Resources > Device Management Policies, search with suggested names in global scope. Each Device Management Policy follows below naming convention:

   {appName nativeType - version}

   Ex: cisco-aci Cisco ACI Tenant - 1(i.e, appName = cisco-aci, nativeType = Cisco ACI Tenant, version = 1)

2. Default Global Templates

   OpsRamp has a Global template for each Native Type of Cisco ACI. You can find those templates at Setup > Monitoring > Templates, search with suggested names in global scope. Each template follows below naming convention:

   {appName nativeType 'Template' - version}

   Ex: cisco-aci Cisco ACI Tenant Template - 1(i.e, appName = cisco-aci, nativeType = Cisco ACI Tenant, version = 1)

3. Default Global Monitors

   OpsRamp has a Global Monitors for each Native Type which has monitoring support. You can find those monitors at Setup > Monitoring > Monitors, search with suggested names in global scope. Each Monitors follows below naming convention:

   {monitorKey appName nativeType - version}

   Ex: Cisco ACI Tenant Monitor cisco-aci Cisco ACI Tenant 1 (i.e, monitorKey = Cisco ACI Tenant Monitor, appName = cisco-aci nativeType = Cisco ACI Tenant, version = 1)

Configure and Install the Cisco ACI Integration

1. From All Clients, select a client.
2. Go to Setup > Account.
3. Select the Integrations and Apps tab.
4. The Installed Integrations page, where all the installed applications are displayed. Note: If there are no installed applications, it will navigate to the ADD APP page.
5. Click + ADD on the Installed Integrations page. The Available Integrations and Apps page displays all the available applications along with the newly created application with the version.
   Note: You can even search for the application using the search option available. Also you can use the All Categories option to search.

6. Click ADD in the Cisco ACI application.
   Note: Select the version from the drop down menu.
7. In the Configurations page, click + ADD. The Add Configuration page appears.
8. Enter the below mentioned Basic Information:

Notes

• By default the isSecure checkbox is selected.
• Host Name/IP Address and Port should be accessible from Gateway.
• Select the following:
  • App Failure Notifications: if turned on, you will be notified in case of an application failure that is, Connectivity Exception, Authentication Exception.

9. Select the below mentioned Custom Attribute:

Note: The custom attribute that you add here will be assigned to all the resources that are created by the integration. You can add a maximum of five custom attributes (key and value pair).

10. In the RESOURCE TYPE section, select:

    • ALL: All the existing and future resources will be discovered.
    • SELECT: You can select one or multiple resources to be discovered.

11. In the DISCOVERY SCHEDULE section, select Recurrence Pattern to add one of the following patterns:

    • Minutes
    • Hourly
    • Daily
    • Weekly
    • Monthly

12. Click ADD.

Now the configuration is saved and displayed on the configurations page after you save it.
Note: From the same page, you may Edit and Remove the created configuration.

13. Under the ADVANCED SETTINGS, Select the Bypass Resource Reconciliation option, if you wish to bypass resource reconciliation when encountering the same resources discovered by multiple applications.

    Note: If two different applications provide identical discovery attributes, two separate resources will be generated with those respective attributes from the individual discoveries.

14. Click NEXT.

15. (Optional) Click +ADD to create a new collector by providing a name or use the pre-populated name.

16. Select an existing registered profile.

17. Click FINISH.

The application is installed and displayed on the INSTALLED INTEGRATION page. Use the search field to find the installed integration.

Modify the Configuration

• See Modify an Installed Integration or Application article.

  Note: Select the Cisco ACI application.

View the Cisco ACI Details

To discover resources for Cisco ACI.

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Search > Software Defined Network > Cisco ACI.
2. The Cisco ACI page is displayed, select the application name.
3. The RESOURCE DETAILS page appears from the right.
4. Click the ellipsis (…) on the top right and select View details.
5. Navigate to the Attributes tab to view the discovery details.

6. Click the Metrics tab to view the metric details for Cisco ACI.

Resource Filter Input keys

Cisco ACI Resources are filtered and discovered based on below keys:

Supported Alert Custom Macros

Customize the alert subject and description with below macros then it will generate alerts based on customisation.

Supported macros keys:

Risks, Limitations & Assumptions

• Application can handle Critical/Recovery failure notifications for below two cases when user enables “App Failure Notifications” in configuration:
  • Connectivity Exception
  • Authentication Exception
• Application will not send any duplicate/repeat failure alert notification until the already existing critical alert is recovered.
• Using metrics for monitoring the resources and generating alerts when the threshold values are breached.
• Application can not control monitoring pause/resume actions based on above alerts.
• Macro replacement limitation (i.e, customization of threshold breach alert subject, description).
• This application supports only Classic Gateway and NextGen Gateway. Not supported with Cluster Gateway.
• Component level thresholds can be configured on each resource level.
• No support of showing activity log and applied time.
• For Cisco ACI Bridge Domain, we have provided the MAC address as a custom attribute, as the bridge domains share the same MAC address.