24/6/2019 Procedure

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Discovery 1: Introducing Cisco APIC-EM GUI- Network,

Device and Topology Discovery Using APIC-EM
Task 1: Navigating Through Cisco APIC-EM Homepage and Settings
Activity
Step 1: From wrkstn1, open your Chrome browser and go to https://192.168.1.21 to access the Cisco
APIC-EM GUI.
You may see the message on screen that your connection is not private. Click Advanced and Proceed
to 192.168.1.21.

You can log in to Cisco APIC-EM GUI using username admin and password Cisco123!.

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Step 2: Now, you can navigate through the various options on the Cisco APIC-EM home page.
You will see Dashboard, System Heath, and System Info tabs on the home page.

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On the dashboard, you will see Device Inventory and also the information that is related to device
connections. You will see more information in next few steps.

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Click the system health tab on home page, you will see the CPU, memory, and storage utilization. It
also lists the applications and the corresponding services running on Cisco APIC-EM. It helps you to
monitor the status of the services that are running on Cisco APIC-EM.

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Click the system info tab on home page, you will see the Cisco APIC-EM version. It will also display
the information about system requirements, deployment guides, and release notes for Cisco APIC-EM.
Step 3: Check the Cisco APIC-EM GUI elements.
You can view the Cisco APIC-EM GUI elements in the home page.

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Name Description
Navigation pane At the left side of the window, the Navigation pane provides access to the
Cisco APIC-EM functions and additional applications, such as EasyQoS,
Path Trace, IWAN, and Network Plug and Play.
Global Toolbar At the top of the window, the Global toolbar provides access to tools, such
as API documentation, settings, and notifications.
Application or In the main window area, the application or function pane displays the
interface of the application or function. When you click an option in the
Function Pane Navigation pane or from the Global toolbar, the corresponding application
or function opens in this pane.
I wish this page At the bottom of the window, the "I wish this page would" feedback link
opens a preaddressed email in your email application, where you can
would... feedback provide input about your experience using the Cisco APIC-EM and
suggestions for improvements.
link
Step 4: Check the Navigation Pane options in the Cisco APIC-EM GUI.
You can click the arrow that is displayed in the top-left corner of the page to unhide the navigation
pane functions. The arrow allows you to hide and unhide the Navigation pane.

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Step 5: Check the Global Toolbar options.

The Global toolbar provides access to API information, administrative functions, system notifications.

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APIs—Displays the automatically generated documentation for the northbound REST APIs.
System Notifications—Opens the System Notifications dialog box, which provides information about
system notifications that have occurred.

The icons at the top provide a total of the number of notifications in each of the following categories:

Minor (yellow triangle icon)

Major (orange triangle icon)
Critical (red octagon icon)

If notifications have occurred, they are listed below the icons. For example, any notifications about
software

updates or security certificates updates appear in this window. Click the Notification History link to
open the Notifications window. This window provides information about the notification, such as its
severity, source, timestamp, and status.

You can perform the following actions in this window:

Acknowledge a notification.
Filter notifications by status or security level.
Sort notifications by source, detail, description, timestamp, or status.

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Step 6: Check the Administrative functions in the Cisco APIC-EM GUI.

Click Admin option on top right as shown below.

From this menu, you can choose the following administrative options:

Settings—Allows you to configure controller settings, such user profiles, discovery credentials,
network security settings, backup and restore, and other controller settings.
App Management—Allows you to individually upload and enable Cisco and third-party applications,
backup and restore the controller data, and update the Cisco APIC-EM software.
System Administration—Allows you to manage and troubleshoot controller services.
Audit Logs—Provides information to help you monitor policy creation and application.
About APIC-EM—Displays the installed Cisco APIC-EM software version.

You can perform the following user functions:

Change Password—Allows you to change your own password.

Sign Out—Logs you out of the Cisco APIC-EM.

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Task 2: Using Discovery Application in Cisco APIC-EM

Activity

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Step 1: From the APIC-EM admin tab, choose Settings in the upper right corner to view the
configured global credentials for the devices that are being managed by Cisco APIC-EM.

Before proceeding to device discovery using Cisco APIC-EM, you need to check that the CLI and
SNMPv2c credentials have been configured in Discovery Credential window.

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Following credentials have been configured and saved as shown above:

Parameters Credentials
Username cisco
Password cisco
Enable Password cisco
Read Community Name SNMP_RO
Read Community PUBLIC
Write Community Name SNMP_WR
Write Community PRIVATE
Cisco APIC-EM discovers the devices and hosts and populates the device and host inventory database
with the results of the discovery.
To discover devices and hosts, you must configure SNMPv2c credentials or SNMPv3 credentials or
both SNMPv2c and SNMPv3 credentials (depending on your network). For SNMPv2, only the SNMP
read community credentials are mandatory.
When you need to configure network devices, you would also need the SNMPv2 write community, but
discovery only requires a read community.
CLI credentials are also mandatory. You need to configure CLI credentials to access to the
configuration files on the devices.
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These credentials can be configured in two different places in Cisco APIC-EM GUI:

Settings > Discovery Credentials window: Configure SNMP and CLI credentials in this window
when they are common to all or most of the devices in your network. These credentials are referred
to as global credentials. In this lab, you will use global credentials.
Discovery window: Configure SNMP and CLI credentials in this window when you want to discover
devices in real time. Or when you need to discover devices that do not have the typical SNMP and
CLI credentials. Most of the devices in your network have SNMP and CLI credentials, and that were
configured in the Settings > Discovery Credentials window. These credentials are referred to as
exception credentials. You will see this option in the next few steps.

You can add multiple credentials. Cisco APIC-EM will always try first the credentials that are specified
in the Discovery window. If these credentials are not valid, the controller will try connecting to the
devices using the global credentials that are added in this section.
Step 2: From the Navigation pane, click Discovery from the list of applications.
Click the arrow on top to expand the view. It will help you view all application names in the navigation
pane.

You can see that there is a discovery that named Discovery_CDP in the discovery pane on the left. The
discovery has been performed using Cisco Discovery Protocol and it has discovered four devices. In
this lab exercise, you will perform another discovery using IP Range method.
The Discovery function scans the devices and hosts in your network and populates Cisco APIC-EM
database with the information that it retrieves. To do this, you need to tell the controller some

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information about your network so that the Discovery function can reach as many of the devices in
your network as possible and gather as much information as it can.
The Discovery function uses a combination of the following protocols and methods to retrieve the
information about your network:

Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)

Community-based Simple Network Management Protocol version 2 (SNMPv2c)
Simple Network Management Protocol version 3 (SNMPv3)
Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP)
IP Device Tracking (IPDT)—IPDT is enabled automatically for all devices by the controller. For this
configuration, privileges must be given to the controller during discovery.
LLDP-MED—IP phones and possibly some servers are discovered using LLDP Media Endpoint
Discovery

There are two types of discovery scan methods that are used in Cisco APIC-EM GUI:

Cisco Discovery Protocol: For this method, you enter the IP address of a single device that is called
seed device to use as the starting point for scan. From this device, Cisco Discovery Protocol scans the
directly connected Cisco devices. Cisco Discovery Protocol is Cisco proprietary and it can be used to
scan and discover Cisco devices in the network.
Range: For range, you enter the beginning and ending IP addresses to use as the scan boundary. Cisco
APIC-EM then scans subsequently, beginning with the first IP address and ending with the last one.
In this lab exercise, you will use Range for the discovery scan. The Range method can be used to
discover devices in a multi-vendor environment.

Step 3: In this lab exercise, you will use Range option to discover devices.
Click "+" in the upper left to add a new discovery. In the Discovery Name field, enter a unique name
for this discovery- Disc_Range. From the discovery Type field, choose Range.
Add the following IP address ranges and then click "+."

192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.20
192.168.2.1 to 192.168.2.20
172.16.1.1 to 172.16.1.2

Step 4: Ensure that the device credentials have been configured and selected.
Click Credentials to expand the view. You will see that the global credentials are selected. All Cisco
devices in this lab have been configured with these global credentials.

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Step 5: Ensure that Cisco APIC-EM uses Telnet and SSH Protocols to connect to the network devices.
Click Advanced to configure the protocols that Cisco APIC-EM uses to connect to devices. By default,
only SSH is selected. Select Telnet and SSH as protocols for this lab exercise. Click Start to begin the
discovery.
Note: You may have to scroll towards right to get to the Start tab.

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To remove a protocol, Telnet or SSH from the scan, click the protocol name. The check mark next to
the protocol disappears and the protocol fades from the display. In this lab exercise, you will not
remove it.
To customize the order that protocols are used to connect to devices, drag and drop a selected protocol
to the desired location in the list.
Step 6: Ensure that Cisco APIC-EM completes the discovery scan process.
You will see a new page with the status of discovery as Starting. The status will change to In Progress
and then Completed once all devices in the IP address range are discovered.

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Step 7: Ensure that Cisco APIC-EM discovers all four network devices- HQ, HQ-SW, BR, and BR-
SW.
Click the device icon next to the displayed number. You will see all four devices that are listed.

If you cannot see all four devices that are listed, then you need to go back to previous steps and
perform another discovery function.
Note: You can ignore the devices that are marked as unreachable. The wrkstn1 has IP address of
192.168.1.10. It is unreachable as the router and switch VMs used in this lab exercise, are not
configured to support IPDT.
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Task 3: Using Device and Host Inventory in Cisco APIC-EM

Activity
Step 1: From the navigation pane, go to Device Inventory.
You will see all four devices listed here- HQ, BR, HQ-SW, and BR-SW.

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Note: Please make sure all your devices are present in the inventory and that they come up with
Managed status. If you have any entries showing up with a different status, it means that there has
been a problem collecting the information (typically credentials and/or SNMP communities entered
incorrectly).
Next, choose the link to HQ in the Device Name column. After you click the device name, you get a
pop-up with specific device information and interface status.
Step 2: From the layout drop-down menu, choose Tagging.
The default Device Role is assigned to each device.

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During the scan process, a device role is automatically assigned to each discovered device. The device
role is used for identifying and grouping devices according to their responsibilities and placement
within the network. The controller automatically sets a role for each device that it discovers during a
scan. If the controller is unable to determine a device role, it sets the device role as unknown. You can
use the drop-down list in this column to change the assigned device role.
The device roles that are available: Unknown, Access, Core, Distribution, and Border Router
You can make the following changes in the device inventory window. In this lab, you are not required
to make any change.

Location: You can add the device location; like in this lab HQ and HQ-SW will be San Jose and BR
and BR-SW will be RTP.
Policy Tag: Policy Tag is related to Quality of Service (QoS).
Device Tag: Device tags allow you to define scopes or groups of devices. Devices can have multiple
“Device Tags.”

Step 3: From the layout drop-down menu, choose Hardware.

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You can view information that is related to each device like IP address, serial numbers, Cisco IOS
Software version, and so on. You can also view the configuration file for each device.
Step 4: You can customize the device inventory view by choosing the Customize Layout.
Step 5: You can go to navigation pane and view the host inventory.
In this lab exercise, you will not see any hosts that are listed. The hosts are not enabled for the Cisco
APIC-EM discovery.

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Note: You do have a host, wrkstn1 being used in this lab. As this lab setup is a virtual environment and
the router and switch VMs used do not support IPDT, users do not see it listed. In real network, you
will see the host PCs, IP Phones, and so on being discovered as well.
If the Discovery scan identifies a network element as a host (or cannot identify it as a device), that
element appears in the Host Inventory instead of the Device Inventory. The Host Inventory table can
display the following information about all hosts that the controller discovers:

Host Name
User Status
MAC address
IP address
Network Attachment Point
Host Type

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Task 4: Using Topology Function in Cisco APIC-EM

Activity
Step 1: From the navigation pane, select the Topology icon.
You will see the topology that has been automatically created by Cisco APIC-EM.

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Cisco APIC-EM auto discovers and maps network devices to a physical topology with detailed device-
level data. With its autovisualization feature, it presents a highly interactive mechanism for viewing
and troubleshooting the network. You can also easily customize its GUI.
The Topology window displays a graphical view of your network. Using the discovery settings that you
have configured, the Cisco APIC-EM discovers and maps devices to a physical topology with detailed
device-level data.
The topology map includes the following key features:

Auto-visualization of Layer 2 and 3 topologies on top of the physical topology provides a granular
view for design planning and simplified troubleshooting.
For a Layer 2 topology, the controller discovers configured VLANs within your network to display in
the Topology window. For a Layer 3 topology, the controller discovers all forms of a Layer 3
topology (OSPF, IS-IS, and so on), depending on what is currently configured and in use within your
network to display in the Topology window.

Step 2: Check the options in the Topology toolbar.

The figure and list below shows the options in the topology toolbar.

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Toggle Aggregation: It enables or disables device aggregation. Aggregating devices means grouping
devices. You can save the layout for future reference by clicking the Save icon. This grouping does
not affect the physical configuration on the devices. Aggregation is enabled by default.
Toggle Multiselect: It allows you to select multiple devices by pressing Shift key and simultaneously
dragging the desired device with mouse. You can also select multiple groups of devices by clicking
shift and dragging the mouse over a group of devices. After selecting the group of devices, you can
aggregate or tag them. If you aggregate devices of different product families, the Cisco APIC-EM
shows them as generic devices (without a device type) and the number of devices. Multiselect is off
by default.
Search Topology: It searches for a host or device by host name, device name, device type, or IP
address. As you enter information into this field, the Cisco APIC-EM displays matches. You can
select the host or device from the results that appear. The selected host or device appears in the
Topology window.
Filters: Allows you to choose a filter that you can apply to the topology map.
Zoom out: Adjusts the Topology window's view. Click the - (minus) icon to minimize the view of the
network hosts and devices.
Zoom in: Adjusts the Topology window's view. Click the + (plus) icon on the menu bar to maximize
the view of the network hosts and devices.
Toggle Color Code: Toggles between displaying the device icons in different colors or in a single
color. Color coding is enabled by default.
Tags: It displays the available tags. Clicking on an individual tag highlights the device or devices in
the Topology window that have this tag. You can also apply tags to devices by selecting the device,
clicking Device Tagging in the Device Information dialog box, and then creating and applying the
tags.
Layers: It displays devices with the following attributes on the topology map:
Layer 2—Displays the devices based on the selected VLAN or Layer 2 protocol.
Layer 3—Displays the devices based on the selected Layer 3 protocol.
VRF—Displays devices that have Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) tables.
Save and Load Options: It displays the following options:
Save current layout—It saves the current layout, device aggregations, and labels.
Load saved layout—It loads the previously saved layout, device aggregations, and labels options.

Step 3: Click the HQ device icon in the topology to get information on the device.

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You can display data for a specific device in the Topology window. Displaying device data is helpful
when troubleshooting network connectivity issues between devices. The device data that is accessible
in the Topology window is also accessible in the Device Inventory window.
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© 2017 Cisco Systems, Inc.

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