NCM Connector for Cisco SmartAdvisor

Transcription

1 USER GUIDE NCM Connector for Cisco SmartAdvisor Version 1.3 Last Updated: Friday, December 8, 2017 Retrieve the latest version from:

2 2016 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved. This document may not be reproduced by any means nor modified, decompiled, disassembled, published or distributed, in whole or in part, or translated to any electronic medium or other means without the prior written consent of SolarWinds. All right, title, and interest in and to the software and documentation are and shall remain the exclusive property of SolarWinds and its respective licensors. SOLARWINDS DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, CONDITIONS OR OTHER TERMS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, ON SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION FURNISHED HEREUNDER INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE WARRANTIES OF DESIGN, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL SOLARWINDS, ITS SUPPLIERS, NOR ITS LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, WHETHER ARISING IN TORT, CONTRACT OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY EVEN IF SOLARWINDS HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. The SolarWinds and other SolarWinds marks, identified on the SolarWinds website, as updated from SolarWinds from time to time and incorporated herein, are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other SolarWinds trademarks may be common law marks or registered or pending registration in the United States or in other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks contained and/or mentioned herein are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Version 1.3, revised 12/8/2017 page i

3 Table of Contents Introduction 1 Fixed issues 1 Known issues 1 Requirements 2 Server sizing 2 Install SolarWinds NCM Connector for Cisco SmartAdvisor 3 Generate a custom report 4 Create an Orion Web Console account 4 SolarWinds NCM Connector reporting 4 Generate a report 4 Download a processed report 5 Configure settings and reset CCO credentials 5 Advanced settings 6 Set application properties 6 Troubleshooting 7 Cannot generate a report 7 Number of devices in the report 7 Error states and messages 8 ii

4 Introduction You can use SolarWinds NCM Connector for Cisco SmartAdvisor to inventory and report on Cisco devices managed by SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM). SolarWinds NCM Connector for Cisco SmartAdvisor makes use of data on the devices managed with SolarWinds NCM. Successfully using SolarWinds NCM Connector depends on correctly managing your network devices in SolarWinds NCM. SolarWinds NCM Connector for Cisco SmartAdvisor version 1.3 is compatible with SolarWinds NCM version 7.4 and later. Fixed issues Fixed issue in version 1.3: Added an option in Settings for whether to upload your IP address and host name when you send data to Cisco. Fixed issues in version 1.2: Fixed an issue with masking data from config files. Config files that contain illegal characters are now sanitized before sending to Cisco. Fixed issues in version 1.1: The State value in Customer Details is now sent in the correct format to Cisco. Fixed an issue where SolarWinds NCM Connector could not request a config file from SolarWinds NCM 7.5 that contains special characters. Regular expressions now replace sensitive data in config files before being sent to Cisco. Known issues Devices configured with SNMP encryption SolarWinds NCM Connector cannot collect inventory data from devices configured with SNMPv3 encryption, such as AES-192 and AES-256. The report may fail to generate if it includes these devices. 1

5 Requirements TYPE REQUIREMENTS Operating System Windows 2003 Server SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit) including R2 SP2 Windows 2008 Server Enterprise or Standard (32-bit or 64-bit) including R2, and Server 2008 R2 SP1 Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 Windows 8 (except Standard edition) Windows 8.1 including Update 1 (except Standard edition) SolarWinds NCM Connector Server Hardware CPU Speed Memory Hard Drive Space 3 GHz dual core, dual processor 4 GB 20 GB Installing Windows Account File System Access Permissions Requires administrator permission on the target server Ensure the Network Service account has modify access to the system temp directory: %systemroot%\temp Microsoft.NET Framework Version If this is not found on the target computer, the setup program downloads and installs it. Database Cisco Smart Net Total Care subscription Internet access SolarWinds NCM Connector has no requirement other than accessing the SolarWinds NCM database Access to the Smart Net Total Care portal The SolarWinds Orion server must have access to the internet. Server sizing Because SolarWinds NCM Connector collects data from the SolarWinds NCM database and sends it to Cisco Discovery Service, there is little data processing that the tool itself needs to perform. Any server with hardware that supports SolarWinds NCM will support the use of SolarWinds NCM Connector. 2

6 Install SolarWinds NCM Connector for Cisco SmartAdvisor You can install SolarWinds NCM Connector for Cisco SmartAdvisor on the SolarWinds NCM server or on any server that has network access to the SolarWinds NCM server. 1. Log in with a local administrator account to the computer where you want to install SolarWinds NCM Connector. 2. Locate and run SolarWindsNCMSAConnector-v1.3.exe. 3. Click Next on the Welcome screen of the installer. 4. Accept the License Agreement, and click Next. 5. Click Next to use the default location as your installation directory, or click Browse to change the location. 6. Click Install. Microsoft.NET Framework 4.0 is installed if not present on the machine. This adds minutes to the installation. 7. If prompted, click Yes to reboot the server. This is necessary if SolarWinds NCM Connector had to install Microsoft.NET Framework Click Finish when completed. 3

7 Generate a custom report Create an Orion Web Console account SolarWinds NCM Connector must authenticate against the relevant database to report on information, such as the nodes list and community strings. As preparation, obtain an Orion Web Console account with the SolarWinds NCM role of WebUploader or higher. The WebUploader role is needed for SolarWinds NCM Connector to leverage SolarWinds NCM in performing its work. For details on creating a new user account and assigning a SolarWinds NCM role, see Create an NCM account. SolarWinds NCM Connector reporting SolarWinds recommends that you process only one report at a time. Attempting to run two or more instances of SolarWinds NCM Connector will slow down the processing of each report, since the instances will contend for the same SolarWinds NCM resources, and may cause processing on one or both reports to fail. When processing a report, SolarWinds NCM Connector queries the device in the SolarWinds NCM database and the application programming interface (API) through which SolarWinds NCM Connector sends data to Cisco. Data collection takes approximately 30 seconds per device and the report is processed by Cisco. To reduce the time it takes to collect and submit data, you can use application settings to limit the number of nodes on which to generate a report. For more information, see Set application properties. Generate a report 1. Click Start New Report, or click Edit and Resubmit for a previously submitted list. 2. Enter your Cisco Connection Online (CCO) credentials, and click OK. 3. Enter the IP address of your primary SolarWinds NCM server. 4. Enter your Orion Web Console credentials. 5. Click Test Connectivity to verify network access to the server. 6. Enter Customer Details as appropriate. 7. Enter User Contact Details and select Enable Notification if you want to be notified by when your report is finished processing. 8. Select Fill in partner details, then select Cisco Sales Engineer (SE) or Cisco Partner. If you are a Cisco Sales Engineer, enter the Primary Cisco Sales Engineer. If you are a Cisco Partner, enter the Primary Partner Sales Engineer. 4

8 9. Add information for the members of your team. 10. Click Submit. You should see a progress bar. Time to generate your report varies based on how many Cisco devices are in your database. Download a processed report All processed reports are kept in the list under Previously Submitted Report Requests. If the status of your report does not show an error, click Download. Configure settings and reset CCO credentials Click in the upper-right corner to change settings. On the General tab you can: Adjust the number of SNMP retries and the length of SNMP timeout when generating a report. Change whether to upload your IP address and host name when you send data to Cisco. On the CCO Credentials tab you can: Change the user name and password for your Cisco Connection Online (CCO) credentials. 5

9 Advanced settings This section includes information on setting SolarWinds NCM Connector application properties, including default settings. If you experience errors when running a report, use the property settings to work around the errors. Set application properties You can control how a report is generated through the property settings in the NCMSAConnector.exe.config file located in the SolarWinds NCM Connector installation directory. The settings include: <applicationsettings> <CdsAssessment.Properties.Settings> <setting name="pollsbeforeassumingfailure" serializeas="string"> <value>10</value> </setting> <setting name="maxitemsnumberperrequest" serializeas="string"> <value>50</value> </setting> <setting name="cdswebservicesoaptimeout" serializeas="string"> <value>300000</value> </setting> <setting name="nodeipaddresslikematch" serializeas="string"> <value> %</value> </setting> <setting name="maxnodestoprocess" serializeas="string"> <value>50</value> </setting> </CdsAssessment.Properties.Settings> </applicationsettings> Polls before assuming failure This setting determines how many times SolarWinds NCM Connector polls for results before assuming the requested assessment report cannot be processed. The default is 10. Max items number per request This setting determines the number of items that SolarWinds NCM Connector submits to Cisco in each assessment request. Depending on how many nodes are in your SolarWinds NCM database, SolarWinds NCM Connector may make multiple requests as part of generating a report. The default is 50. 6

10 Cross-domain solution (CDS) web service Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) timeout This settings determines the interval SolarWinds NCM Connector should wait to retry its request in the event of a CDS web service timeout. The default is 30,000 milliseconds. Node Internet Protocol (IP) address like match This setting defines a pattern in Transact-Structured Query Language (T-SQL) syntax for SolarWinds NCM Connector to use in determining which nodes in the database to include in its request to Cisco for assessment. There is no default. This setting is useful if you have a large number of nodes and the report times out during the process of getting information back from Cisco. As an example, to get nodes for subnet /24, you would set this setting to %. Max nodes to process This setting determines the maximum number of nodes to process in using Cisco to generate a report. There is no default. If you set this maximum, but do not set NodeIpAddressLikeMatch, then SolarWinds NCM Connector takes the nodes from the SolarWinds NCM database and stops when it reaches the maximum. If you set NodeIpAddressLikeMatch, then SolarWinds NCM Connector takes nodes based on the pattern and stops when it reaches the maximum. This setting can be useful if you have a large number of nodes and the report times out during the process of getting information back from Cisco. Troubleshooting This section covers basic problems you may encounter when generating a SolarWinds NCM Connector report. Cannot generate a report If your Cisco Connection Online (CCO) credentials are valid but you cannot generate a report, make sure you have a Cisco Smart Net Total Care subscription. Test your subscription by accessing the Smart Net Total Care portal. Number of devices in the report If the time taken to generate a report is exceeding the maximum time expected, but you do not receive an error, you can interrupt the processing and restart the report using fewer nodes. Use the NodeIpAddressLikeMatch and MaxNodestoProcess settings to limit the number of nodes included in a single report. Divide your overall number of nodes by 50 and run as many reports as needed to complete a full set of reports on your network devices. 7

11 Error states and messages The Cisco application programming interface (API) may return an error if it does not have config, SNMP, or command-line interface (CLI) information from SolarWinds NCM. To verify that SolarWinds NCM can provide complete information to SolarWinds NCM Connector, perform these tasks: Download a config from a node. Execute a CLI command, such as show version, against a node. Perform a device inventory. See the SolarWinds NCM Administrator Guide for help on performing those tasks. If you cannot perform one or more of the tasks, select the device authentication settings that SolarWinds NCM is using to access the specific device. If SolarWinds NCM fails to perform one or more tasks, the Cisco API generates an error while processing SolarWinds NCM Connector queries. SolarWinds Support cannot take calls on SolarWinds NCM Connector because it is a free tool. SolarWinds NCM Connector is supported through the SolarWinds NCM area on THWACK, however. SolarWinds requests the following information: The contents of \CdsRepository\SW125690\ in the SolarWinds NCM Connector installation directory The contents of \CdsRepository\SW125688\ in the SolarWinds NCM Connector installation directory The version of NdsAssessement.exe in the SolarWinds NCM Connector installation directory These files may contain IP addresses and other sensitive information. Take the necessary precautions to ensure information remains confidential. 8