November 2011 This document describes the operating environment and the defects and caveats that were identified as part of internal testing and during the live trials. It assumes the reader has a good working knowledge of the Cisco Insight Reporter software. For additional information, please refer the following documents that are delivered as a part of this release. Cisco Insight Reporter v3.1 Installation Guide Cisco Insight Reporter v3.1 User Guide Contents This document covers the following Target Operating Environment, page 1 Compatibility with Cisco DPI Devices, page 4 Differences with Cisco Insight Reporter v3.0, page 4 Closed Caveats, page 6 Open Caveats, page 6 Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request, page 8 Target Operating Environment The Cisco Insight Reporter is the web reporting application to monitor traffic analyzed by the DPI capabilities of the Cisco Service Control Engine (SCE) and Aggregated Services Router 1000 Series (ASR1K). The Cisco Insight Reporter software is primarily designed to be installed as an independent component on a dedicated hardware, this scenario is the most suitable for medium/large SCE/ASR1K deployments for which it is advisable to keep the data collection and storage layers on separated hardware and dedicate all the server resources to the Cisco Insight Reporter application. Americas Headquarters: Cisco Systems, Inc., 170 West Tasman Drive, San Jose, CA 95134-1706 USA
Target Operating Environment For demo purpose or small SCE/ASR1k deployments, the application can be installed on the same host as the Cisco Collection Manager (CM). In this scenario, the embedded MySQL 5.1 database engine, provided with the application, needs to be used to store traffic data and the CM must be configured to populate it. The application can also be installed on a deployed server with the CM software and its traffic database but, in this case, the database technology needs to be MySQL 5.1. The software can be deployed also on virtualized systems provided that the hosted operating system is compliant and that all the requirements on prerequisites are met. Hardware Requirements The Cisco Insight Reporter can be installed on any physical or virtual host with the following minimal specifications: Table 1 Hardware Specifications Components CPU RAM Free Disk Space Network interface Specifications Single/dual-core 2.0 GHz or greater Intel x86/64 processor, Sun Scalable Processor Architecture 4 GB or greater 10 GB for the OS + additional disk space in case of traffic data storage. Recommended size: > 100 GB Single 100BASE-T Ethernet or greater In case of doubt, you can contact Cisco Support to get an estimation of the required CPU power, RAM capacity and disk storage. The performance of the Cisco Insight Reporter depends on the size of the SCE/ASR1K deployment and the number of users simultaneously running the reports. To get an optimal performance, the hardware may have to be scaled accordingly. The above recommendation is for a good response time when running ONLY the Cisco Insight Reporter application. In case the same server is used to co-host other applications, the hardware has to be upgraded with more RAM, CPU power and storage capacity. Software Requirements You can install Cisco Insight Reporter on any server running the following operating systems: Table 2 Supported Operating Systems OS and architecture Version Architecture Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS 5.x Intel x86 32/64 bit Solaris SPARC 32/64 bit 9 or 10 Intel x86 32/64 bit 2
Target Operating Environment The recommended operating system for best performance is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 64-bit Supported Browsers The Cisco Insight Reporter is compliant with the following browsers: Firefox v3.0 and later IE v6.0 and later Google Chrome v5.0 and later As a prerequisite, the Flash Player 10.x browser plug-in should be installed on all client PCs that will be used to display reports. Cisco Insight Reporter supports both HTTP and HTTPS. Screen Resolution The application GUI supports a variety of screen resolution modes including 1280x1024, 1024x768, and 1680x1050 with consistent support of 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios (wide screen). For a better user experience it is recommended to use a minimum vertical resolution of 1024 pixels. A minimal screen resolution of 1024X768 is supported with vertical and horizontal scroll bars. For other resolutions, scrollbars may appear if the screen resolution is lower than the application workspace or if there are too many toolbars configured on the browser. To maximize the user experience, it is suggested to set the browser to full-screen mode (that can be set usually by pressing the F11 function key). Supported Databases The Cisco Insight Reporter is delivered with a bundled MySQL 5.1 database that is used for internal operations, but can also be used to store traffic data populated by the Cisco Collector Manager software. When installing the Cisco Insight Reporter application on the same host as the Cisco Collection Manager software, both the traffic data and the application internal tables need to be located on the same database engine, thus it is required to adopt MySQL 5.1 database. In this case, it is possible to use either the bundled MySQL or to install a standalone MySQL 5.1 engine (and not install the bundled MySQL shipped with the application). However, even if the database engine is unique, the data schemas of the application will be separated by the Collection Manager schema containing traffic data. 3
Compatibility with Cisco DPI Devices When traffic data is not stored on the bundled database, the Cisco Insight Reporter can connect to external data sources as it supports the same database technology as the Cisco Collection Manager software: MySQL 5.x and greater Oracle 10.x and greater Sybase ASE 12.x and greater Supporting multi-vendor drivers allows connecting to the CM databases to retrieve traffic data and SCE/ASR1K configurations For licensing issues, when working with Oracle and Sybase databases, customers are required to provide the software JDBC connectors and copy them on a specific path of the application, as described in the Installation Guide. Compatibility with Cisco DPI Devices Cisco Insight Reporter v3.1 is the reporting platform for both the Cisco Service Control Application and the Application Visibility & Control solutions. As such, it supports the following Cisco DPI devices: Table 3 Supported DPI devices and releases DPI device SW release CM database schema version SCE (1010, 2020, 8000) 3.5.0 to 3.7.2 1 3.5.0 to 3.7.2 2 ASR 1000 series XE 3.4 and 3.5 3.7.0 and 3.7.1 1. SCE OS and SCA BB v3.7.2 will be released after the delivery of Cisco Insight Reporter v3.1 2. SCE OS and SCA BB v3.7.2 will be released after the delivery of Cisco Insight Reporter v3.1 Differences with Cisco Insight Reporter v3.0 The Cisco Insight Reporter v3.1 provides all the functional features of its previous release as it is an incremental version. The current release mainly adds new reports and supports the latest CM database schema v3.7.1. It is 100% compatible with existing v2.0.x and v3.0 deployments and supports software upgrade to allow customers to perform a seamless installation of the application without the need to reconfigure all the settings and the existing report customizations (SCE/ASR1K networks, saved/scheduled reports, dashboard, color settings, etc.) The following matrix describes the main differences between the two versions: Table 4 Comparison with v3.0 Major feature Insight Reporter v3.0 Insight Reporter v3.1 Web2.0 GUI Yes, based on Flex client CM database positioning (traffic database) One or more external DBs Can also use the internal MySQL 5.1 instance 4
Differences with Cisco Insight Reporter v3.0 Table 4 Comparison with v3.0 (continued) Major feature Insight Reporter v3.0 Insight Reporter v3.1 Multi-vendor database support SCA BB report template support (CM DB schemas) MySQL, Oracle, Sybase 3.5.0, 3.5.5, 3.6.0, 3.6.5, 3.7.0 also 3.7.2 1 ASR1K report template support (CM DB schemas) IOS XE 3.4 (CM 3.7.0) also IOS XE 3.5 (CM 3.7.1) Multi-device Yes, with report configuration configurations Authentication support Yes, support of RADIUS and TACACS+ with external AAA servers Deployment architecture Can be installed on a single appliance or distributed 1. SCA BB v3.7.2 will be released after the delivery of Cisco Insight Reporter v3.1 The current release also provides a series of new reports as well as several bug fixes identified during the support cycle of its previous release 3.0.0. New Report Topics added for ASR Networks New reports are available following sub-topics 1. Global (these reports can run on RPT_USAGE_NF, RPT_GLB_USAGE_NF) a. IP Versioning Comparison -> Bandwidth b. IP Versioning Comparison -> Volume c. IP Versioning Comparison -> New IP Flows d. IP Versioning Comparison -> Concurrent IP Flows IP Versioning e. Comparison -> Duration f. Global --> Bandwidth g. Global --> Volume Cisco Insight Reporter v2.0.0 or v2.0.1 or v3.1.0 installations can be upgraded to v3.1.0 without loss of any data created in the existing instance. Cisco Insight Reporter v3.0.0 supports the following direct upgrade paths: v2.0.0 to v3.1.0 v2.0.1 to v3.1.0 v3.0.0 to v3.1.0 5
Closed Caveats Closed Caveats The following defects have been fixed since the delivery of release v3.0.0: Bug # Summary CSCtq17355 Topology does not reveal interfaces CSCtq70978 Empty checkbox option in PDF configurator when scheduling some reports CSCts08380 ASR1k reports based on transactional data do not use sampling factor CSCts08542 Vulnerability Alert - Apache HttpComponents HttpClient CSCtr26003 Missing check to abort installation if local MySQL version is greater than 5.1 Open Caveats Open Caveats due to external dependencies The following issues are due to dependencies on external or third-party software components and cannot be resolved on the Cisco Insight Reporter until the anomaly is fixed on the dependency. CSCtj97429 The Firefox taskbar keeps displaying 'Transferring data' or 'Connecting' When connecting to the application using the Mozilla Firefox browser, the taskbar of the browser window keeps displaying the message "Transferring data from..." or "Connecting to...", as if there is some ongoing activity, even if the page has finished loading. This behavior is not dependent on the Cisco Insight Reporter application but it is due to a known Firefox bug with the Adobe Flash plug-in, as documented at the following link: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=383811 CSCtc40236 IPv6 VS IPv4 BW comparison report is incorrect when using aggregation This report requires the union between two queries executed on the RPT_LUR and RPT_GUR tables. If these two tables are not populated with the same time aggregation, the report can produce weird results (spikes and negative samples). The defect cannot be resolved on the Insight Reporter until the Collection Manager does not support the time aggregation feature on the RPT_GUR table. Summary: The IPv4, tunneled IPv6 over IPv4, and IPv6 traffic components are compared on this report (3 series). Now, IPv4 is given by RPT_LUR table, IPv6 by RPT_GUR table, and the tunneled IPv6 over IPv4 is still IPv4 traffic but it is calculated through RPT_GUR table. When plotting the net IPv4 traffic, the query takes the gross IPv4 component given by the RPT_LUR table and subtracts the tunneled IPv6 component given by the RPT_GUR table. If these two tables have different aggregations, the subtraction will generate some negative bandwidth samples. If the time aggregation procedure has not been applied to the RPT_LUR table or if there is no tunneled IPv6 traffic, then the report works fine. 6
Open Caveats CSCtq46342 SCE report Malicious - SPAM - Distribution cannot be generated The Distribution report available in Malicious - Spam category does not generate any reports even though correct data is available. This report can actually work only under the assumption that there is a SMTP service, with its relative service counter, defined for all outgoing traffic based on the SMTP protocol. This is the case if the customer is still using the SCE default service configuration. If the customer has renamed the SMTP service or has configured other service counters to track outgoing SMTP traffic, then the report cannot work. Additional Open Caveats The current software release is affected by the following open issues: CSCtq33422 Minor series disappear when switching to higher units of measurement For most of reports showing a bandwidth or volume metric and supporting a change of measurement units, the plotted minor series can disappear from the chart layout when switching to a higher unit (e.g. from Kbps to Mbps). This is due to the logic implemented on the report queries that currently make use of a FLOOR SQL-function to convert the metrics when changing units. Thus a contribution of 800 Kbps will be floored to 0 (zero) Mbps; a contribution of 1900 Kbps will be floored to 1 Mbps, etc. In this way, all series samples below 1024 Kbps will be removed from the chart, when switching to Mbps. The same issue occurs when switching from Mbps to Gbps. If that occurs, the operator needs to select the lowest available units of measurement to obtain accurate results. CSCtq88793 Data Grid view not supporting traffic direction interactivity For some SCE reports, the Data Grid visualization on the Report Wizard does not support interactivity when changing the Traffic Direction control: once the report is generated, the shown amounts remain the same independently of the selected traffic direction. ASR1K-related reports are not affected by this anomaly. CSCtt33580 Unable to set the Master ASR1k device if more than 256 applications are configured into a single application group On the Network Wizard, users won't be able to create a ASR1k Network and set the Master device if the ASR1K configuration contains an application group with more than 256 applications. Workaround: It is required to configure the ASR1k device(s) to partition the list of applications into application groups with less than 256 elements. 7
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request For information on obtaining documentation, submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, see the monthly What s New in Cisco Product Documentation, which also lists all new and revised Cisco technical documentation, at: http://www.cisco.com/en/us/docs/general/whatsnew/whatsnew.html Subscribe to the What s New in Cisco Product Documentation as an RSS feed and set content to be delivered directly to your desktop using a reader application. The RSS feeds are a free service. Cisco currently supports RSS Version 2.0. Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. To view a list of Cisco trademarks, go to this URL: www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. (1110R) Any Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and phone numbers used in this document are not intended to be actual addresses and phone numbers. Any examples, command display output, network topology diagrams, and other figures included in the document are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any use of actual IP addresses or phone numbers in illustrative content is unintentional and coincidental. 2011 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. 8