Motadata AIOps provides a comprehensive solution for monitoring your Software Defined Network (SDN) infrastructure. To effectively monitor these devices, they must first be added to Motadata AIOps, enabling the platform to collect and analyze performance data. This guide outlines the process of adding SDN devices, with a specific focus on Cisco ACI, to Motadata AIOps.
At a high level, the process involves the following key steps:
- Creating a Credential Profile: Defining the authentication credentials required to access the SDN devices.
- Creating a Discovery Profile: Specifying the devices to be discovered and associating them with the appropriate credential profile.
- Executing Discovery: Initiating the discovery process to identify and add the specified devices to Motadata AIOps.
- Provisioning Devices as Monitors: Selecting the discovered devices and configuring them for ongoing monitoring.
Once the devices are provisioned as monitors, Motadata AIOps continuously collects performance metrics, generates alerts for potential issues, and provides valuable insights into the health and performance of your SDN environment. Motadata AIOps also allows for customization of monitoring settings, including polling intervals, threshold values, and alert notifications, enabling you to tailor the monitoring to your specific needs.
SDN Solutions Supported
Motadata AIOps supports a range of SDN solutions from leading vendors, including:
- Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
- Cisco Meraki
- Cisco ACI
This guide focuses on adding Cisco ACI devices.
Adding Cisco ACI Devices
Motadata AIOps streamlines the discovery and monitoring of Cisco ACI deployments. Specifically, Motadata AIOps supports the discovery of the following key components:
- ACI APIC Controller
- Fabrics
- Tenants
The APIC Controller serves as the central point for device discovery, providing a holistic view of the entire ACI infrastructure. Motadata AIOps discovers each device type (APIC Controller, Fabric, and Tenant) as an individual monitor, allowing for granular monitoring and analysis of each component.
Prerequisites
Before discovering your Cisco ACI devices, you must create a Credential Profile, which stores the necessary authentication information.
Credential Profile Creation
To create a credential profile, follow these steps:
- Navigation: Go to the Motadata AIOps main menu and select Settings. Then, navigate to Discovery Settings and select Credential Profile. The Credential Profile screen will be displayed.
- Action: On the Credential Profile screen, select Create Credential Profile to begin the process of creating a new credential profile. A pop-up window will appear, prompting you to enter the credential profile details.
Credential Profile Parameters
In the Credential Profile pop-up window, provide the following information:
Credential Profile Details
Fields:
- Credential Profile Name: Enter a unique and descriptive name for this credential profile. This name will be used to identify the profile when assigning it to discovery profiles. Choose a name that clearly indicates the purpose of the credentials (e.g., “Cisco ACI Credentials”).
- Protocol: Select the protocol used to communicate with the Cisco ACI devices. From the drop-down menu, select HTTP/HTTPS. Selecting the protocol will determine the subsequent fields for providing credential details.
- Username and Password: Enter the username and password that Motadata AIOps will use to authenticate with the Cisco ACI virtual device. Ensure that the account has the necessary permissions to access the monitoring data.
Actions:
- Reset: Select Reset to clear all the values currently entered in the fields of the pop-up window. This allows you to quickly erase the entries and start over if needed.
- Add Credential Profile: Select Add Credential Profile to save the entered information and create the credential profile in the Motadata AIOps system. Once the profile is created, it will be available for use in discovery profiles.
Post-Creation:
- After creating the credential profile, you can view it in the Credential Profile interface. Use the Search option located above the list of profiles to find the newly created profile by its name.
With the credential profile created, you can now proceed to the next step: creating a discovery profile.
Discovery Profile Creation
A discovery profile defines how Motadata AIOps discovers devices in your infrastructure. For Cisco ACI, the discovery profile specifies the ACI device address and associates it with the previously created credential profile.
Discovery Profile Purpose:
The discovery profile serves to connect to the devices and gather the information needed to manage them
Navigation:
To create a discovery profile, follow these steps:
- Go to the Motadata AIOps main menu and select Settings. Then, navigate to Network Discovery and select Discovery Profile. The Discovery Profile screen will be displayed.
Action:
- On the Discovery Profile screen, select Create Discovery Profile to begin the creation process. A new screen will appear, allowing you to configure the discovery profile.
SDN Selection:
- On the discovery profile creation screen, select SDN from the available device type options. This indicates that you are creating a profile for discovering Software Defined Network devices.
Discovery Profile Parameters
The discovery profile creation screen requires you to provide the following details:
Discovery Profile Details
Fields:
- Discovery Profile Name: Enter a unique and descriptive name for this discovery profile. This name will be used to identify the profile when managing your discoveries. For example, “Cisco ACI Discovery”.
- IP/Host: Enter the IP address of the Cisco ACI device (APIC Controller) that you want Motadata AIOps to discover. You can enter either an IPv4 or IPv6 address.
- Collectors: Select one or more Collectors that Motadata AIOps will use to collect data from the devices discovered using this profile. Collectors are responsible for gathering information from the managed devices.
- For optimal performance, select multiple Collectors to enable load balancing and provide a failover mechanism. This ensures that data collection continues even if one Collector becomes unavailable.
- If you do not explicitly select a Collector, Motadata AIOps will automatically assign a suitable collector to distribute the load effectively.
- Note: Ensure that you select the appropriate Collectors based on your network architecture and how you want to distribute the monitoring load.
- Groups: Select one or more Groups to assign to the monitors that will be provisioned as a result of this discovery profile. Groups allow you to organize your monitors logically within Motadata AIOps.
- Credential Profile: Select the credential profile that you created earlier. This profile contains the username and password that Motadata AIOps will use to authenticate with the Cisco ACI devices during the discovery process.
- You can also create a new credential profile directly from this screen by clicking the Create Credential Profile button. However, in this guide, we assume that you have already created the necessary credential profile in the previous steps.
- Tags: Select one or more Tags that you want to assign to the Cisco ACI devices that will be discovered and set up as monitors. Tags provide a flexible way to categorize and organize your devices within Motadata AIOps, allowing you to filter and search for them easily.
- Port: The Port number field is typically pre-populated with the default port used for communication with Cisco ACI devices. Verify that this port number is correct for your environment.
- URL Type: Select the URL type used to access the Cisco ACI device. By default, HTTPS is selected, which is the recommended and more secure option. Ensure that this setting matches the configuration of your Cisco ACI deployment.
- Ping Check: The Ping Check button is switched ON by default. When enabled, Motadata AIOps will attempt to ping the device before initiating the discovery process. If the ping is unsuccessful, Motadata AIOps will not proceed with the discovery.
- Toggle this button OFF if you want Motadata AIOps to discover the device even if a ping response is not received. This might be useful in situations where the device is reachable via other protocols but does not respond to ping requests.
- Notify via E-mail and Notify via SMS: Motadata AIOps can notify users about the completion of a discovery run through email and SMS notifications.
- In the Notify via E-mail field, specify one or more email addresses, separated by commas, to receive email notifications.
- In the Notify via SMS field, specify one or more mobile phone numbers, separated by commas, to receive SMS notifications.
Actions:
- Reset: Select Reset to clear all the values entered in the fields on the discovery profile creation screen. This allows you to discard the current configuration and start over.
- Save and Exit: Select Save and Exit if you want to save the discovery profile configuration without immediately executing a discovery run. You can then run the discovery at a later time.
- Save and Run: Select Save and Run if you want to save the discovery profile configuration and immediately start the device discovery process.
Provisioning Discovered Devices as Monitors
After Motadata AIOps executes the discovery profile, it will attempt to discover the devices defined by the profile.
Process:
- Once the discovery process is complete, Motadata AIOps will display a list of all the Cisco ACI devices that were discovered.
- Review the list of discovered devices and select the specific devices that you want to add as Monitors in Motadata AIOps. Monitors are the entities that Motadata AIOps actively tracks and monitors for performance and health.
- Click on Add Selected Objects to add the selected devices to Motadata AIOps as Monitors. Motadata AIOps will then begin monitoring these devices according to your configured settings.
Post-Provisioning:
- Once the devices are added as Monitors, Motadata AIOps will continuously monitor their performance, collect metrics, and generate alerts based on predefined or customized thresholds.
- To view the Cisco ACI devices that have been added as Monitors, navigate to the Motadata AIOps main menu, select the Monitor tab, and then select SDN. This will display a list of all the SDN devices, including your Cisco ACI devices, that are currently being monitored by the system.
By following these steps, you can successfully add your Cisco ACI devices to Motadata AIOps and begin leveraging the platform’s monitoring capabilities to gain valuable insights into the health and performance of your SDN infrastructure.