Part 2 of the 4-part sequence – Cloud monitoring for Cisco Catalyst switches sequence
Welcome again to the second weblog in our sequence for cloud monitoring of Cisco Catalyst 9000 switches!
Like I stated in my final weblog, crucial step in your journey to the cloud begins with visibility. Rather than attempting to elucidate with too many phrases what I imply by visibility, I’m going to spend a while exhibiting you—so brace your self for lots of screenshots.
No matter the way you need to handle your community, be it digging deep into the command-line interface (CLI) or making a couple of clicks within the Meraki dashboard, visualizing your total community is extremely necessary for a lot of causes. In this weblog, I’m going to cowl only a few, however I’d love to listen to your personal causes within the feedback under.
Picture-perfect visualization
First, you need that picture-perfect view of your community. Being in a position to simply see if the whole lot is on-line (or not) from a single platform is important to your corporation.
For this explicit occasion, I’m logged into the Cisco San Francisco workplace community. I can instantly take a look at the well being of the community, proven within the screenshot under.
From right here, it’s simple to see I’ve a difficulty with two switches. I can click on on the switches to see a full checklist of the entire switches on this community. I also can filter to solely see the “unhealthy” switches. We’re going to get into troubleshooting in our subsequent weblog, so keep tuned for that.
When I view the checklist of switches on this workplace, I can simply inform which units are monitored Catalyst 9000 switches with the “Monitor Only” tag—you’ll be able to’t miss it! Also on this checklist, you’ll be able to see there are a number of monitored Catalyst 9300s in addition to MS350s and one MS250. My level right here—if in case you have a blended Catalyst and Meraki surroundings, you’ll be able to see your entire units from the Meraki dashboard. I’ll even pop over and present the checklist of our latest Catalyst Wireless (CW) Wi-Fi 6E entry factors, test it out:
The potential to see all of my networks in a couple of clicks is really a mic-drop second—pause your studying right here for impact.
Monitoring Catalyst switches
Let’s get again to the “Monitor Only” swap. By clicking on the swap you’ll be able to see the entire essential info for the swap to work. Again, it is a monitored Catalyst 9300 swap, so that you’ll be capable of view the whole lot, however you’ll be able to’t make any configuration modifications to a monitor-only swap.
In the preliminary view of the monitored Catalyst swap, you’ll be able to view the next:
- Physical tackle and site
- LAN IP
- Public IP
- Gateway
- Serial numbers: Catalyst and Meraki
- Historical machine knowledge and shopper utilization knowledge
- The present firmware model on the swap
Switch port visibility
My private favourite half in regards to the Meraki dashboard, in case you haven’t observed, is the convenience of use. And my favourite half in regards to the switches is you’ll be able to truly click on on the swap port you need to view. This has been one among my favourite issues to indicate people dwell at commerce reveals.
Let’s select that enjoyable little uplink port over there, quantity 24. By clicking into that port you’ll be able to view configurations (once more, no edit on Catalyst switches) and see standing objects like connectivity, utilization, visitors, CDP/LLDP, and PoE utilization. You also can do issues like cycle a port, mass cycle ports, run a MAC forwarding desk, or just ping an IP. I’ve heard from clients that these previous couple of objects are a reasonably large deal and make their lives a ton simpler.
Network topology—the massive image
Last, however definitely not least, we’re going to come back again full circle to the theme of the “big picture” and visualization. The community topology view contained in the Meraki dashboard is such a strong software. If we observe the identical swap right here, we are able to see it in yellow on the far proper. We also can see and click on into the remainder of the community infrastructure from this topology view and see any monitored Catalyst 9000 units and managed Meraki units, in addition to CW entry factors.
While it’s been enjoyable to stroll you thru a cloud-monitored Catalyst 9000 swap and provides a high-level overview of the Meraki dashboard, let’s not neglect why we’re right here. Visualizing your community infrastructure from a single dashboard might be some of the highly effective instruments to have in your equipment and a very easy and quick method to present instant worth.
If you’re prepared now—nice! Here’s our getting began information. If you’re nonetheless exploring, take a look at our on-demand #CiscoChat the place I and a few colleagues focus on all issues cloud monitoring right this moment and what’s coming subsequent.
Also, test again in a month for my subsequent weblog. We’ll be overlaying community troubleshooting.
Learn extra about cloud monitoring for Catalyst switches from the consultants
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