Operating Cisco NEXUS Dashboard Insights
Solution overview
The Challenge of Network Visibility
Network teams have struggled with achieving comprehensive visibility into their networks for years. The problem lies with the data itself: it is often incomplete, leaving gaps in our understanding of how the network operates and behaves. Moreover, this data is frequently unstructured, making it challenging to analyze, correlate, and draw meaningful insights. The lack of visibility creates a significant hurdle for network teams in monitoring and managing their infrastructure effectively.
As a result, many organizations struggle with achieving network visibility to ensure optimal performance, security, and reliability. The consequences of this lack of visibility can be severe, including:
-Inefficient incident response and mean time to resolve (MTTR)
-Increased downtime and associated business losses
-Reduced compliance with regulatory requirements
-Difficulty in making informed strategic decisions about network investments and resource allocation
First, the NEXUS Dashboard Insights (NDI) 6.5 service runs on the NEXUS Dashboard 3.2 platform and needs data to ingest and correlate with anomalies. We have software telemetry streaming from the APICs, NDFC controllers, and the switches, and hardware telemetry streaming from the switches. NDI downloads an updated database every 24 hours to populate the latest PSIRT, bugs, configuration issues, and EOL notices. Then, Network Insight inspects your hardware, software, and configurations to see if there are any faults needing correction using this updated data.
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights (NDI) transforms this paradigm by introducing a modern, data-driven operations model designed to simplify, automate, and accelerate every phase of network assurance. Collectors allow the continuous ingestion of real-time telemetry streams from all fabric devices—both ACI and NX-OS. It converts raw streaming data into a correlated, context-aware database, and the new analytics engine combines the features and functionality of the Network Assurance Engine (NAE), Network Insights Resources (NIR), and Network Insights Advisor (NIA) to offer unprecedented correlated visibility. This correlated visibility into the datasets from the collectors allows the engines to perform predictive and root cause analysis of issues, reducing MTTI. NDI enables teams to identify deviations, performance anomalies, and configuration drifts before they affect applications or users.
This lab is for the advanced "Operator" persona, meaning someone who has some background with NDI but is looking for a deeper dive. There is also an "Explorer" persona level lab and learning path that should be gone through before doing this lab and the subsequent Learning Path
The lab starts with working on configurations and setup of a standalone NEXUS Dashboard with snapshot fabrics to view and troubleshoot. We then move to a read-only user on a production NEXUS Dashboard with live traffic. We then explore all of the elements for the Analysis Hub, looking at live telemetry and flows. The Explorer and Operator Insights labs give enough information to successfully use NEXUS Dashboard Insights in your production network.