Enabling the discovery of Cisco ACI devices provides visibility into your Cisco ACI infrastructure. This allows you to view and manage discovered IP addresses of Cisco ACI fabric members such as APIC controllers and fabric switches with their attached endpoints.
For each configured Cisco ACI, NetMRI discovers the following information:
- APIC Controller (managed device): Collects basic information on ACI fabric devices such as device model, vendor name, OS information, IP address, and the system name.
- ACI-specific endpoint information such as EPG, Bridge Domain, and Tenant.
- General Endpoint (devices) information such as name, IP address, VRFs, and physical connection (fabric port).
NetMRI categorizes leaf and spine switches, API controllers as network devices, and endpoints as end hosts.
Note
The APIC tab in the discovery settings was renamed SDN. You can find all previously configured Cisco ACIs in this tab that is described below.
To add and configure a Cisco ACI fabric discovery, complete the following:
- Make sure that you enabled SDN and SD-WAN polling in the Settings icon > Setup > SDN/SD-WAN Polling. For more information, see Running Network Discovery#Configuring SDN and SD-WAN Polling Settings.
- Click the Settings icon > Setup > Discovery Settings > SDN.
- Click New.
- In SDN Type, select Cisco ACI.
- Complete the following:
- Fabric Name: Specify a short and unique name for the current Cisco ACI configuration.
- Addresses: Click Add and enter the hostname or IP address of the Cisco APIC controller. If your fabric includes more than one controller, click Add again to add more addresses.
- Network View: Select the network view to identify the corresponding network interface for connectivity with the Cisco ACI. In parentheses next to the network view name is displayed the name of the associated collector. The network view and collector are assigned to discover devices from the ACI fabric.
- Protocol: Select HTTP or HTTPS.
If you select HTTPS, you must use a Root CA or Intermediate CA certificate to allow communication with the Cisco APIC as described below.
If your ACI fabric includes multiple controllers, use a combined PEM certificate. To do so, copy the ASCII data from all of the certificates into a single file. - CA Certificate: Perform one of the following:
- Select a previously imported CA certificate. To learn how to import a CA certificate in NetMRI, see Installing CA Certificate.
- Click Import CA Certificate and select a CA certificate directly from your machine.
For how to prepare a CA certificate, see About CA Certificates for Cisco APIC. The APIC controller address must match either the certificate subject or one of the subject alternative names.
- Username: The login name for the Cisco ACI.
- Password: The login password.
- (Optional) Maximum Requests per Second: Specify the maximum number of HTTP requests from NetMRI to Cisco ACI SDN per second to avoid overload.
- (Optional) Enable Discovery Blackout: Select the check box and then click its Scheduling icon. For more information, see Running Network Discovery#Defining Blackout Periods.
- Click Test Connection to check if the fabric is reachable and the provided credentials are correct. The connection test results are also written to the syslog.
- Click Add or Add & Discover.