Now that we understand what SD-Access and DNA Center are
all about and how the Assurance workflow fits in,
it's time actually roll up our sleeves and see it.
Now, there's a couple of different ways
that you can explore DNA Center.
The first one is with a DevNet Sandbox.
There is an always-on sandbox that you can publicly access
a DNA Center environment.
But here's the kicker, it's not really
built out to demo Assurance.
And for that, we need to pivot a little bit
and look at a dCloud environment that was built specifically
for demoing Assurance. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
for demoing Assurance.
So at the bottom of the screen, you're
going to be seeing a URL for the dCloud environment
that we're going to access as well as a user
name and password that you can use to log in and follow along
if you'd like.
But for now, our first topic that we
need to explore when we're talking about Assurance
is troubleshooting and exploring our client's health.
So let's jump into dCloud and take a look
at the Client Health dashboard in the Assurance workflow.
So if you go to the URL that we just put up on the screen
there, it's going to ask you to log in with your Cisco account. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
there, it's going to ask you to log in with your Cisco account.
If you don't have a Cisco account, don't worry.
It's free, just sign up.
And the resource we're about to access is also free.
But once you've signed in, it's going
to take you to the dCloud Catalog,
and that's where we are.
And we want to work with DNA Center.
The very cool thing that we see here
is we've already applied these filters on the dCloud Catalog,
so we can go straight to the dCloud environment
that we want to work with.
So if I clear the screen here, what we want to do is--
I'm going to scroll down just a hair.
And the one that I'm going to work on here
is the DNA Center Automation and Assurance version 1.3.3 Instant WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
is the DNA Center Automation and Assurance version 1.3.3 Instant
Demo.
Now, if you're watching this, say,
a year after this is already released,
this version will probably be updated.
But you still want to look for one
that's called Cisco DNA Center Automation and Assurance.
This is going to be the best way for you
to get hands-on with Cisco DNA Center Assurance by far.
So clearing the screen, I'll give this a click.
It's going to take us into the description of the DNA Center WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
It's going to take us into the description of the DNA Center
environment.
So we can scroll down, and it can tell you
all of the different types of tools and network devices
that are used here.
It's also incredible because they've
made a huge database of users and clients,
and are actually simulating them using real resources
and working.
So what we're going to do now is we're in a click View,
and that takes us to the log in page of Cisco DNA Center.
The log in account username is demo and the password is demo--
all lowercase-- 1, 2, 3, 4, exclamation mark. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
all lowercase-- 1, 2, 3, 4, exclamation mark.
Press Enter.
We see we've got a successful login.
And immediately, this is the landing page
for Cisco DNA Center.
You see the four workflows listed right here.
And of course, there was that fifth workflow
that I was talking about, called the Platform.
Now, we see we've got an Assurance Summary.
This is the first thing we want to point out right here.
There are health scores for our network itself,
our network devices.
These would be our switches, our routers, our APs.
We see our wireless clients health. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
We see our wireless clients health.
90% healthy is a pretty good thing.
And then 98% wired client health, too.
We also see what kind of issues we have here.
So if we were just monitoring our overall network health,
we would look in the Health section here.
Or if we wanted to jump straight to our issues,
we could look at our Critical Issues.
If I scroll down some more, I can see some Network Snapshot
details.
This is just the info about our network devices,
policies, and basically, what went into the Design, Policy, WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
policies, and basically, what went into the Design, Policy,
and Provision section of our network.
So let's jump to Assurance real quick.
And we'll start exploring the landing page that we have here,
again, with our Overall Health scores.
But now we actually have a graphical representation of it,
which I think is pretty cool.
The first thing you need to pay attention to
is when were these scores taken?
And that's right here.
This has filtered down to the last 24 hours by default.
So let's pretend for a moment it's Tuesday,
and you want to look at something,
what was it like on Saturday of the previous weekend? WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
what was it like on Saturday of the previous weekend?
We need to change this filter to make that work.
So I'll click the dropdown and change it to something
like, say, the last seven days, and now we
can look at an overall snapshot of the last seven days.
This doesn't narrow down the time frame
that I'm looking for, and that's OK,
because we're going to get to that in just a moment.
If I scroll down some more, I can see my Issue Types here.
These issues not only contain things
like Layer 2 loop symptoms, fabric device
connectivity issues, but we also see
that we've got wireless clients that failed to connect. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
that we've got wireless clients that failed to connect.
So these are client issues.
And we can jump directly into these issues
by just clicking it out, and see exactly where did
these issues occur, and at what time did they occur?
So let's dig into what's going on with our clients
a little bit more.
Under the Dashboard section, I can go to Health,
and then choose Client Health.
Again, the first thing you need to pay attention to
is when did this happen?
By default, we're looking at what's been going on
in the last 24 hours.
What we see here is a visual presentation WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
What we see here is a visual presentation
of our Client Health score over the last 24 hours.
So it's trending near the 100% healthy mark,
which is a really good sign.
And I can narrow this down in a couple of different ways.
I can first click on the little time
here and choose specific dates and times
that I want to look at.
So again, if we were looking to filter this out by, say,
the previous Saturday, I can click the little calendar
button and scroll down, and we can choose the exact date
that we want.
That's really cool, because now we're
looking at what happened on the previous day on this timeline, WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
looking at what happened on the previous day on this timeline,
and all of the data beneath it is reflecting what is happening
on those previous dates.
Beyond that, I can grab the edges here and narrow the time
frame down even more.
You'll actually see the dashboards updating beneath me.
So when I narrow it down to just this time frame,
Now I'm looking at what was going on
below during that specific time frame on that specific day.
It's like I'm traveling in time to see what was going on
in my network on a specific day, at a specific time, which WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
in my network on a specific day, at a specific time, which
is really helpful in the event that I can't troubleshoot
something or I can't recreate something.
So if I clear these filters out, just for a moment,
just so we have more data to play with,
we'll take a look at what else was going on our network
during that time.
So I see my wireless clients had 90% health.
My wired clients had 98% health.
And I can also look at what the average time for my clients
to be onboarded was.
If I hover over it, I can see things
like what is my association time, my authentication WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
like what is my association time, my authentication
time, my DHCP time, and I'm floating right around there,
under 2 seconds.
And I'm looking pretty stinking good there.
I can see things like 96% of my clients
had onboarding times of under 10 seconds, which
I think is great.
That's showing me the latest data.
I can also view a trend of how my data is
going, right like this.
If I scroll down some more, I can
look at a lot of wireless data, including
things like how many clients per SSID
am I having as well as the roaming times as well. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
am I having as well as the roaming times as well.
What's even cooler is I can click on these View Details
here and get a health score as well as trends
within those details, too.
Notice, it says please select an element on the chart
to load more detail.
So if actually click the little bar here,
on the less than or equal to 300, I can scroll down,
and we can see what my top APs are, my top SSIDs, what kind
of host device types do I have, what band they're using.
And look at this.
This is really cool.
I can scroll down and I can see specific user accounts WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
I can scroll down and I can see specific user accounts
and specific devices, that user's AP,
their health score, their location,
and when they were last seen.
So for instance, maybe I'm particularly
interested in learning about DR Dogood's wireless
experience here.
I can click on DR Dogood, and now we're
looking at what DR Dogood has been working with.
Just another pro-tip, If I-- let's just pretend for a moment
that I back out of this entirely, go all of the way
back to Design.
I can go to search and simply search for DR Dogood, WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
I can go to search and simply search for DR Dogood,
and now I see the user right here.
I can click on the user and then choose User 360
to get their Assurance profile for that specific user.
Imagine for a moment that a user calls into you,
into your helpdesk, and says, I'm experiencing an issue,
and you can simply search for their user account
to look at what their experience has been in the previous day
or further.
Isn't that fascinating?
Now I can see things, like their MAC address, their IP address,
their IPv6 address, what VLAN they're connected to, WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
their IPv6 address, what VLAN they're connected to,
what their current status is, their location, the SSID
they're connected to, all by searching for that user's name.
So now, if I scroll down, we can take a look
at the client issues that they're having as well.
I see a couple of basic issues here,
things like it's preferring the 2.4 frequency over the 5.
And then, also, they're having some disconnect issues
on the SSID.
We can dig into the issue itself,
and now I can say, oh, yeah, I do
see that you have had a couple of disconnect issues
along with another user here, Grace Smith, WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
along with another user here, Grace Smith,
and it happened at this time.
I like this right here.
The description actually says, got disconnected
from the network because of reasons internal to the client,
such as software or operating system action.
So maybe they put their phone down.
They plugged their phone in, and it actually
did an operating system update and rebooted the phone.
That's really cool.
And then, if we scroll down even further,
it gives us three suggested actions
that we could use to fix this particular client device. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
that we could use to fix this particular client device.
So disable and rename a Wi-Fi, restart the device,
verify the client is running the latest operating system.
Pretty nifty stuff.
Once we've resolved this issue, we can change the status here
to Resolve or Ignore.
So that's the Issues section.
If we scroll down-- look at this-- this is so cool.
We can actually see the topology--
Oh, what happened to my pen there?
We can actually see the topology that this user is connected to.
So here's their phone, there's the SSID, there's the AP,
and it's commuting back to this wireless LAN controller.
We can take a look at what their authentication looked WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
We can take a look at what their authentication looked
like and any issues that they experienced along the way.
Lastly, one of the cool things that I'm going to demo
now is something called the Path Trace.
This comes in handy when a user calls and says,
hey, I can't connect to my local printer.
Well, are you going to walk all of the way
over to their building and verify that they have access
to that local printer?
When you run a Path Trace, we can specify a source IP
and a destination IP address.
So if I choose something from the dropdown here--
just to make something up, we'll just click this--
we can choose a specific protocol WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
we can choose a specific protocol
to use and even tell it to include
any specific statistics, like device statistics,
interface statistics, and QoS statistics.
What's even cooler about this is this
isn't just doing trace route.
This is actually getting data along the way, things
like what is the ACLs that process
this traffic in and out?
So perhaps, at some point, it's going through the Path Trace
and it gets blocked by an ACL, this
would tell us what happened during that Path Trace.
Let's start this Path Trace here.
And it goes pretty stinking quick.
We can see every device along the way that carried the data. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
We can see every device along the way that carried the data.
Eventually, it gets to this device here,
where we see ACLs that did fire off.
And what was the ACL result?
Bam, right there, deny.
So this user is not able to access this device on this IP
address because ACL 120 is denying
traffic sourced from this device to this device.
Now, I said that was the last thing I was going to show you.
And that was going to be true, but I
forgot about one incredible thing
that we should talk about.
If I scroll all of the way up to the top of this Client Health
here, we can also do what's called the Intelligent Capture. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
here, we can also do what's called the Intelligent Capture.
And look at this.
Isn't this cool?
We can actually see our client roaming right now
and what APs they're connected to
and what their signal strength would
be as they're roaming around.
See them walking around?
Isn't that just amazing.
Now we can actually see where they
are and what kind of connectivity that they have.
And we're capturing this in real time.
We can even do a PCAP directly from this device,
too, and capture the traffic that they are sending out WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
too, and capture the traffic that they are sending out
right now.
All we'd have to do is click the Start Live Capture.
We could specify some parameters if we needed to.
But there it is.
And once it's done, you can export the PCAP
or download the PCAP right there.
So this has been troubleshooting client health issues
with the Cisco DNA Center Assurance platform.
In the next Nugget, we're going to look at network health
issues.
I hope this has been informative for you,
and I'd like to thank you for viewing.