We can also use our graphical user interface to perform our configurations.
In fact, in the real world, this is likely what we're going to spend most of
our time
doing rather than getting onto the CLI.
It's one of the advantages of an SD-WAN solution is to not have to log into all
of these devices
and perform CLI config.
Now, keep in mind, CLI is always available to us, but one of the values of SD-W
AN being
that we can use the graphical user interface is that we can have an environment
of dozens
or hundreds or even thousands of nodes, and we can push configuration out in a
very seamless
way.
A lot of times, what this creates is a process that feels more complex and
takes a whole
lot more time on a graphical user interface.
The difference is once I do it one time, I can send it out to a bunch of
devices at once.
And so the CLI will feel faster at first relative to what we're about to do,
especially if
we know what we're doing, we log into the CLI, we enter six or seven commands,
and we've
configured our tunnel interfaces to have colors.
And that's great.
The graphical user interface is going to take a few steps.
It's going to take us understanding the architecture.
But again, once we've done it once, then we can push it out very seamlessly to
all of
the devices, which is where the time savings come from.
So in order to understand what we're going to do, we need to study up a little
bit on
the architecture that the graphical user interface is going to use.
And so here's the idea.
We are going to create a virtual container of sorts that is known as a device
template.
As the name implies, this is a template, a set of configurations that we will
eventually
apply to a router.
But this router is, is anyone's guess at this point, it could be a new router.
It could be a router that is in the future coming.
It could be a current one.
But either way, we're going to have some device in the future that receives
this device template.
Again, think back to the fact that we could have a lot of these devices.
And we want to push this device template out to a bunch of them all at once.
Our focus in this conversation is going to be on our interfaces.
And our interfaces are going to come from a concept that's known as a feature
template.
Now future templates can be used for a lot of different things and we'll
continue to
see them in use as we get it deeper into SD-WAN configuration.
But again, we're looking at interfaces specifically creating the tunnel
interface as well as applying
kind of configurations such as color.
And so the idea here is that we need to make sure that this device template is
going to
allow, in our topology, this router, believe we have routers 11 and 12 in our
lab environment,
we want to be able to apply this device template to these devices and allow
them to come online
to the two different service providers.
So one of the reasons why templates are keeping our configuration in sync
relative to having
gig one, for example, connected to the internet and having gig two connect down
here to MPLS,
that's going to make it easier for us to use a template which is going to rely
on knowing
what these interface IDs are.
And so that's something to keep in mind with real world deployments as well, is
that we
want to keep our deployments as standardized as possible and that will play
really well
into the feature template concept.
So this feature template, again, there's lots of different parameters within
the feature
template and there's doubts of different types of feature templates.
We are specifically going to use a type that is focused on Ethernet interface
and also what's
called VPN interfaces.
This is in reference to the fact that these are going to be tunnel interfaces.
And that's what we're trying to bring up.
But the other thing to keep in mind is the fact that we have two of these on
each one
of our edge devices, at least for the ones that we want to deploy this template
to.
That means we're going to have to actually have to create two of these feature
templates,
one, two, and we're going to apply these.
So a gig one template and a gig two template.
And we'll see how exactly we're going to go about doing this.
But as we get into the graphical user interface, just understand, we're going
to start by creating
these two different feature templates that are of a specific type.
And then we're going to map those into a device template, which then gets
pushed down,
once again, to our devices in the lab.
So let's go ahead and flip over to V Manage, our manager and take a look at how
exactly
we're going to get this done.
So once we're in our manager interface, we're going to come over to
configuration.
And down here, under classic, we're going to see templates.
I'm going to click on templates at the top, we see device templates.
That's where we start.
And we will eventually create a device template to push.
But first again, we need to create the feature templates.
We need to create two of these.
So I'm going to say add template here.
We need to add this by the device.
So I'm going to add an 8,000 V type of feature template.
And again, now I can scroll down and I'll see this Cisco VPN interface Ethernet
.
So it's a mouthful, but this is exactly what we're saying.
It's an interface configuration that's designed for those tunnels to be able to
form.
Now for some reason, it starts us at the bottom of the list.
Let's go ahead and scroll all the way back up to the top.
We see we need to provide it with a name and a description.
It's actually required.
And so I'm just going to call this my biz internet template.
And the description is for the interface config.
Well specifically interface internet config.
How about that?
So under the basic configuration now starting here, we're going to see how
exactly these
templates allow for us to configure things across many different types of
devices that
might have different parameters.
So for example, for the shutdown, do I want this interface to be shut down?
It defaults to yes.
Just because down here, we see this circle with a check mark, there are really
three
options for any one of these parameters.
I can leave it on the default.
I can set it globally so that every device that I apply this to will have the
same configuration
or I can make it device specific, which is going to use the concept of a
variable.
So we'll see that in a few moments.
Let's just say globally, I want this to not be shut down this interface.
No reason for me to configure it if it's actually in a shutdown state.
Now the interface name is interesting.
We have to be very careful with our configuration.
We actually get a pop up here that allows us to select the proper format.
But again, this is for our internet, it's going to go to gigabit ethernet one.
So I need to make sure I add the one there and this is going to be device
specific.
So we always need to make sure we get this correct.
Again, this is a template that's going to go to many devices.
We have to be sure some of these parameters are correct.
Now I could enter a description for the interface here, but we don't need to be
doing that.
Next up is the IP address.
As we can imagine, the IP address is not going to get a whole lot of value out
of a global
configuration.
If I try to make a global configuration for an IP address, that's going to
apply the
same IP address to every device that receives this template.
So not super, not super useful.
Instead, I'm going to go to the device specific option and we're going to find
that there's
this key.
Now this key again is basically saying that we have this variable, the VPN
interface
IP before address.
That's great.
I could leave this alone and just use that as my, oops, use that as my variable
.
The problem is that I'm going to create a second one of these and I want to
make sure
that I know which variable is which.
So this is going to be the feature template that goes towards the internet on
gig one.
So I'm just going to call this one and we actually see the variable right here
as I've
configured it.
So this icon means device specific and what we'll find later is it's going to
ask me for
this variable and you're going to need to provide it at that time.
So right now I don't have to provide the IP address.
I just have to let the template know what variable I'm going to use later to
specify
it.
And again, we'll see that coming up.
So from here, we're going to keep scrolling down until we get to the tunnel
section.
This is where we're going to enable our tunnel interface.
So I'm going to set this to global because all the devices are going to do this
and we're
going to set this to on which gives us access to all of the tunnel interface
parameters.
One of the main things we want to do is to get the color assigned.
So I'm going to specify that this is going to be a global color configuration
and we said
we're going to use biz internet.
So this doesn't matter whether I'm applying this to edge 11 or edge 12.
I want this interface to be running this specific color.
And that's actually all we're going to worry about doing.
So I'm just going to come down here and click save and we have our interface
for our internet
config.
I might have swapped that as soon as that internet interface config, but either
way.
Now let's create the second one.
This will go a little faster.
I'm going to create another, whoops, CSR 1000 V.
We want an 8000 V.
There we go.
So a C 8000 V and then grab the VPN interface ethernet.
Let it load here again, scroll all the way back up.
I'm not sure why it starts all the way down there.
Oh, whoops, it actually has it for both.
All right, let's go ahead and cancel out of this, create a new one and make
sure we do
it right this time.
There we go.
Grab the right template.
Let it load, scroll all the way up.
All right, so template name is going to be, we'll do this by the color.
We'll call this MPLS template and then interface MPLS config.
Okay, that's just a description anyways.
So once again, we want to say no shut globally.
This is again, the MPLS interface that will be applied to a bunch of different
devices
in our case, edges 11 and 12.
So the interface name, this is going to be gigabit ethernet two on our devices.
Okay, IP address device specific.
This time I'm going to add a two to the end of the variable name.
And again, we'll see why that matters here coming up, but just at this point,
we've got
two different variables that represent the two different IP addresses that are
going
to be required on our devices.
Then we're going to come down to the tunnel interface, set this to globally on
and color.
We're going to set to global and this will be MPLS and then we'll click save.
All right, now before we move on, there is one other feature template we're
going to
want to create.
It is going to be the triple a feature template.
And the reason for that is because if we were to, let's just say, go to add
templates,
type in 8,000 V here and open up a triple a template.
And we scroll all the way up.
What we find is that our local access or local configuration isn't going to be
Cisco
Cisco anymore, which is what it is based on the CML initial configuration.
Instead, it's going to play a username of admin and a password of admin.
Now first of all, I might want to edit that password and second of all, I might
just want
to keep the Cisco username.
So let's scroll up here, give it a template name of CBT triple a, a description
of logins
and then come down here.
First of all, we can click edit and we can change the password here.
If we so desire for admin, notice that I can't actually get rid of it.
There should be a trash icon there if I can get rid of it.
Instead, I'm going to click a new user here, which again requires me to scroll
down a
little bit, username is Cisco password is Cisco, just to replicate what we have
.
In the default configuration.
So here I'm going to click add.
And now again, we see that we've got the Cisco username as well as admin, which
we can again
change if we so desire.
American scroll all the way down.
I do need to specify my authentication order.
So I'm going to specify local first.
And really, that's the only thing I need to worry about if I wanted to
configure radius
and tack acts and 802.1x and all of these things, we have that capability here
as well.
But in our lab environment, we just need a local user.
So now I'm going to click on save.
And from here now, we need to create a device template.
The device templates going to take all these feature templates and map it into
one.
So let's go ahead and click over on device template, say create template.
And this time from feature template, the model we have to specify again.
This is going to be an 8,000 V. We did see, by the way, that feature templates
can be
created that will work for multiple types of devices.
But with our device templates, this has to be one specific type of device.
This is going to be an SD WAN edge template name.
We'll just call this, I guess, lab edge, something like that.
And then lab edge template is the description.
Okay.
So now what we're going to do is we're going to scroll down here, look at the
transport
and management VPN section, which by the way, these links are convenient, but
you can also
just scroll down.
So we're in this transport management VPN section.
What we'll see is that we have a section for the VPN interface ethernet, which
is the
type of feature template that we created.
So we need to think of this as if it's being like a modular type of device that
we're
configuring.
They're telling us, hey, we're going to deploy a single tunnel interface to
this device because
every device needs at least one in an SD WAN environment.
And it's going to use the factory default Cisco settings in order to do that.
We would rather say, hey, we're going to be intentional about this.
I'm going to apply my feature template.
But again, I only have one slot.
So I've got to create a second slot so I can create or apply the second feature
template.
I want two interfaces on this device, not just one.
The way I do that is over here on the right.
We've got this additional templates section.
We see lots of different template types of configurations that we can add.
And it's going to be important that we understand this concept as we move
forward because we'll
want to be able to apply other types of configurations this way as well.
But right here in the middle, we see Cisco VPN interface ethernet.
I click plus.
Look at that.
Now I've got two.
So I'm going to use the drop down here, Cisco gives us lots and lots of
defaults, which
is wonderful.
All the way at the bottom though, we've got the ones that we created.
So I'm going to select Biz internet template and then scroll all the way down
again and
select MPLS template.
So I'm effectively applying the Biz internet template to one interface, which
will connect
me to the Biz internet.
And remember, the feature template specifies gig ethernet one and then MPLS as
well is
going to be applied, which will be applied to gig ethernet two.
Now lastly, let's not forget to scroll back up a little bit here.
The Cisco triple A section, we want to use the drop down and select our CBT
triple A,
which is going to allow us to log in according to the configuration that we
created.
So that is what we need.
And at this point, we can just create this device template.
So once the device template is created, that's great.
This is software.
It's inside a manager.
I now need to apply it to my edge devices.
The way I do that is with these ellipses over here, the three dots, I can click
on this
and say attached devices.
At this point, I'm shown the devices that I can attach.
Now we already configured edges 13 and 14 to use the proper colors and have the
proper
tunnel interfaces.
So I'm going to select edge 11 and move it over as well as edge 12 and move it
over
and click attach.
This is now pushing the configuration down to these devices, but keep in mind,
I can't
just apply a template to all of the devices and say we're good.
Those devices need to know what IP addresses to use on their tunnel interfaces,
for example.
And so this is where we now have to provide those variables that we specified.
If there's a variable for device specific configuration and I apply this
template to
a bunch of devices, I now need to provide the device specific configuration to
each one
of those devices.
So notice right here, we are provided with the variable of this, of that it's
asking
for.
So address two, remember, we intentionally put a two there so we would know
that is talking
about gig ethernet two.
If I just use the same variable in both of those, we wouldn't know which one it
's asking
for right now.
So we need an IP address for gig ethernet two.
G ethernet two goes through MPLS.
That is the 192.168.255.
Actually MPLS is 254 and then edge 12 is dot 12 slash 24 and then 192.168.254.
This is the edge 11.
So dot 11 slash 24.
Now we've provided these IP addresses to these edge devices.
Now notice I have to scroll over and I get all of the other variables in our
case, it's
just only the one.
So this is going to be 192.168 this time dot 255 dot 12 slash 24 and then 192.
168.255.11
slash 24.
Now we're going to scroll over here and see that we do need to enter in the
host name again.
So edge 12 system IP is 12 dot 12 dot 12 dot 12 side ID is 12.
All right, and then we'll tab over edge 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, site ID 11 and
click next.
And now it says, it kind of gives us a quick summary of what we're going to be
doing.
So let's go ahead and click configure devices.
Yes, we are good to go.
We're going to push this configuration down.
So after a few minutes, we see that everything was successful.
We've pushed those configurations down to edge 11 and edge 12.
So with that, we should be good to go from a graphical user interface
perspective.
In the next video, we'll confirm that all of our tunnels are online and
operational.