Index


Overview

Statseeker's Cisco ACI monitoring package enables the monitoring of your ACI environment/s from your Statseeker server. This allows you to apply Statseeker's data collection, storage, analytics and alerting functionality to your ACI SDN deployments.

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Requirements

There are no additional hardware requirements, but your Statseeker server and license may need to be updated to enable Cisco ACI monitoring. Statseeker's Cisco ACI Monitoring requires:

  • A Statseeker Subscription license
  • The ACI Monitoring feature to b enabled for your Statseeker license

For assistance with upgrading your Statseeker server and/or license, please contact your Regional Sales Representative.

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ACI Configuration

If ACI Monitoring is enabled for your Statseeker license, then the default ACI reports will be visible in the Console, and a range of ACI data types will be available in Custom Reporting. These reports will remain blank until you configure Statseeker to communicate with your ACI deployment.

To configure the ACI package you need to point Statseeker at the APIC and provide credentials for Statseeker to use when communicating with the APIC. This is achieved from within either:

  • The Administration Tool > Manage Scripts page, by clicking the configure button

Or,

  • From Administration Tool > Statseeker Custom Services > ACI Configuration

Once on the ACI Configuration screen:

  • Click Add Poller

  • If the APIC is already known to Statseeker you can select from the Device dropdown, otherwise select Add a new device and provide the necessary details for Statseeker to contact the APIC
  • Click Save

Only add a single IP address per configuration / ACI environment.

  • If your APICs will be sharing a virtual IP, then use that
  • If your APICS are not sharing a virtual IP, then enter the IP for any one of your APIC servers

A single APIC will provide Statseeker with all the details required to discover all of the nodes (controllers, spines and leaves) used by that ACI deployment.

The Cleanup Interval refers to a timeframe for keeping references to entities that are no longer transmitting data. The nature of ACI will lead to services being moved, and additional entities being made available, to satisfy demand. Both of these instances can lead to your ACI monitoring referencing entities that are no longer active. These references can be kept indefinitely for historical reporting, or discarded after not transmitting any data for the period specified by Cleanup Interval.

The syntax to use specifying a Cleanup Interval is <integer><unit>, where unit is one of:

  • s - seconds
  • m - minutes
  • h - hours
  • d - days
  • w - weeks
  • y - years

Example: 4w

Note: in addition to limiting the data retention period, polling for any of the ACI data-types can be disabled entirely. If this is option is of interest, please contact Statseeker Support to discuss your requirements.
  • Click Save

The APIC configuration will be saved and. If you have multiple ACI deployments, then you can configure the monitoring of those environments by adding another poller. Again, add the IP address for a single APIC per ACI environment.


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ACI Endpoint Downloader

The ACI Configuration screens also features an option to download your APIC endpoint configuration for diagnostic and troubleshooting purposes. The collected data is returned from your APIC in json format and compressed for transport. You can unpack the data for review or send it through to Statseeker Support if needed.


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