topic Re: APIC-EM Demo installation in Controllers

APIC-EM Demo installation

jboga — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 12:28:47 GMT

Hello,

I've been trying to install APIC-EM v1.2 with 16 GBs of RAM for demo purposes. However, it fails trying to initialize the Grapevine services.

Anybody else with that problem?

Thanks,

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

Joe Clarke — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 16:55:31 GMT

Anyone trying that should, Jose :-). You need a minimum of 40 GB. I have this working at home, and I am able to use all of the features with my small four-node network.

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

aradford — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 17:02:30 GMT

Actually Joe the LAB version is shipping 1.2. It only requires 16G.. however:

we are about to change the release notes slightly.

a lab version requires anything from 16-24G.

If your disk performance is not good, you should opt for more RAM.

Ideally you should use 24G, but there is a slight bug at present (1000^3 < 1024^3) so max you can use is 22G

See how you go with 22G.

Just to be clear, this is not a different image, it is the same code, it just detects the limited RAM and boots in lab mode. all services work, but only 20 devices are supported.

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

jboga — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 17:11:28 GMT

Thank you.

I'll try to do the installation today with 22 GBs. If I manage to do it, I'll let you know.

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

aradford — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 17:17:33 GMT

let us know. probably easier than getting faster disk 🙂

200M is the disk IO that APIC-EM specs, if you have significantly less than that, you will need more RAM.

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

Joe Clarke — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 18:58:47 GMT

Cool! Last time I tried with 16 GB, it did what Jose describes (Grapevine services didn't fully start). I've always had luck with 40 GB, but maybe I'll try out a 22 GB build.

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

jboga — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 01:20:38 GMT

The 22 GBs installation didn't work but the disks in that server are really slow. For the moment, we went with the 64 GBs installation. As soon as we can, we'll try to do installations with lower memory settings and share our results.

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

Joe Clarke — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 14:55:39 GMT

You may not want to waste your time, but I'd be curious to know if you can make it work with 40 GB (instead of the full 64). I have "meh" disks, and 40 is working fine for me in my lab.

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

aradford — Sun, 03 Jul 2016 16:41:36 GMT

you might find that does not work with 1.2.

There is a check with three thresholds:

Cisco APIC-EM will discover your host's available memory during the deployment process and will provide the following responses and options:

When deploying the controller on a host with 64 GB or more of memory (meets the memory requirements), the configuration wizard will proceed with the installation.
When deploying the controller on a host with 25 to 64 GB of memory, you are prompted to add another host or increase memory on the host to meet the requirements.
When deploying the controller on a host with 16 to 25 GB or memory, you are prompted to install a low-memory, evaluation version of the controller.
When deploying the controller on a host with less than 16 GB of memory, you are prompted to add more memory and cannot proceed with the installation.

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

Rob Phoenix — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 12:48:03 GMT

@aradford Hi, when you say only 20 devices are supported, does this include the PnP cababilities? Will it stop pushing configurations out after it's provisioned 20 devices?

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

aradford — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 12:56:09 GMT

Hi Rob,

technically no. The only complication is that part of the PnP process is to add the device to the inventory.

That is when you might have issues.

The best option would be to delete the device from inventory once it has been provisioned by PnP.

there is no "hard limit" on the number of PnP configurations you can make.

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

Rob Phoenix — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 13:01:58 GMT

ok, thanks.

Do you know if the PnP capabilities might ever be siphoned off APIC-EM as a standalone product/service, as this is the only capability of the APIC that we need and it would be good to be able to run PnP separately on lower end hardware?

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

jboga — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:23:48 GMT

Rob,

If you use Prime, you can also do PnP there. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/net_mgmt/prime/infrastructure/3-0/user/guide/pi_ug/plugandplay.html

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

aradford — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:27:00 GMT

stay tuned on that request... sounds like a good idea 🙂

Re: APIC-EM Demo installation

aradford — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:28:04 GMT

PI is moving towards using APIC-EM as the PnP engine. Today you can use PI standalone, but long term direction will be to have APIC-EM as the "universal PnP engine". It will be optimised...