AMA: Cisco Catalyst Center Software Image Management (SWIM)

[Brooke Hammer]

Ask Me Anything Event

Welcome to the Cisco Community Ask Me Anything conversation. Submit your questions from  Friday, June 21, 2024 through Friday, July 12, 2024. Our colleagues Saurabh Khillare, and Absar UI Farooq will be waiting to assist you and resolve any questions that have not been clarified, or answer any new questions that you may have. We are waiting for you!

More about this event:

Join us for an Ask Me Anything (AMA) event where you can dive deep into Cisco Catalyst Center Software Image Management (SWIM)!

What is it?• Cisco Catalyst Center inventory offers various automation capabilities. One of them is Software Image upgrades using Software Image Management (SWIM).
• Using SWIM users can upgrade, downgrade or SMU patch their network devices managed on Catalyst Center inventory. In matter of few clicks we can perform image upgrades on upto 100 devices in a go.
• We can distribute the golden image on device flash during production hours too and schedule activation at non business hours or in maintenance window.

Get Expert Advice!
• This AMA session is your chance to get expert insights on this powerful feature.
• Whether you're a seasoned network pro or just starting out, feel free to ask any questions you have about SWIM, image repository or Cisco Catalyst Center in general.

Official Resources:

• SWIM Documentation

• Youtube: SWIM

Note: Please post your post as a comment below no later than July 12, 2024.

Post your question below by clicking "Reply"

(Answers will be processed depending on the availability of the experts)
Don't forget to thank the expert by giving it a helpful vote!

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Our experts

Saurabh Khillare Technical Consulting Engineer

Absar Ul Farooq Technical Consulting Engineer

For more information, visit the Cisco Catalyst Center discussion forums . If you have questions or are experiencing technical problems with any of the Cisco products, post your question, request information or use the Cisco Community before opening a case with the TAC.

[uabbired]

My customer is expected to disable device controllability on Catalyst center , can we still perform upgrade via SWIM ?

[Alexjeffy95]

Thank you! You're awesome. The issue was resolved after I switched to SSH version 2. I successfully distributed the image, and the upgrade went smoothly.

[Alexjeffy95]

Hi I have one more question to ask regarding SWIM - a customer wants to know if an upgrade will trigger an Issue. I've just tested in lab and yes, I got a "Switch unreachable" issue during the reload.
The customer is concerned about "massive" upgrade using CatC : they have ServiceNow integrated so each issue will open a Incident (even if they will be automatically closed after the reload).
> Question is: Since putting devices into Maintenance mode is not part of the SWIM Workflow, do they need to put them manually in maintenance mode before upgrading? Maybe I miss something and there is a more optimised way to do it

[auifaroo]

Hi Alex,

Currently, SWIM does not put the device in maintenance mode before starting the upgrade. During the image activation step, Catalyst Center  mark the device as unreachable and place it in quarantine to prevent any inventory updates from being triggered.

However putting the device in maintenance mode would prevent the inventory sync hence no alerts will be received on Catalyst Center.

[Alexjeffy95]

What do you mean by 'quarantine' please?And do we need to put devices in Inventory mode each time we perform an upgrade from Catalyst Center ?

[auifaroo]

urrently, when a device is placed in quarantine during the SWIM image activation step, it is marked as unreachable and the inventory sync does not run. While this is the current implementation, it may cause issues (under Assurance) during other provisioning activities. You can submit a "Make A Wish" request through Catalyst Center to address this in future releases.

[harmanjs]

I only wish to use scp in my environment to copy images from DNAC to my devices, how can I disable https on catalyst centre ?

[SaurabhKhillare]

Hello,

Yes, you can disable HTTPS and have only SCP enabled for image distribution task. You can make these changes under System > settings > Image distribution servers > Preferences. You need to pull SCP up the order in preference and disable HTTPS. 

[kanchven]

Hi Team,

Good day !

Is there a way I can get notified say on email once my upgrade from Catalyst center is completed

[SaurabhKhillare]

Hello,

Catalyst center does not have the feature to send notifications for SWIM tasks. There is no provision on CatC with which you can get email after your task of image upgrade is successful. You can raise a feature request by Making a wish from CatC GUI. 

[navmundr]

What are the url's one needs to allow to perform SWIM in a non airgao environment ?

[auifaroo]

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@navmundr wrote:

What are the url's one needs to allow to perform SWIM in a non airgao environment ?

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The appliance requires secure access to the following table of URLs and Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs).

• https://apx.cisco.com

• https://cloudsso.cisco.com/as/token.oauth2

• https://*.cisco.com/*

• https://download-ssc.cisco.com/
  
  One must configure either at network firewall or a proxy server so that IP traffic can travel to and from the Catalyst Center  and these resources

[akannang]

How do I verify that my devices are compatible with the new software image before initiating the upgrade?

[auifaroo]

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@akannang wrote:

How do I verify that my devices are compatible with the new software image before initiating the upgrade?

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You can refer to the publicly available compatibility matrix to verify if a particular version is supported on the Catalyst Center. : https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/Website/enterprise/catalyst_center_compatibility_matrix/index.html

[rjsingh]

Hello Team,

A small query on SWIM...

Is SWIM supported with Cisco DNA Essentials, or do I need DNA Advantage licenses?