AMA: Demystifying Cisco Catalyst Center PnP and LAN Automation

[Brooke Hammer]

Ask Me Anything Event

Welcome to the Cisco Community Ask Me Anything conversation. Submit your questions from  Friday, March 15, 2024 through Friday, April 5, 2024. Our colleagues Pandian Ponnuswamy, Gautami Sinai Neureker and Sankkar R 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 Plug-and-Play (PnP) and LAN Automation!

What is it?

• Cisco Catalyst Center offers innovative features to streamline network management.
• PnP simplifies device onboarding, eliminating manual configuration for new Cisco Catalyst switches. Imagine powering on a new switch and having it automatically discover its role and configure itself - that's the magic of PnP!
• LAN Automation builds upon PnP, automating the configuration of your entire underlay network, saving you hours (or even days) of manual configuration.

Get Expert Advice!

• This AMA session is your chance to get expert insights on these powerful features.
• Whether you're a seasoned network pro or just starting out, feel free to ask any questions you have about PnP, LAN Automation, or Cisco Catalyst Center in general.

Official Resources:

• Onboard and Provision Devices with Plug and Play

• Cisco Catalyst Center SD-Access LAN Automation Deployment Guide

• Youtube: Cisco Catalyst Center - PNP

• Youtube: Cisco Catalyst Center - LAN Automation

Note: Please post your post as a comment below no later than March 29, 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

Pandian Ponnuswamy Leader, Customer Delivery

Gautami Sinai Neureker Technical Consulting Engineer

Sankkar R 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.

[sankkr]

DNAC PnP cannot be used for an unsupported device type.
However, C1127 would be supported. In the external compatibility matrix C1121 is mentioned, this should cover all the C112x models. Internally we've informed the compatibility matrix team to make the changes to include all model variants.

[vattanassov]

In the Catalyst Center 2.3.5.5 Inventory C1127 router is indicated as unsupported device.  In the compatibility matrix C1127X is mentioned as being supported. As far as I know the only difference between C1127 and C1127X models is the ammount of onboard memory, but I may be wrong.

Perhaps, I may need to go with Catalyst Center 2.3.7.x.

[sankkr]

Suggest to raise a TAC SR to get this checked.

[vattanassov]

Let us consider a Catalyst Center in the DC and a number of small remote sites, where each site has a router and a FIAB switch. Can we use PnP for setup the router and the FIAB switch or the only option is to manually configure the router and then to use PnP for setup the FIAB switch? What would be recommended as a best practice in such scenario?

[sankkr]

Cisco PnP Connect feature can be used to onboard the Router in such case, where you may not be able to facilitate discovery of PnP server via your own DHCP or DNS options.
As long as the Router gets a DHCP IP that can connect to the internet, and the DNAC has one public facing IP, PnP Connect feature will facilitate the PnP server discovery over internet.
Then regular PnP workflow will follow. More details here.

[vikasku8]

When is the right time to stop the lan automation process?In my experience i have seen that at times the links are partially configured? I have to reset and retrigger the lan auto and wait a longer time randomly to get it completed.

Please advise

[vikasku8]

How do we onboard device in vlans other than the default vlan ?

[gpairait]

If you want to use a different VLAN for management, instead of VLAN 1.
It could be any VLAN number. You can use VLAN 15 as an example.
To accomplish this the “pnp startup-vlan 15”
This command should be added in the upstream switch to cause the pnp agent to create VLAN 15 and trigger PnP process on this broadcast domain.

[gpairait]

the time to stop the lan automation is when the device is added to the inventory.
the device should be managed and reachable.

once you stop the LAN automation, the links will be successfully configured.
if you stop the LAN auto before device is added to inventory, then the link configuration process wont be completed and can lead to incorrect and partial config on the switch.

for detailed info you can refer : https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/cloud-systems-management/network-automation-and-management/dna-center/tech_notes/b_dnac_sda_lan_automation_deployment.html#id_92033

[sankkr]

As soon as all the devices you intended to onboard have moved to the "Completed" state, you can hit "Stop" on the workflow.
Sometimes the moving to "Completed" state might take as long as 30-45 minutes after discovery. But any longer might indicate issues with the workflow. I would suggest to open a TAC SR for those scenarios.

[SaurabhSharma0929]

How many devices can be onboarded at a time using pnp and LAN automation?

[sankkr]

For PnP Onboarding there is no limit as such defined for the maximum number of devices that can onboard at the same time.

For LAN Automation, a limit of 50 devices at a time will apply.

[SaurabhSharma0929]

Is there any limitation on WLC onboarding based on the OS version/model. Do all DNAC versions support WLC onborading?

[sankkr]

All C9800 WLCs and CT3504, CT5520 and CT8540 AireOS WLCs are supported in DNAC. Some older Software releases of these models may not be supported. The details can be found in this compatibility matrix.

However when it comes to onboarding the WLCs to DNAC, LAN Automation is not supported for any WLC model. And only C9800 models supports PnP onboarding. AireOS WLCs do not support onboarding via PnP.

[vinothk3]

How do we ensure brownfield devices are ready for onboarding?