discovery vs pnp onboarding

[josephbdelossantos]

Hi, I need to standardize our switch configs ( i.e. remove some acls, apply some new acls, delete snmp string, add new snmp strings, etc) and the devices in DNA center was added using discovery not PNP. do I need to onboard these devices first via PNP (regardless if they have already been identifed via discovery)  before I can deploy these config changes?

Thanks!

[Preston Chilcote · Accepted solution]

Regardless of whether you used PnP or simple discovery, it is recommend to apply configs with day-N templates.  Plan to use the same day-N templates regardless of the discovery method.   The day-0 templates for PnP should be really basic, just enough to provide connectivity to Cat Center.  The reason being that as you inevitably want to make changes to configs, you can change a day-N template and reprovision devices.  If you were pushing full configs in day-0 (PnP Onboarding) templates, you would have to start the PnP process all over again which wastes time and effort.

Said another way.  PnP helps onboard new devices (both into the network and into Cat Center).  Discovery helps bring already devices into the Cat Center management inventory.  

[josephbdelossantos]

Hi Preston,

the pre-requisite to onboard new devices using pnp says dhcp or dns connectivity is the only thing required and the cisco.com credentials in 

System > Settings > Cisco.com Credentials. or

If needed, set the Cisco Smart Account credentials in System > Settings > Smart Account

does this mean I dont have to set any basic network connectivity onto these new switches for it to get the full config I want? Also, can I use a variable to change a value on the config per site? (i.e. hostname, default route, etcmaybe vlan information) basically deploy a full standardized config on new devices but change some values depending which site the new device is being assigned to? 

THanks

[Preston Chilcote]

Here are some useful guides:

https://blogs.cisco.com/developer/cisco-dna-center-plug-and-play-pnp-part-1

https://community.cisco.com/t5/networking-knowledge-base/updating-management-ip-address-of-a-switch-during-the-pnp/ta-p/4820793

Yes, variables will be an important part of any template.

[Torbjørn]

@Preston Chilcote is 100% right in that you should handle most configuration in Day-N templates. I just want to add that it can sometimes be easier to reprovision devices with PNP than to clean up existing configuration if your goal is to achieve a standardised configuration state.