Q1. What is Catalyst Center Global Manager (CCGM)?
A1. CCGM provides a centralized platform to manage multiple Cisco Catalyst Centers. It offers a unified view of sites, devices, and alerts across all registered controllers.
Q2. How does Catalyst Center Global Manager (CCGM) deliver business value to enterprises?
A2. CCGM simplifies the management of globally dispersed or multi-site networks and streamlines network management by providing centralized visibility and control for up to 25 Catalyst Centers, helping reduce operational complexity and administrative workload. It unifies data from multiple Catalyst Center into a single dashboard enabling quicker troubleshooting. As a result, organizations benefit from reduced operational expenses, increased uptime, and stronger alignment with IT governance, compliance, and digital transformation objectives.
Q3. Which Catalyst Center features are supported in Catalyst Center Global Manager (CCGM)?
A3. CCGM supports read-only visibility for Routing, Switching, Wireless, Endpoints, Software-Defined Access (SD-Access), and Inventory. It enables centralized monitoring of health, alerts, and site data across all registered Catalyst Centers. However, configuration and provisioning features like CLI templates and config compliance are not supported.
Q4. How many Catalyst Centers can CCGM manage?
A4. CCGM supports up to 25 Catalyst Center controllers so long they are running release 2.3.7.9 or higher.
Q5. Is my 3-Node HA Catalyst Center considered as one controller for CCGM or 3 controllers?
A5. 3-Node HA Catalyst Center is considered as one controller for CCGM. The 25 controller limit, CCGM counts the number of management addresses of Catalyst Center. So a 3 node cluster appears with a single management IP.
Q6. How many users can simultaneously access CCGM?
A6. CCGM currently supports up to 10 active concurrent users.
Q7. Can CCGM manage controllers in a Disaster Recovery or FIPS setup?
A7. No, controllers configured with DR, FIPS, or IPv6 are not supported in CCGM today.
Q8. What are the system and platform requirements for deploying Catalyst Center Global Manager (CCGM)?
A8. CCGM must be deployed on VMware ESXi version 7.x or later, running on servers with Intel Xeon Scalable (Cascade Lake+) or AMD EPYC Gen2 processors at ≥2.1 GHz. The virtual machine requires 8 vCPUs (16 GHz reserved), 16 GB RAM, and 650 GB of storage, with 2000–2500 IOPS.
Q9. Which browsers are supported for CCGM?
A9. Chrome (v134+), and Firefox (v120.0.1+) have been tested
Q10. What is the CRS? Why is CRS required?
A10. CRS is Cloud Registration Service. It automates enrollment of Catalyst Centers to CCGM. Once a CCGM order is placed, it creates a CRS profile automatically with customer’s Smart Account and Virtual Account. CCGM gets registered to the profile and anytime a new Catalyst Center registers to CRS, it finds the IP address of CCGM and enrolls to it.
Q11. What are the default login credentials of CCGM UI?
A11. Username: admin, Password: P@ssword9. Please be sure to change the admin password!
Q12. How to order CCGM? What is the PID/SKU to order?
A12. Here is the link to CCW to place the order: https://apps.cisco.com/Commerce/home
Here is the PID/SKU that needs to be ordered on CCW: DN-MM-APL
Q13. What support contract is needed for CCGM?
A13. CCGM support is part of your Catalyst Center Appliance support, no additional support contract is required
Q14. What licensing is required for CCGM?
A14. No licensing is required for CCGM, however we do require a $0 PO so that the product registration process can automatically add your Catalyst Centers into CCGM
Q15. Do I need an advantage or essential license for CCGM?
A15. Advantage and Essential Licenses are part of the network device licensing. CCGM license comes from your Catalyst Center appliance license.
Q16. Can you run CCGM on other Hypervisors or Cloud Platforms?
A16. CCGM is currently only supported on VMWare ESXi, other form factors are on the roadmap.
Q17. What are the requirements for Catalyst Center to get added to CCGM?
A17 Catalyst Center must be running release 2.3.7.9 or higher
- 350MS between CCGM and Catalyst Center
- IP Reachability via port 443
Q18. What happens if CCGM goes down?
A18. Given CCGM is a “stateless” application – it does not store data. It will NOT impact any Catalyst Center’s connected. When CCGM comes back up it will refresh it “cached” that using API.
Q19. What happens when Catalyst Center loses connectivity to CCGM?
A19. Nothing happens – CCGM losses the ability to make API queries to the Catalyst Center until connectivity is restored. Since CCGM does not store data, this does not create any data gaps on CCGM.
Q20. How do I make sure certain users have controlled access to CCGM and Catalyst Center data?
A20. User MUST exist both on CCGM and Catalyst Center for the cross launch to work. If a user only exists in CCGM, the cross launch will NOT work. CCGM does not elevate any access to the Catalyst Centers.
Q21. Does CCGM support dark mode?
A21. Yes, for everyone who loves dark mode, we have dark mode on CCGM
Q22. Is there a way to backup/restore CCGM?
A22. Backup of CCGM is supported in the same way as Catalyst Center VA on ESXi – using external NFS server or ESXi local disk mount. Please refer to this link: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/cloud-systems-management/network-automation-and-management/dna-center/dna-center-va/esxi/2-3-7/admin-guide/b_cisco_dna_center_va_esxi_admin_guide_2373/m_cisco_dna_center_va_esxi_admin_backup_restore.html
Q23. Is cloud upgrade supported on CCGM?
A23. Yes, this is the same as upgrading Catalyst Center right from CCGM GUI.
Q24. Is there any data that gets stored on CCGM?
A24. CCGM does not store any data. Data is cached for 5 mins on CCGM and then another set of APIs are run from CCGM to Catalyst Center to fetch brand new data.
Q25. Can CCGM view/edit system configuration settings on Catalyst Center?
A25. At this time CCGM can ONLY view settings on Catalyst Center. There is no edit capability today.
