The more I learn about the applications Cisco partners are building using the DNA Center’s open APIs, the more I am impressed by the creativity by which they are using these APIs. Their solutions are helping network operations by removing the guesswork and manual steps traditionally employed to find and fix network issues. One shining example of such an application is Micro Focus’s IT Operations Management (ITOM) solution. The complete solution consists of six separate management applications that encompass IT service, hybrid cloud, and data center. The two applications, out of the six, that they have integrated with DNA Center are Network Operations Management (NOM) and Operations Bridge. Whereas Networks Operations Management (NOM) focuses on monitoring of networks, Operations Bridge acts on the output from monitoring, analyzes service impact of an infrastructure issue, and takes remedial actions.   Bidirectional integration with DNA Center The two applications tie in extremely tightly with DNA Center. Network Operations Management (NOM) uses DNA Center’s integration APIs to retrieve network data from DNA Center. This data includes events, network topology, and incident trends on both wired and wireless networks. NOM goes on to assimilate this data, add compliance information and send it on to Operations Bridge, Operations Bridge consumes the data, adds application health statistics, and presents it in a single-pane-of-glass dashboard for operators. As part of its analysis, NOM combines the data it receives from DNA Center with data it gathers from other sources, and passes the data (events, metrics and topology) to Operations Bridge. Operations Bridge then creates a comprehensive view of the complete IT operations. Users can now detect a problem, if any, and by event correlation, identify the root cause and remediate the problem using operations orchestration through its interface with DNA Center. “DNA Center as an open platform is very significant for our customers and they are quite excited that Cisco DNA now provides REST APIs for automation.”, says Tapan Shah, Product Manager of Network Operations Management product at Micro Focus, “We at Micro Focus consume these APIs to drive monitoring and provisioning use-cases. We integrate with DNA Center in a bidirectional manner. We get network events from it, determine the impact to applications, if any, and if so, isolate the network fault, and then use DNA Center provisioning APIs to remediate the fault.” Watch Tapan demonstrate the solution.   Conclusion With the DNA Center open platform, Cisco has opened many opportunities for independent software vendors, such as Micro Focus, to enrich their own offerings with the native functions and the network data collected and insights generated by the DNA Center. Partner written applications can not only programmatically access telemetry data but all its native automation and assurance capabilities as well, and deliver solutions that solve business needs simply, efficiently, and effectively. Read this white paper from IDC to see how you can leverage network as an open platform and create new revenue opportunities. Discover this solution and others from our DNA Center open platform partners and see how they are redefining the future of networking.   Find out more Learn DNA Center APIs: https://developer.cisco.com/dnacenter/ See how intent-based networking can spark business innovation: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/intent-based-networking-business-innovation.html Read the Cisco Focus Magazine special issue on Intent-Based Networking: https://newsroom.cisco.com/focus/2018/jun/intent-based-networking   ... View more

Do you have technology silos in your organization? One of the most common examples of silos we see in organizations is their network and their IT service management. These technology islands depend on often times less-than-reliable “human middleware” for communication between them – with predictable results. For example, if a network issue needs to be resolved, someone has to create a ticket in the IT system, collect debug data from the network, if available, and add this data to the ticket. Once the resolution is found, someone needs to perform the actions in the network and then close the ticket. These manual processes slow down debugging and resolution of network issues and with insufficient information make it error prone.   Automation to the rescue If you are tired of synchronizing data between these silos manually and want a better way to manage, then you should really look at the new application that Logicalis has created for its customers that automates these processes. In this application, Logicalis uses Cisco DNA Center open platform capabilities that expose REST based APIs to external applications. Using these APIs, the application obtains network data regarding devices, their location, health information and firmware versions, and other data relating to telemetry from DNA Center. Moreover, the application also uses DNA Center’s native automation and assurance capabilities.         The application receives notifications if DNA Center detects anything amiss in the network. Then using the DNA Center APIs, it is able to obtain all the contextual data related to the issue. This data could be invaluable in finding a resolution. The application then creates a ticket in IT service management system and adds all collected data to it. In the case where a user reports an error and creates a ticket in the IT service system, the application is still able to use DNA Center APIs to get all the data associated with the user and the devices they are using and add it to the user-generated ticket. Thus, no matter how the problem is first reported, there is always contextual data that can ease any troubleshooting and eventual resolution. And all this without humans shuffling data between the IT systems and network management! “An open platform is very important to us and our customers as it allows integration between multiple systems to meet business needs”, says Renae Johnson, Sr Alliance for Cisco, at Logicalis. “We leverage DNA Center’s assurance component to streamline ITSM processes such as incident management and problem management, by enriching workflows with data.” Watch as Cory Kramer, Solutions Architect at Logicalis, shows the two use cases by mediating among and closing the gap between DNA Center and ServiceNow, the ITSM system.   Conclusion With the DNA Center open platform, Cisco has opened the enterprise network for innovation. Partner written applications can now access DNA Center's native automation and assurance capabilities programmatically and deliver solutions that align the network and business needs simply, efficiently, and effectively. Read this white paper from IDC to see how you can leverage network as an open platform and create new revenue opportunities. Discover this solution and others from our DNA Center open platform partners and see how they are redefining the future of networking.   Find out more Learn DNA Center APIs: https://developer.cisco.com/dnacenter/ See how intent-based networking can spark business innovation: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/intent-based-networking-business-innovation.html Read the Cisco Focus Magazine special issue on Intent-Based Networking: https://newsroom.cisco.com/focus/2018/jun/intent-based-networking   ... View more

Big corporations think big! When IBM takes on a project, you can bet that it will be global in its proportions. But called upon to revamp the networking of 250 branch offices of a multinational company, even IBM knew that it had a mammoth task on its hands. A task that could easily have taken hundreds of engineers doing lots of manual work that could be time-consuming and error prone. However, drawing on their previous experiences, IBM chose to utilize automation in order to save money and time. The first task was to set up an SD-WAN solution linking each branch with the main campus. Each of the branches would have network connectivity through both an internet and an MPLS connection. The second task was to deploy virtualized network services in each of the branches. Servers within each branch would run virtualized routers and firewalls that would control access between the WAN and the branch LAN.  Almost all branches would have redundant systems, which meant setting-up as many as 450 such servers.   Go global with network automation Faced with this challenge, IBM turned to Cisco’s Digital Network Architecture (DNA) and DNA Center. They chose Cisco’s Enterprise Network Compute System (ENCS) as their appliance. ENCS is a compute appliance family designed for a virtualized, Software-Defined Branch (SD-Branch) network architecture.     To solve the deployment problems, IBM first defined a provisioning template within DNA Center. Using DNA Center’s open APIs, they wrote a custom Python script to retrieve this template and clone it across branches. The script then customizes each instance with its unique set of IP addresses, VLAN structure, etc. It also creates all the virtual network functions (VNFs) including virtual ISR with MPLS and internet connections, and virtual ASA, and chains them all together within ENCS. The script accomplishes all of this programmatically, dramatically reducing deployment time while also reducing the risk of minor differences between sites that can cause problems later. “The challenge before us was to deploy virtualized networking services on 250 sites using 450 appliances for a global customer,” said Markus Voegele, Network Architect at IBM, “It was clear that the only way we were going to be able to do this was to use automation. We found that Cisco DNA Center had the native capability to deploy and configure this set up, and with its support for open APIs, we were able to control this deployment through an application we wrote for the purpose. With simple Python scripts, we were able to deploy VLANs, virtual routers, virtual firewalls within ENCS servers at the sites, and link these together to form a service chain. Deploying and provisioning new sites, for us, is now as easy as choosing an option on a menu.” Watch Markus demonstrate the solution.   Conclusion With its application, IBM shows how easy it can be to accomplish tasks on a global scale, which could easily take several months to complete manually. They have very effectively leveraged the capabilities of DNA Center and its open APIs and combined them with network virtualization. They have fully automated a process that is typically very expensive, time consuming, and challenging to implement. Read this white paper from IDC to see how you can leverage network as an open platform and create new revenue opportunities. Discover this solution and others from our DNA Center open platform partners and see how they are redefining the future of networking.   Find out more Learn DNA Center APIs: https://developer.cisco.com/dnacenter/ See how intent-based networking can spark business innovation: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/intent-based-networking-business-innovation.html Read the Cisco Focus Magazine special issue on Intent-Based Networking: https://newsroom.cisco.com/focus/2018/jun/intent-based-networking ... View more

Programming is a trending topic in the world of networking. However, to a lot of us network engineers, it feels like writing such programs can be hard to do. Thinking that it would need a lot of time and skill, we consider programming suitable only for large and complex applications. We even believe that programming should be best left for professional developers. To learn how other engineers are approaching the network programmability trend , I headed over to a group of Cisco partners who brought their solutions to the recent Cisco Live. Among the innovative use cases on demonstration there, Conscia’s reporting application struck me as a representative of a new class of applications that are purposeful, focused, and custom built to solve a specific problem.   Monitoring switch port status In order to optimize usage, Conscia’s application focuses on monitoring the status of ports in various access switches in their customers’ networks.   The application automates what can be a tedious time consuming task. After all, a person would need to inventory all the access switches in the network, log into each switch, and run CLI commands to check on the ports. Moreover, they would need to do this repeatedly and plot the results to determine the usage variance over time. Conscia’s application begins by using DNA Center’s open APIs to map out the location of all the switches. From a high-level visual summary of switches, an operator can drill down into switches at each location, and then to an individual switch. The script can automatically log on to each switch, collect port status, and save the status into a spreadsheet. A technician could use the data collected in this spreadsheet to perform maintenance on the switches such as removing cabling from unused ports and getting them ready for new connections. The script can even be set to run the audit every 30 minutes to get a true picture over time. By having this insight into the availability of resources, Conscia’s customers can maximize their port usage and optimize their purchase of new switches. “At Conscia, we use the newest technologies to provide the best solutions to our customers in data center, mobility, security, and cloud”, says Henrik Boye, Director of Sales at Conscia. Adds Thomas Christensen, System Engineer at Conscia, “We see a big value in DNA Center open platform as it gives us the APIs that we can use to develop custom functions or applications that increase the usefulness of DNA Center. For us, it means that we can easily do small custom applications or integrate with ITSM systems such as ServiceNow and others”. Watch Henrik and Thomas demonstrate this solution.   Conclusion With all its operational telemetry data, the network provides a rich information base ripe for analysis. By identifying patterns and correlating data from several sources, innovative applications can extract actionable business intelligence. To dive into this data pool, these applications do not have to be complex or difficult to create and maintain. Cisco DNA Center open platform provides easy-to-use APIs that even small custom built applications can use to generate big results. Conscia’s port usage optimizing application demonstrates how access to network data can spur creation of innovation applications that use the data to solve business problems. This application is just one example of the low-overhead high-impact innovative applications that DNA Center open APIs make possible by opening up its powerful native capabilities for external use. Read this white paper from IDC to see how you can leverage network as an open platform and create new revenue opportunities. Discover this solution and others from our DNA Center open platform partners and see how they are redefining the future of networking. Take action Learn DNA Center APIs: https://developer.cisco.com/dnacenter/ See how intent-based networking can spark business innovation: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/intent-based-networking-business-innovation.html Read the Cisco Focus Magazine special issue on Intent-Based Networking: https://newsroom.cisco.com/focus/2018/jun/intent-based-networking ... View more

The promise of a network that can detect problems on its own, lets IT management system know, debugs and isolates the problem, seeks permission to rectify it, and then actually goes out and does it, must feel like utopia! Surely, this is the stuff of the future! But, that is exactly what Accenture has done! I know you are intrigued, and so was I. On hearing about such a solution at Cisco Live in Orlando last June, I went over to Accenture’s booth to check it out for myself.   Yes, they are automating network changes through ITSM Here is the problem they focused on at the event. As the performance of the network as a whole depends on its weakest link, it is essential to ensure that each device is fully optimized, and running the latest “golden” version of software. However, having every network device run up-to-date version of software to achieve overall optimized performance is rarely if ever achieved, because image changes across all the devices is a never-ending and very time-consuming stream of tasks, and there is usually not enough time and people.   And fixing issues almost without manual intervention Accenture has created an application that utilizes APIs made available by Cisco’s DNA Center open platform to make ITSM ticket based image management request and resolution an automated process. Accenture’s application combines the network data available through DNA Center APIs and its integrated IT process workflows with ServiceNow’s IT service management platform to provide the automation.           Here’s how it works: The process starts when DNA Center detects that a device is non-compliant with its required level of software. Using its event notification mechanism, DNA Center reports this fact to Accenture’s application which in turn opens a ticket in ServiceNow ServiceNow creates a new change request with all the contextual information on the device. Once the operator reviews and approves the change, and when the designated maintenance window arrives, ServiceNow uses Accenture’s application to instruct DNA Center to reconfirm the status of the device and to start an upgrade readiness check If the check comes up positive, ServiceNow instructs DNA Center, through Accenture’s middleware, to begin upgrading the device with the designated image After upgrading the device, DNA Center reports the status to ServiceNow, which marks the change request complete Watch Accenture’s Charles Nebolsky, Managing Director, and Mutaher Azad, Infrastructure Manager, take you through the solution.   The benefits Network operators can now decrease their workloads by assigning ITSM ticket response and resolution manage tasks to an automated process. Accenture is highlighting image management in their demo but clearly, they can extend this automation to several different oft-repeated tasks. Automation saves time and money. In the bigger picture, Accenture is demonstrating a trend towards automation that DNA Center open platform makes possible. Its communication link to ServiceNow automates the ticket process from its opening to close. The solution requires minimal human intervention. ITSM ticket management automation via DNA Center open platform, when viewed as a solutions architecture, enables a wide variety of task identification and resolution to be machine driven. Accenture predicts that eventually machine driven operations will result in time savings of up to 90%. Charles Nebolsky says, “We are very excited about the DNA Center and its ability to dramatically augment how people work with technology. It is a mass multiplier in how they service clients and make technology more adaptable to what is going on in the world of cloud and digital. We talk about the overall concept as being the “Digital Network Platform” that takes technology from hardware components into an abstracted software layer that integrates end-to-end to provide policy, security, performance, and automation.”   Conclusion By providing open APIs for network control, Cisco DNA Center has opened up new opportunities for partners to create new services around ITSM ticket management automation that has significant and direct impact for customer network operations. Read this white paper from IDC to see how you can leverage network as an open platform and create new revenue opportunities.   Take action Learn DNA Center APIs: https://developer.cisco.com/dnacenter/ Visit the DNA Center Ecosystem Exchange and discover the innovative applications that partners like Accenture are building: https://developer.cisco.com/ecosystem/dnacenter/ See how intent-based networking can spark business innovation: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/intent-based-networking-business-innovation.html Read the Cisco Focus Magazine special issue on Intent-Based Networking: https://newsroom.cisco.com/focus/2018/jun/intent-based-networking ... View more

Anyone who has ever poured over enormous amounts of data from syslogs, Wireshark, and debug dumps from individual devices can relate to this very well. There’s got to be a better way to identify trouble spots in the network. With the network playing an increasingly important role in our businesses and our lives and with new technologies becoming mainstream and indispensable, verifying that the network is performing as designed is critical. Having experienced this troubleshooting agony first-hand during my days as a developer, I was keen to see advances in this area and went to see the LiveAction booth at the recent Cisco Live. I learned how LiveAction’s LiveNX application makes diagnose and fix process simple by their powerful visualization tools that complement Cisco DNA Center’s native assurance capabilities.   You can’t troubleshoot what you can’t see DNA Center collects extensive amount of telemetry data from the enterprise network. Sources of this data include network devices such as wired and wireless clients, wireless access points, routers, switches, and wireless LAN controllers, applications, as well as other contextual sources like LDAP, DNS, DHCP, AAA, CMX, IPAM, etc. In addition to collecting and performing its own comprehensive analysis, DNA Center also makes it available via open APIs to external applications such as LiveNX. The following diagram illustrates this integration. “Having an open platform like DNA Center is very important to us and our customers”, says John Smith, CTO and Founder, LiveAction, “The data that we get is at the heart of all our visualizations and analytics. So having access to all that data through open APIs is very critical to us. By integrating with DNA Center, we can benefit from its telemetry and insights, and are able to bring it up on our dashboards. This enables our customers to understand what is happening in the network and be able to troubleshoot and resolve their problems.” LiveNX uses these APIs to retrieve network data and adds to the native analysis performed by DNA Center. You gain from the seamless manner in which LiveNX interacts with DNA Center and the value-add it provides that can help you better understand network traffic to identify trouble spots. By its close integration with DNA Center, LiveNX allows you to cross-launch DNA Center’s troubleshooting and remediation capabilities directly from its own dashboard. LiveNX has built-in support for many Cisco technologies such as SD-WAN, SD-Access, and Meraki. With its visualization and 3 rd party device support abilities, LiveNX can help during your during pre-deployment assessment, the deployment process itself, and later during operations. Watch John demonstrate the solution.   Conclusion With the DNA Center open platform, Cisco has opened the enterprise network for innovation. Partner written applications can not only programmatically access telemetry data but all its native automation and assurance capabilities as well. Innovative applications like LiveNX further build up on DNA Center capabilities, and deliver solutions that solve business needs simply, efficiently, and effectively. Read this white paper from IDC to see how you can leverage network as an open platform and create new revenue opportunities. Discover this solution and others from our DNA Center open platform partners and see how they are redefining the future of networking.   Find out more Learn DNA Center APIs: https://developer.cisco.com/dnacenter/ See how intent-based networking can spark business innovation: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/intent-based-networking-business-innovation.html Read the Cisco Focus Magazine special issue on Intent-Based Networking: https://newsroom.cisco.com/focus/2018/jun/intent-based-networking ... View more

Data traffic control generally follows a static set of rules with assigned network priority levels – from best effort for web and email to the highest levels reserved for signaling and real-time media. In the past, QoS traffic classification worked well by following these best practices. But being static, these rules do not handle customizations well or adjust dynamically to changing conditions. With the rise in the amount of video traffic on the network, coupled with the necessity to react in real-time to business changes, enterprises today are in need of an automated means to dynamically manage QoS priorities even if these priorities do not completely follow best practices.  What can network managers do to ensure that their network is constantly evolving to support their business? QoS dynamism through network programming What such enterprises need is a way to program network devices on the fly in order to prioritize one type or even a particular application’s traffic over another. One way to accomplish this would be to reconfigure all the devices in the network, but this would require widespread changes and potentially cause unnecessary disruptions. A more intelligent way would be to program specifically just the devices along the path from source to destination to meet the required QoS objectives.   At the last Cisco Live, Wipro demonstrated DLane – their application designed to prioritize business traffic along any path from its source to destination. DLane is part of a larger Wipro initiative around IoT and in particular fleet management for the mining industry. DLane identifies the operator who needs to monitor data streaming from the fleet onto a SAP/HANA cloud in their datacenter. This data is intermittent in nature, which is to stay, it is not flowing all the time, but when it is flowing, the operator needs to access the cloud with the highest priority. DLane uses Cisco DNA Center’s platform capabilities to program the network devices in real time to ensure the policy changes for the priority is enforced in the network. Once the system notifies DLane that priorities needs to be changed, DLane identifies the traffic path and uses DNA Center open APIs to configure the devices necessary in the path to recognize and prioritize the operator’s access to the datacenter. Watch Ramesh NG, Director and Practice Head, Software Defined Networking at Wipro explain and demonstrate their use of network programming through DNA Center.     “We use Cisco DNA as the enabler for our enterprise customers”, says Ramesh, “DNA Center is transforming the way we approach and design software defined access. Its open APIs allow us to enforce policy and push configuration into devices as required by business. This level of customization helps us serve our customer better and differentiates us from others.” Conclusion With DLane, Wipro has created a notification driven tool triggered by business needs that applies QoS policy automatically and dynamically. It exemplifies just one of the innovations that DNA Center open platform helps bring to reality. Discover this solution and others from our DNA Center open platform partners and see how they are redefining the future of networking. Do more Learn DNA Center APIs: https://developer.cisco.com/dnacenter/ Learn how to create new revenue opportunities through service innovation: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/cloud-systems-management/dna-center/nb-09-idc-open-platform-analyst-rpt-ctp-en.pdf See how intent-based networking sparks business innovation: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/intent-based-networking-business-innovation.html ... View more

One of the most fascinating trends I saw at Cisco Live in Orlando was how abstraction and automation of the network can lead to seamless integration with other technologies in order to achieve significant operational workflows. For example, the use of collaboration tools to perform network management tasks using mobile devices, or how to integrate the management of IoT and conventional IP network domains. These integrations could have a very powerful impact on OpEx savings and time to response at a business operations level. When looking at this trend, two things come to mind. First, the ability to integrate these technologies physically and how they communicate with each other, and secondly, and perhaps the bigger challenge, is how to coordinate policies that perform cross technology tasks.   The open platform nature of DNA Center has demonstrated that a single portal can manage disparate domains. However, applications and services are left to manage their policy coordination aspects. To this extent, Italtel has developed a policy management platform branded Netwrapper, which operates on top of DNA Center platform that enables such cross technology policy management. Let’s take an example of how powerful the combination of DNA Center and Netwrapper can be. Insecurity beyond the corporate office   You have invested a lot in securing your manufacturing facility. You have installed automatic locks, issued every employee an RFID badge, and outfitted your floor with various sensors. You might now feel that your factory floor is as secure as the data in your corporate office. You might be wrong. You may have state of the art security equipment, but are you leveraging data from the network that connects them together? Are your security personnel alerted to breaches in real-time and are they able to observe and take corrective actions quickly and prevent the breach from spreading?       Smart devices deserve a smart network The Netwrapper application makes use of network data coming from DNA Center to address just those shortcomings in the modern physical security infrastructure. Netwrapper utilizes DNA Center’s notification mechanism to receive events from smart devices and sensors connected to the extended enterprise network. It also uses DNA Center’s Intent, or northbound, APIs that provide a programmatic interface to access automation and assurance capabilities of DNA Center. Using these APIs, applications can create workflows combining several repetitive tasks so that engineers can focus on creating solutions instead. In their demonstration, using a simulated factory built of Lego bricks, outfitted with sensors, Italtel showed how authorized personnel could get around unhindered. However, when the sensors detected an unauthorized person or DNA Center found a malfunctioning or disconnected security device, Netwrapper would, shut off the machinery, and initiate a video session for management using WebEx Teams who could view the intrusion and take corrective action. Watch Italtel’s Tullia Zanni and Andrea Stella demonstrate the solution.     “Cisco is enabling partners to get more value from their own capabilities, said Camillo Ascione, Head of Strategic Alliances at Italtel, “Cisco platforms provide the right foundation to create rich and powerful use cases that can address different needs in different vertical markets. After use cases on Collaboration, we are defining specific solutions and architectures spanning from manufacturing to healthcare, all built on the same foundation: the Intent-Based Network.” Conclusion Netwrapper exemplifies just the sort of innovative applications that DNA Center open APIs bring to reality for solutions development. Italtel has seamlessly harnessed several Cisco technologies to create a unique policy management value proposition that, when viewed as an OEM technology to build solutions around, can find applicability for many different solutions. Read this white paper from IDC to see how you can leverage network as an open platform and create new revenue opportunities. Discover this solution and others from our DNA Center open platform partners and see how they are redefining the future of networking. Learn more Learn DNA Center APIs: https://developer.cisco.com/dnacenter/ See how intent-based networking can spark business innovation: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/intent-based-networking-business-innovation.html Read the Cisco Focus Magazine special issue on Intent-Based Networking: https://newsroom.cisco.com/focus/2018/jun/intent-based-networking ... View more

If you are a network administrator, you know how tedious it can be to manage a mixed-vendor network. There are always differences in how devices are discovered, monitored, configured, and updated. There are also likely to be a variety of management applications – all of which function differently and operate only on a subset of devices. Hearing that HCL has developed an application service that can provide Day-0 management of any vendor’s network device, I couldn’t wait to head over to their booth at Cisco Live in Orlando last June. Make on-boarding fast using one service! On boarding new devices in a mixed vendor environment is time consuming, expensive and requires multiple tools. Most tools out there fail on a very fundamental level – they work only with the manufacturer’s devices. Therein lies the dilemma, administrators have many tools at their disposal, and yet they are still not able to manage their networks effectively end to end. HCL showed me at their booth how they solve this problem most elegantly using their NetBot based on-boarding service. This service utilizes Cisco DNA Center to discover a network device and then manages its configuration. HCL demonstrated this capability for Cisco devices and several non-Cisco devices. The service is used in the context of fully automated ITSM tickets that ask for a network device change. Yes, the service can discern that the ITSM ticket is for a network device change, coordinate the change, restore and/or update the device configuration, and close the ticket. It updates all CMDB changes and descriptions in the ITSM tool as well. Full automation of Day 0 ITSM ticket inspections and remedy means network operators don’t have to do this work anymore. And that translates into OPEX savings and faster time-to response. Let’s dig a little deeper into how this service works. NetBot is a network automation framework that automates the complete life-cycle of network devices, from provisioning to policy-based change management, compliance and security administration. DNA Center open platform exposes APIs that you can use to build applications that programmatically control the network through DNA Center. So NetBot in this case is working as an application on top of DNA Center. DNA Center uses the concept of device packs, which act like device drivers for network devices, to attach and discover the device. Device packs for Cisco devices, such as routers, switches, and wireless controllers are made available as part of the standard DNA Center product offering. Cisco has also developed an SDK so that packs for other devices can be developed. HCL used the SDK to develop device packs for commonly used third party switches and routers to demonstrate the end-to-end management capabilities of their new service. Furthermore, using DNA Center’s intent-based open APIs, HCL has integrated their NetBot application to both DNA Center and ServiceNow. This means when a ticket is generated in ServiceNow, NetBot can detect the ticket, provision the new box, and retire the ticket, achieving full end-to-end automation of device on-boarding. At the event, HCL showed me how this works in a few simple steps: HCL created and deployed a device-pack for a Juniper router on an instance of DNA Center A ticket to add a new router is created in ServiceNow In response to this service ticket, NetBot used DNA Center services to discover and configure the new router using the Juniper device-pack NetBot then relayed the completion status to ServiceNow, added appropriate descriptions to the ticket, and issued a ticket closure Watch HCL’s Harmeet Singh, Deputy General Manager & Head of Pre-Sales, describe the value of DNA Center open platform and walk us through a demonstration of how seamless provisioning a non-Cisco device with DNA Center can be.     “At HCL we understand the emerging importance of smart networks and its importance in making a business fast, flexible, and agile”, says Tajeshwar Singh, Senior Vice President and Chief Architect at HCL. “We envision a future where network management can be automated. We specifically created NetBot to tackle networking challenges that enterprises face every day – error-prone manual work, process scalability, time to provision, configure and troubleshoot, and above all vendor lock-in. With the open APIs and SDKs that Cisco’s DNA Center now provides, we saw an opportunity to extend NetBot’s automation capability to solve some of these very issues that vex network administrators every day. This initiative is part of our larger infrastructure blueprint for digital transformation. ” Conclusion Cisco has created an ITSM ticket automation framework based on DNA Center that enables multiple services to be deployed to service ITSM tickets. The blog today highlighted one such use case, Day 0 provisioning for any network device, a service offered by HCL. Other Day 1 or Day 2 management services can also be developed that utilize the same framework to automate the service of those ticket requests. Read this white paper from IDC to see how you can leverage network as an open platform and create new revenue opportunities. Discover this solution and others from our DNA Center open platform partners and see how they are redefining the future of networking. Follow-up Learn DNA Center APIs: https://developer.cisco.com/dnacenter/ ... View more

When it comes to configuration changes in your production network, I think you’ll agree that it traditionally has been a job best left for “the pros”. Provisioning network devices is very complex; one small configuration mistake can cause outages and loss of production, not to mention irate users. Even technology-aware people hesitate to mess with it. Now thanks to recent advances in network automation, these routine provisioning tasks are fast, simple, and can be accomplished with dramatically reduced technical knowledge. Now any sort of changes can be confidently, securely, and quickly executed enhancing user satisfaction and productivity.   Network change requests are more frequent and more complex now Network once provisioned in a certain way, tended to stay that way. When networks were relied on mainly for internal productivity (such as sharing data and emails), the only changes that were required were for departmental and personal changes, which is rather static in machine time. However, today the network has evolved from a simple productivity tool playing an increasingly critical role in an organization’s digital transformation. This has caused a dramatic increase in the number and frequency of changes required of the network. Automation is required to keep pace. Rapid business changes then are good reasons why you need to make your network more agile. Take, for example, the fundamental task of guest WiFi access. In most cases, this access is on a best-effort level without much thought given to quality-of-service and user-experience. However, over time visitors rely more and more on guest network access to help collaborate with internal employees (to perform demonstrations, execute cloud based services, and the like). But as dynamic access rights to guest networks remained a manual operation, which means its slow and sometimes filled with errors, the results are loss of productivity at a high enough level to matter to a business.   Customized experience for each user At Cisco Live in Orlando, Dimension Data showed an application that they built using intent APIs provided by Cisco DNA Center open platform .   They showed that by programmatic control they could create custom experiences for each of their guest WiFi users rather than lumping them all in a common bucket. For example, if a visitor was there to participate in a conference and needed a guaranteed wireless bandwidth, you could create a new wireless SSID for them and provision the network to match their requirements. The application could add new capabilities to their access, if, for instance, they also needed access to local printers. Dimension Data made this application extremely easy to use. Organizations that use it will now be able to free up their technical staff from this mundane but important activity. “Networks were never designed for the Cloud, Big Data, or IoT,” says Kurt Brown, Vice President of Digital Infrastructure at Dimension Data, “What the open platform allows businesses to do is to allow software applications drive the network rather than the other way around. If we want our network to be agile and to evolve with our business, we need an open infrastructure that allows business applications in the network to talk to each other to create the deliver the value that our clients want.” See Kurt demonstrate the solution.   Conclusion With the DNA Center open platform, Cisco has opened the enterprise network for innovation. Partner written applications can now access all its native automation and assurance capabilities programmatically and deliver solutions that align the network and business needs simply, efficiently, and effectively. Read this white paper from the analyst firm IDC to see how you can leverage network as an open platform and create new revenue opportunities. Discover this solution and others from our DNA Center open platform partners and see how they are redefining the future of networking.   Find out more Learn DNA Center APIs: https://developer.cisco.com/dnacenter/ See how intent-based networking sparks business innovation:   https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/intent-based-networking-business-innovation.html ... View more

Imagine it is Tuesday afternoon and your child is asking you to come to their soccer game to cheer them on. Of course, you want to attend, but that would mean you would have to leave the network you manage “behind” at one of the busiest times in the week. Will you go? Thanks to Mobile Ops Center by World Wide Technology, the answer can be - Yes! Mobile Ops Center is a DNA Center open platform application that runs on your mobile phone. It connects you with your Cisco DNA based enterprise network’s vital health information, notifies you with any issues that need your attention, and even lets you initiate fixes for those issues on the fly. Now you can manage your network while being on the soccer field. Mobile Ops Center uses the APIs available in the Cisco DNA Center open platform to read the vital analytics necessary to monitor the state of the network, and to initiate network changes if necessary. The abstraction facilitated by the APIs hides the otherwise massive underlying complexities necessary to perform these tasks, which has now made applications such as the Mobile Ops Center possible to develop. This is another example of how these open APIs have sparked developers’ imaginations and have led to some innovative applications.   Making network management mobile Combining enterprise networking and mobility in a unique way, engineers at WWT realized that with network status so easily accessible through DNA Center open platform APIs, operators did not have to be tied down to computer consoles and traditional dashboards to manage their networks. With this breakthrough, they set out to create a mobile version of the DNA Center dashboard.   Mobile Ops Center utilizes DNA Center’s Intent APIs along with event notifications to act as an extension of DNA Center dashboard. Intent, or northbound, APIs provide a programmatic interface to access automation and assurance capabilities of DNA Center. Using these APIs, applications can create workflows combining several repetitive tasks so that engineers can focus on creating solutions instead. Mobile Ops Center uses the Command Runner API and ones that focus on DNA Center Assurance.   See the solution described by Andrew Rauscher of World Wide Technology.   Benefits Mobile Ops Center app obtains network health data from DNA Center and displays a synopsis on its home screen. It receives notification alerts from DNA Center for any problem detected in the network. The app user is able to drill down to troubleshoot the issue from their mobile device and take any of the suggested actions to remedy it. Another major convenience Mobile Ops Center offers is the ability to search for network clients and their connected devices. For each device, one can trace their connectivity and check for any detected and unresolved problems. Mobile Ops Center really is one powerful application for an engineer on the go.   “At WWT we often discuss how to address the desire for network managers to do their jobs while becoming more mobile”, says Neil Anderson, Practice Manager, WWT. “However, these discussions often lead to far too many complexities in getting the right network visibility and control necessary to develop an application that would be useful. Now with the combination of abstraction, visibility, and control that DNA Center open platform provides, we are able to utilize a programmatic API approach to get what we need to develop the application and make it very useful. And we were able to do so with rather minimal investment and in a relatively short period of time”.   WWT demonstrated their Mobile Ops Center at Cisco Live event in Orlando last June. Feedback from many of the 20,000 plus customers who attended the event was overwhelmingly positive and WWT is now considering productizing the application.   Conclusion With Mobile Ops Center, WWT has created a tool that offers the opportunity for network administrators to attend important off site events while also maintaining adequate monitoring and control of their networks. It exemplifies just one of the innovations that DNA Center open platform helps bring to reality. Discover this solution and others from our DNA Center open platform partners and see how they are redefining the future of networking.   More for you Learn DNA Center APIs: https://developer.cisco.com/dnacenter/ Learn how to create new revenue opportunities through service innovation: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/cloud-systems-management/dna-center/nb-09-idc-open-platform-analyst-rpt-ctp-en.pdf See how intent-based networking sparks business innovation: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/intent-based-networking-business-innovation.html ... View more