At this time’s knowledge facilities depend on quite a lot of instruments to supply enhanced visibility and observability of essential utility site visitors and site visitors circulate particulars. Using switch-based telemetry capabilities is an especially well-liked method, but it surely’s usually the case that packet particulars or granular site visitors filtering are desired; thus, a complementary answer is required. Cisco Nexus Dashboard Knowledge Dealer is the proper answer to ingest Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) and/or Check Entry Level (TAP) site visitors, apply filters and header modifications, present packet deduplication, after which redirect site visitors to monitoring and different instruments akin to intrusion prevention techniques (IPS) and safety incident and occasion administration (SIEM) options.
Resolution structure
The Nexus Dashboard Knowledge Dealer features a centralized administration graphical consumer interface (GUI), deployed at this time on a number of Linux hosts for prime availability, with a plan for help on unified Nexus Dashboard. It makes use of Cisco Nexus 9000 Sequence Switches, which require the cost-effective knowledge dealer license (NX-OS Necessities), to unlock this performance. For scale-out necessities, a number of SPAN/TAP vacation spot switches will be aggregated right into a single topology. This topology is managed by the centralized knowledge dealer answer, which directs site visitors to a knowledge dealer change (see Determine 1) for distribution to the specified instruments in your setting.
For switches that help Nexus Dashboard Knowledge Dealer, any interface can be utilized in your manufacturing community connection ports in addition to your connections to the required instruments (any port, any performance). Interface speeds from 1 Gbps to 400 Gbps are supported, making certain sufficient bandwidth and connectivity choices in your packet brokering wants, which meet at this time’s demanding knowledge middle development.
Low-touch configuration
Figuring out and configuring the specified site visitors units and vacation spot interfaces is an underlying core requirement of the Knowledge Dealer deployment. Knowledge Dealer helps routinely configure each your knowledge middle and campus units, whatever the existence of a centralized controller. Knowledge Dealer natively integrates with Cisco Utility Centric Infrastructure (ACI) knowledge middle materials, Cisco Catalyst Middle-based campus materials, in addition to standalone Nexus and Catalyst switches. This eliminates the handbook configuration burden, making certain correct answer configuration and fast turn-up. The operational good thing about solely requiring a single GUI for deploying the required change configuration enhances the simplicity of a Knowledge Dealer deployment.
Clients who require packet brokering for each knowledge middle and campus environments can relaxation assured that the one Knowledge Dealer interface will simplify the required configurations for his or her heterogeneous environments.
Resiliency and redundancy
Counting on Knowledge Dealer for always-on packet visibility is a actuality with the mechanisms included for making certain most answer uptime:
- The varied service nodes and knowledge dealer switches that make up the answer topology are tracked by Knowledge Dealer and, equally necessary, are bypassed if Knowledge Dealer detects both a service node difficulty or packet dealer change interface difficulty.
- Knowledge Dealer helps symmetric hashing and load-balancing, permitting for the distribution of site visitors throughout a number of situations of a selected device.
- If there is a matter with the aggregation change, Knowledge Dealer can routinely program a backup path to make sure that the specified site visitors continues to be captured.
- Knowledge Dealer incorporates a fail-safe mechanism, permitting for direct communication between ingress and egress interfaces within the occasion of a service node failure.
The above options be certain that any failures inside the topology are addressed dynamically, requiring no human intervention and offering most uptime for steady visibility and observability.
Packet deduplication
Amassing SPAN and/or TAP from a number of sources yields the chance of duplicate site visitors being obtained by the Knowledge Dealer switches. The deduplication function, supporting each Transmission Management Protocol (TCP) and Consumer Datagram Protocol (UDP), was added in NX-OS 10.4(1)F, permitting for streamlined packet dealer deployment. The deduplication perform will be carried out in-line on the Knowledge Dealer change(es) or out-of-line by way of a number of devoted Knowledge Dealer switches. An necessary attribute is that the deduplication perform is hardware-accelerated, guaranteeing constant answer efficiency and scalability.
A further side of deduplication is the flexibility to right-size instruments to accommodate the quantity of post-deduplication site visitors, versus redundant, duplicated site visitors.
Visibility of encapsulated site visitors
Packet brokering instruments are sometimes deployed in environments which have a number of packet encapsulation applied sciences, for instance, multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), digital extensible LAN (VXLAN), and generic routing encapsulation (GRE). An efficient device wants to have the ability to view the precise endpoint-to-endpoint site visitors inside the encapsulated packets, thus packet-header and label-stripping capabilities are essential. Knowledge Dealer permits for header and label stripping for the aforementioned applied sciences, along with Q-in-Q and Cisco Encapsulated Distant Switched Port Analyzer (ERSPAN) site visitors, offering best-in-class visibility in your knowledge middle, campus, and edge site visitors.
This has the additional advantage of much less processing required by evaluation instruments within the setting, leading to bandwidth and price financial savings.
NetFlow era
Evaluation instruments have the potential of processing SPAN and TAP site visitors redirected from Knowledge Dealer, however there are quite a few instruments, akin to Splunk, that profit from receiving both NetFlow or sFlow particulars for the specified site visitors. Knowledge Dealer can generate both NetFlow or sFlow related to SPAN or TAP site visitors, permitting for compatibility with a larger vary of instruments. Coupled with the deduplication function, you might be assured of streamlined, environment friendly circulate visibility along with packet visibility in your knowledge middle and different site visitors in your community.
Cisco Nexus Dashboard
The Cisco Nexus Dashboard has developed to include centralized NX-OS cloth administration, proactive day-2 operations, and cloth orchestration in a simplified, intuitive GUI. The upcoming Nexus Dashboard 4.2 launch will incorporate Knowledge Dealer, finalizing the simplified administration and operational method for any Cisco cloth sort. Clients preferring a separate Linux-based Knowledge Dealer deployment will proceed to have that choice.
Step into the way forward for site visitors evaluation
Reaching complete site visitors visibility with out overwhelming your evaluation instruments is the core promise of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Knowledge Dealer. By delivering a single, clever platform, it simplifies operations with a unified view of your knowledge middle and campus, lowers whole price of possession by way of hardware-powered deduplication, and ensures uptime with built-in, automated resiliency. This ensures your monitoring instruments get the precise knowledge they want—and nothing they don’t.
Able to discover how these capabilities can rework your community operations? Dive deeper by reviewing the entire Nexus Dashboard Knowledge Dealer knowledge sheet or discover particular configuration examples for sensible steerage. When you’re able to see it in motion, contact your Cisco or channel companion account staff for a customized demo.
