Is there one controller to rule us all?
Well find out next right here on IT Pro TV.
>> You're watching IT Pro TV.
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>> Hello, there are so many different systems that are out there.
But Cisco DNA Center is the one that Cisco is counting on to
rule just about every device that's out there.
And here to help us out to learn a little bit more about it, Anthony Sequeira.
>> Ronnie, I got to tell you, you've been blowing me away with those teasers.
>> [LAUGH] All right, yeah.
>> It would have taken me all morning to come up with that.
Ronnie's just like let me make this up, one controller to rule them all.
That was awesome, dude.
>> But it is the truth, right?
>> It really is.
>> The very fact is there's been so many different products over the years, but
essentially now Cisco has said look,
the DNA Center is where we're pretty much heading.
>> Yeah, I got to tell you I'm pretty impressed with this product and
I have a history here.
So I'm 50 years old and I've been doing Cisco for a long time.
Like I was one of the nerds that ran out for the very first CCNA exam, and
that was a long time ago now.
But what's one of the areas that I've
always had to kind of be very well versed in,
has been management Cisco's management tools.
And my peers used to poke such fun at me because
some of the early stuff was called Cisco Works.
>> Right. >> And it didn't work.
>> Yeah.
>> So it was a really poor name choice.
But then Cisco Works got a little better and
then Cisco was really upset that there was such a negative connotation
with that name still that they renamed the whole approach to Prime.
>> Right. >> Cisco Prime and
now we're seeing this third generation if you will and it's just gotten so
much better and they didn't just sit around and try and improve what they had.
With the DNA Center approach,
they're doing something that I've never seen them do before and
that is think about the entire life cycle of the device.
The idea here is that you get your shiny new in the cardboard box Cisco device.
You're all excited.
Let's say it's a wireless LAN controller.
You're all excited.
You unbox it, you follow the installation guide.
So you rack and stack it, you plug it in, and
then automatically you go into DNA Center and it's there.
>> Right.
>> Through DHCP.
It gets all properly registered up into the DNA Center and
now you go into the DNA Center and you completely provision it.
And what back up,
you design where it's going to go in your software defined access.
And then you provision it into that design.
And then you put policy on it to make sure that it stays secure.
And then you monitor it.
And then you upgrade it and then you retire it.
>> All through the DNA Center.
>> All through the DNA Center, the entire life.
It's like, it's like my mom and
she may outlive me.
I hope she does she's just doing incredibly well and
it's just this incredible over the entire life
cycle of the device, this management tool, and I've got great news for you.
You don't need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to experience this.
And what we're going to do together right now,
as you can see I've gone up to Cisco's DevNet Center and
I went to the Sandboxes and there is a always on,
so you don't have to deal with any of the scheduling or anything like that.
There is an always on DNA Center and there it is.
So they give you the URL and the login credentials, it's always running.
And what you're gonna want to do with this is a couple of things.
First of all if you want to go beyond Encore, okay beyond what Ronnie and
I are going to share with you because you're super excited by this, great.
Do it, notice up in the top right?
There's this learn more about DNA Center and there's I will be honest.
I haven't viewed them, but I'm sure they're pretty good, right?
>> Yeah. >> They're free that's good.
So there's these videos on deep dives into DNA Center.
So please check that out.
Notice there's tools that you can use and I'm sorry.
These are separate videos on the different tools in DNA Center, but
they do link to tools that you can use as well.
Because here's the other exciting thing about this SD controller.
This really is a software-defined controller that we're working with.
The really impressive thing about it is,
it's built around all the latest really exciting cloud-based tech,
meaning that it exposes application programming interfaces.
And if that's something you're still struggling with we'll have an episode on
that later today.
So it exposes all these APIs, so
you can really use it in a fully automated fashion.
In other words, think about this.
This tool enables you to do automation and
orchestration against all your Cisco devices now and
you can interact with it in an automated and orchestrated way.
So we're just seeing that more and more in networking today where automation and
orchestration are happening at absolutely every level, super exciting.
So when you come in here, what I would encourage you to do is
just visit every major tab and just look around.
Here's the design tab, where we can build a network hierarchy and
see it on a nice map of the world when we colonize like Mars.
>> Yeah. >> They better update this product.
>> Probably. >> So the network settings tab,
the image repository, where you're gonna have all the software
that you're gonna be deploying out to devices, the network profiles.
I won't go through all of these because we'd be here for a long time.
But you get the idea.
I want you to go in and I want you to just take a look at what is possible.
And from a memorization standpoint, make some flash cards on this.
I want you to know that those major tabs are design,
policy, provision, and assurance.
Designing the network like we talked about, Ronnie.
Provisioning devices into it, assigning them policy, and
the assurance piece is monitoring them and using tools to test them.
>> Yeah now this is kinda neat that the way that they design DNA Center
because they actually thought about that life cycle and
they put it right up there in the tabs.
So even if you're not super 100% comfortable and familiar with,
I don't know the entire Cisco design life cycle, you can put a device in and
just click on those tabs and go here's what I need to do.
And then when you're done go to the next tab and then you do that and
you continue til you're actually done and
you'll see by the end of that process your device will be fully provisioned so
that you can manage and watch it through the entire lifestyle.
Yeah. >> It's amazing.
>> It really is and you might say well, why did they put policy before provision
and that's kind of smart now that I think about it.
I have never thought about this before but I think where they were going there was
you're going to want to implement policy right as you provision the stuff.
>> Right. >> So they're like craft your policy and
then go ahead and provision, pretty clever.
>> Yeah and it makes it kind of nice for the very fact that I learned this from
the Microsoft world, the idea desired state so that way you automatically go and
say here's how I want this device to be set up.
>> Yup. >> So that way
you already have that in there before it's actually even provisioned,
so that as soon as that provision is done exactly what needs to,
you don't have to go back and add additional policy in.
It says hey, this is a ready the way it needs to be right when it's provisioned,
it's pretty darn neat.
>> It really is and if you're wondering like okay, could I do this in DNA Center?
Could I do that in DNA Center?
I want you to just play this game.
Think about everything you would have to do manually
when the wireless LAN controller arrives at your site, right?
Think of everything you would have to do manually.
Pretty much, I can't think of an exception.
I honestly can't other than rack and stack it the physical layer.
Once you do that, everything that you would need to do to that device is,
you're able to do it in DNA Center.
Even just some of the things you see and
you think about like what do most of us do for our networks.
We build an Excel spreadsheet.
>> Right. >> That has all of the different IP
addressing for all of our different VLANs, well you build that in
the spreadsheet inside of DNA Center now, so you cannot only
visually track it in a nice table form, but you're also putting it in
DNA Center because it's going to actually provision those addresses from there.
>> So yeah, it's amazing.
>> It's really clever.
>> Yeah, there's no doubt that once you've set up that pool of addresses there,
it just says all right here's what's going to actually be handed out and
then you see it immediately.
So the reporting aspect of DNA Center is amazing in terms of the granularity that
you can get from it.
You can see all the way down to the interface level on some of these devices.
That's really quite amazing.
>> Yup, now a common question that we get Ronnie is, okay well, yeah fine and
good but that fancy tool's not going to work for my inexpensive
little branch office router or my small office home office router.
Don't fall into that trap.
>> Yeah. >> Cisco is committed to ensuring that
every device they create can be managed with DNA Center, every device.
They're even going back to legacy equipment now and
figuring out how to get it into this ecosystem.
>> Yeah part of the the idea there right is because everything is
built upon that API and not only gives us that visual way that we can do it, but
now you can use Python if you want to actually be able to integrate in and you
can do all these programming things which is the idea of network programmability and
automation that we get to so, you don't always have to do this.
But once this is setup it's easy for someone like me,
that's not really good at it to do the same thing.
It's easier for someone that comes from that DevOps background to do
the very same things without having to learn an entire GUI interface as well.
So it is so flexible in everything that it does.
>> It just struck me that Ronnie and I for
the first time in Encore, sound like we're selling this,
and I want to emphasize- >> We're not.
>> I want to emphasize to everyone out there right now that yeah,
Ronnie and I are excited by this clearly.
We're not faking our enthusiasm here, but we're not selling you on this solution.
If you have Enterprise Network management software that you love and
that kicks butt for you, that's the technical term kicks butt.
>> Yeah use it. >> That's fine.
Go for it.
Absolutely.
And it's probably doing much of what we're talking about right now.
This is not the only controller based
management tool that you could use with Cisco.
So just keep that in mind.
We're not trying to sell you on this tool.
We're just excited about it.
Cisco really is getting it right, finally in the network management area.
That's certainly exciting to me and if you are interested in Encore certification,
you are guaranteed at least one question on Cisco DNA Center.
That's how it's going to work.
So we wanted to make sure you were ready.
>> All right, well, thank you again Anthony for everything that we actually
have to think about when it comes down to the Cisco DNA center.
Now, we didn't get super in-depth into it.
But realize this is such a big product that's out there and
you'll probably see more on this as you continue on in your Cisco learning and
your track as well, but this is enough for this episode.
So signing off for IT Pro TV.
>> I'm your host Ronnie Wong.
>> And I'm Anthony Sequeira.
>> Stay tuned right here for more of your CCNP Encore show.
>> Thank you for watching IT Pro TV.
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