Lab Task 4.1: Scenario 1 (Catalyst Center)

Lab Task 4.1 - Scenario 1 (Catalyst Center)

Cisco Catalyst Center is a centralized management platform designed for Cisco Catalyst network devices. Key features and capabilities include:

Network Management: Streamlines the configuration and management of Cisco Catalyst switches and wireless networks.
Automation: Enables automation of network operations, reducing manual tasks and errors.
Monitoring and Analytics: Provides comprehensive network monitoring and analytics for performance optimization.
Scalability: Suitable for both small and large-scale network environments.

In this task, you will learn how to create Ansible playbooks and automate Catalyst Center.

This task is separated into the following steps:

Create a site hierarchy
Add devices and assign them to a newly created site

Do you ␆? Good to know (Ansible)

Before beginning this task, note that Ansible is used in this tutorial. If you are not familiar with Ansible, please read the following section.

What is Ansible?

Ansible is an open-source automation tool that is used to automate the provisioning, configuration, and management of servers, network devices and other IT infrastructure.

Ansible uses a simple, human-readable language called YAML that can be used to define automation tasks and workflows.

Ansible uses a push-based model, where automation tasks are pushed to the target servers or network devices. It supports a wide range of built-in modules that can be used to automate configuration management and continuous deployments.

Ansible provides a powerful set of features for managing complex automation workflows, including support for variables, loops, and conditionals.

Step 1: Create site hierarchy

It’s time to create some more files as you already did in the previous tasks:

Quick reminder Ansible playbooks always have a .yml extension. Ensure they are named correctly and placed in their designated folders.

markup

POD01

1Repository folder pod01 (Folder)
2
3├── dnac (Folder)
4
5├──── data (Folder)
6
7│       └── 01_site-hierarchy.yaml (*File)
8
9└──── playbooks (Folder)
10
11        └── 01_create-site-hierarchy.yml (*File)
12

01_create-site-hierarchy.yml

yaml

POD01

1---
2- hosts: dnac_servers
3  gather_facts: false
4  tasks:
5    - name: Load variables
6      ansible.builtin.include_vars:
7        file: ../data/01_site-hierarchy.yaml
8        name: site_hierarchy
9        
10    - name: Create area hierarchy
11      cisco.dnac.site_create:
12        site:
13          area:
14            name: '{{ item.name }}'
15            parentName: '{{ item.parentName }}'
16        type: "area"
17      with_items:
18        - '{{ site_hierarchy.site.area }}'
19      register: site_creation
20
21    - name: Pause
22      pause:
23        seconds: 5
24
25    - name: Create building hierarchy
26      cisco.dnac.site_create:
27        site:
28          building:
29            name: '{{ item.name }}'
30            parentName: '{{ item.parentName }}'
31            latitude: 52.341419
32            longitude: 4.888043
33        type: "building"
34      with_items:
35        - '{{ site_hierarchy.site.building }}'

01_site-hierarchy.yaml

Change the POD number to your assigned POD number. The line of code is highlighted.

yaml

POD01

1---
2site:
3  area:
4    - name: "POD01"
5      parentName: "Global"
6  building:
7    - name: "CiscoLive"
8      parentName: "Global/POD01"
9      latitude: 52.341419
10      longitude: 4.888043

.gitlab-ci.yml

yaml

POD01

1stages:
2  - create_site
3
4create_site:
5  stage: create_site
6  tags:
7    - docker-runner
8  image: cbeye592/ltrato-2600:dnac
9  id_tokens:
10    VAULT_ID_TOKEN:
11      aud: https://198.18.133.99:8200
12  secrets:
13    DNAC_HOST:
14      vault: DNAC/DNAC_HOST@pod01
15      file: false
16      token: $VAULT_ID_TOKEN
17    DNAC_VERIFY:
18      vault: DNAC/DNAC_VERIFY@pod01
19      file: false
20      token: $VAULT_ID_TOKEN
21    DNAC_USERNAME:
22      vault: DNAC/DNAC_USERNAME@pod01
23      file: false
24      token: $VAULT_ID_TOKEN
25    DNAC_PASSWORD:
26      vault: DNAC/DNAC_PASSWORD@pod01
27      file: false
28      token: $VAULT_ID_TOKEN
29  before_script:
30    - source /root/ansible/bin/activate
31    - chmod -R 700 dnac
32    - cd dnac
33  script:
34    - ansible-playbook -i hosts playbooks/01_create-site-hierarchy.yml

Attention

If the pipeline doesn't run, and it continuously didn't show that the building is created, please create it as a work-around manually.

Validation

Verify the successful execution in GitLab and confirm that the site has been created in Catalyst Center.

Great job! The site and building have now been successfully created.

Step 2: Add devices

This step adds the device POD01-CAT8KV-01 to the network inventory.

Go back to the DNA Center hamburger menu and check the current state of the inventory: Provision > Inventory

It should be empty for now.

02_add-devices.yml

Create a new file named 02_add-devices.yml in the dnac/playbook directory and add the following content:

yaml

POD01

1---
2- hosts: dnac_servers
3  gather_facts: false
4  tasks:
5    - name: Set sentitive variables
6      ansible.builtin.set_fact:
7        DEVICE_USER: "{{ lookup('env', 'DEVICE_USER') }}"
8
9    - name: Set sentitive variables
10      ansible.builtin.set_fact:
11        DEVICE_PASSWORD: "{{ lookup('env', 'DEVICE_PASSWORD') }}"
12
13    - name: Set sentitive variables
14      ansible.builtin.set_fact:
15        DEVICE_SNMP_COMMUNITY: "{{ lookup('env', 'DEVICE_SNMP_COMMUNITY') }}"
16
17    - name: Load variables
18      ansible.builtin.include_vars:
19        file: ../data/02_add-devices.yaml
20        name: add_devices
21
22    - name: Receive site details
23      cisco.dnac.site_info:
24        name: '{{ item.name }}'
25      with_items:
26        - '{{ add_devices.site }}'
27      register: site_result
28    
29    - name: Set Site ID variable
30      ansible.builtin.set_fact:
31        site_id: "{{ site_result.results[0].dnac_response.response[0].id }}"
32
33    - name: Add Cat8000v to the inventory
34      cisco.dnac.network_device:
35        type: "NETWORK_DEVICE"
36        ipAddress: '{{ item.ipAddress }}'
37        cliTransport: "ssh"
38        userName: '{{ DEVICE_USER }}'
39        password: '{{ DEVICE_PASSWORD }}'
40        snmpVersion: "v2"
41        snmpROCommunity: '{{ DEVICE_SNMP_COMMUNITY }}'
42        snmpRWCommunity: '{{ DEVICE_SNMP_COMMUNITY }}'
43        snmpRetry: 3
44        snmpTimeout: 3
45        enablePassword:
46        computeDevice: false
47        id: ""
48      with_items:
49        - '{{ add_devices.site }}'
50
51    - name: Pause
52      pause:
53        seconds: 5
54
55    - name: Assign the device POD site
56      cisco.dnac.assign_device_to_site:
57        device: 
58        - ip: '{{ item.ipAddress }}' 
59        siteId: '{{ site_id }}' 
60      with_items:
61        - '{{ add_devices.site }}'

02_add-devices.yaml

Create a new file named 02_add-devices.yaml in the dnac/data directory and add the following content:

Please check that your values correspond to your POD Number and the correct IP address is set for the device onboarding !

yaml

POD01

1---
2site:
3  - name: "Global/POD01/CiscoLive"
4    ipAddress: 198.18.1.13

.gitlab-ci.yml

Replace the content of the .gitlab-ci.yml file with the following:

yaml

POD01

1stages:
2  - add_device
3
4add_device:
5  stage: add_device
6  tags:
7    - docker-runner
8  image: cbeye592/ltrato-2600:dnac
9  id_tokens:
10    VAULT_ID_TOKEN:
11      aud: https://198.18.133.99:8200
12  secrets:
13    DNAC_HOST:
14      vault: DNAC/DNAC_HOST@pod01
15      file: false
16      token: $VAULT_ID_TOKEN
17    DNAC_VERIFY:
18      vault: DNAC/DNAC_VERIFY@pod01
19      file: false
20      token: $VAULT_ID_TOKEN
21    DNAC_USERNAME:
22      vault: DNAC/DNAC_USERNAME@pod01
23      file: false
24      token: $VAULT_ID_TOKEN
25    DNAC_PASSWORD:
26      vault: DNAC/DNAC_PASSWORD@pod01
27      file: false
28      token: $VAULT_ID_TOKEN
29    DEVICE_SNMP_COMMUNITY:
30      vault: DNAC/DEVICE_SNMP_COMMUNITY@pod01
31      file: false
32      token: $VAULT_ID_TOKEN
33    DEVICE_USER:
34      vault: DNAC/DEVICE_USER@pod01
35      file: false
36      token: $VAULT_ID_TOKEN
37    DEVICE_PASSWORD:
38      vault: DNAC/DEVICE_PASSWORD@pod01
39      file: false
40      token: $VAULT_ID_TOKEN
41  before_script:
42    - source /root/ansible/bin/activate
43    - chmod -R 700 dnac
44    - cd dnac
45  script:
46    - ansible-playbook -i hosts playbooks/02_add-devices.yml

Validation

Verify in Catalyst Center that the device has been added to your previously created site.

Congratulations on your Catalyst Center pipeline, as you have surely noticed it takes a bit of practice using Cisco Catalyst Center (REST) APIs.

Putting those tasks together in a CI/CD pipeline can help you to speed up your deployments.

Now let’s move on to the Datacenter part!