Configuration and Discovery

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The following sections describe how to configure and discover Cisco Intersight devices for monitoring by SL1 using the "Cisco: Intersight" PowerPack:

Prerequisites for Monitoring Cisco Intersight

To configure the SL1 system to monitor Cisco Intersight devices using the "Cisco: Intersight" PowerPack, you must first have the following information about Cisco Intersight:

  • The username and password for your Cisco Intersight account.
  • A Cisco Intersight REST API key ID and Secret Key. See the Introduction to the Cisco Intersight REST API section of the Cisco Intersight documentation to view how to generate the REST API key ID and Secret Key.

Creating a "Universal" Type Credential for Cisco Intersight

To configure SL1 to monitor Cisco Intersight devices, you must create a "universal" type credential. This credential allows the Dynamic Applications in the Cisco: Intersight PowerPack to communicate with Cisco Intersight.

To define a "universal" type credential to access Cisco Intersight:

  1. Go to the Credentials page (Manage > Credentials).
  2. Click Create New and select Create Cisco Intersight Credential. The Create Credential modal page appears.

  1. Supply values in the following fields:
  • Name. Type a name for your credential.
  • All Organizations. Toggle on (blue) to align the credential to all organizations, or toggle off (gray) and then select one or more specific organizations from the from the What organization manages this service? drop-down field to align the credential with those specific organizations.
  • Timeout (ms). Keep the default value of 1500.
  • URL. Keep the default URL (https://www.intersight.com/api/) or type the URL of your account.
  • Authentication type. Keep the default value (IntersightHTTPKeyAuth).
  • Cisco Intersight API Key ID.Type your Cisco Intersight API key ID.
  • Cisco Intersight private PEM key. Type your Cisco Intersight secret API key. The PowerPack supports the OpenAPI schema version 3 (ECDSA) and version 2 (RSA).

Proxy Settings

Toggle on this field if you are using a proxy server to communicate with your Cisco Intersight account, enter the values in the fields listed below:

  • Proxy scheme type. Select http or https from the drop-down field.
  • Proxy Hostname/IP. Enter the hostname or the IP address associated with your device.
  • Proxy Port. Enter the port number for the proxy server.
  • Proxy User. Enter the username for the proxy server.
  • Proxy Password. Enter the password for the proxy server.
  1. CIick Save & Close.

Cisco Intersight Guided Discovery

You can use the Guided Discovery Framework process in SL1to guide you through a variety of existing discovery types in addition to traditional SNMP discovery. This process, which is also called "guided discovery", lets you choose a discovery type based on the type of devices you want to monitor. The Guided Discovery workflow includes a button for Cisco Intersight.

To run a Guided Discovery:

  1. On the Devices page () or the Discovery Sessions page (Devices > Discovery Sessions), click the Add Devices button. The Select page appears.
  2. Select the Cisco - Intersight button. Additional information about the requirements for device discovery appears in the General Information pane to the right.

    3. Guided Discovery process for Cisco Intersight

  1. Click Select. The Credential Selection page appears.

During the guided discovery process, you cannot click Next until the required fields are filled on the page, nor can you skip to future steps. However, you can revisit previous steps that you have already completed.

  1. On the Credential Selection page of the guided discovery process, select the Cisco Intersight "universal" type credential that you configured, and then click Next. The Root Device Details page appears.

  1. Complete the following fields:
  • Root Device Name. Type the name of the root device for the Cisco Intersight root device you want to monitor.
  • Select the organization to add discovered devices to. Select the name of the organization to which you want to add the discovered device.
  • Collector Group Name. Select an existing collector group to communicate with the discovered device. This field is required.

  1. Click Next. SL1 creates the Cisco Intersight root device with the appropriate Device Class assigned to it and aligns the relevant Dynamic Applications. The Final Summary page appears.
  1. Click Close.

This PowerPack uses the snippet framework in order to function. Not all values returned in an API call in a Dynamic Application may have a collection object. For more information about how collections can be modified, added, or deleted using the snippet framework, see the Snippet Framework documentation.

The results of a guided discovery do not display on the Discovery Sessions page (Devices > Discovery Sessions).

Viewing Cisco Intersight Component Devices

In addition to the Devices page, you can view the Cisco Intersight system and all associated component devices in the following places in the user interface:

  • The Device Investigator Map page (click Map in the Device Investigator page) displays a map of a particular device and all of the devices with which it has parent-child relationships. Double-clicking any of the listed devices reloads the page to make the selected device the primary device

  • The Device Components page (Devices > Device Components) displays a list of all root devices and component devices discovered by SL1 in an indented view, so you can easily view the hierarchy and relationships between child devices, parent devices, and root devices. To view the component devices associated with a Kubernetes cluster, find the cluster device and click its plus icon (+).

  • The Component Map page (Classic Maps > Device Maps > Components) allows you to view devices by root node and view the relationships between root nodes, parent components, and child components in a map. This makes it easy to visualize and manage root nodes and their components. SL1 automatically updates the Component Map as new component devices are discovered. SL1 also updates each map with the latest status and event information. To view the map for a Kubernetes cluster, go to Classic Maps > Device Maps > Components, and select the map from the list in the left NavBar. To learn more about the Component Map page, see the section on Views.

Monitoring Cisco Intersight Alarms

The "Cisco: Intersight" PowerPack includes the "Cisco: Intersight Alarms Performance" Dynamic Application to monitor Cisco Intersight alarms and associate the alarms with the appropriate component devices, if applicable. This Dynamic Application replaces the functions previously provided by the "Cisco: Intersight Alarms Configuration" Dynamic Application.

The "Cisco: Intersight Alarms Performance" Dynamic Application aligns to the organization device level and collects uncleared critical, warning, and information alarms from the associated device. A warning or critical severity raise events on the corresponding device for each alarm. Informational alarms are ignored by default to prevent triggering alerts, as there is no available event associated with it.

Filtering the Default Intersight Organization

In Intersight, each device can belong to both the default organization and another organization at the same time. For more information see Cisco Intersight's documentation. To avoid duplicate devices, the "Cisco: Intersight" PowerPack supports filtering out the default organization so that the default organization will not be discovered in a new discovery session.

If you want to discover the default organization with the devices that only belong to it, you need to edit the snippet code of the "Cisco: Intersight Organization Discovery" Dynamic Application.

To discover the default organization:

  1. Go to the Dynamic Applications Manager page (System > Manage > Dynamic Applications).
  2. Find the "Cisco: Intersight Organization Discovery" Dynamic Application.  Click its wrench icon () . The Dynamic Applications Properties Editor modal appears.
  3. Click the Snippets tab, and then click Organization Discovery near the bottom of the Snippet Editor modal.
  4. In the snippet details, locate the custom_substitution line and set the value of the "default_organization_name" to an empty string. For example, "default_organization_name": "".

    5. Setting the default filter in the Snippet editor.

  1. Click Save.

If you changed the default organization name in the Intersight portal, you must also update the default name in the snippet code of the following Dynamic Applications:

  • Cisco: Intersight Organization Discovery
  • Cisco: Intersight Blade Server Discovery
  • Cisco: Intersight Chassis Discovery
  • Cisco: Intersight Fabric Interconnect Discovery
  • Cisco: Intersight Rack Units Discovery
  • Cisco: Intersight Alarms Performance