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About DNA-Center, its requirements and effective benefits

Hi everyone

For days I have been reading about Cisco DNA-Center for SD-Access, and I have some questions that I hope the experts will promptly and effectively reply. I wish I could travel back in time to ask the question at the DNA-Center presentations, but well... time is linear and ever forward.

  • For DNA-Center, it is delivered as appliance. Just as with APIC-EM, extra applications will be delivered as packages at additional cost?
  • Which APIC-EM apps will be ported to DNA-Center? Easy-QOS? Path-Trace?
  • The same hardware that is supported by APIC-EM will be supported by DNA-Center?
  • Will there be access directly to the underlying APIC-EM? The APIC-EM APIs will be kept on DNA-Center?

I understand the Design >> Provision workflow. There is a way particular extra configurations could be added to the default ones ( SNMP ACLS, Default ACLs on Access Ports, AAA method order, IP Routing)? In Prime and APIC-EM PnP, there is the CLI config templates that can contain these extra settings, is there something like that on DNA-Center?

If we would like to make a site-wise change, like changing the DHCP/DNS or AAA Server, the only way is to alter the Design and re-Deploy? Once a device is provisioned and deployed, can the settings be altered per-device from DNA-Center?

I know, lots of questions... but not having DNA-Center to play with, relying only on videos/pres/marketing material ... I sincerely felt I had to work out the guts of DNA-Center out of a bunch of marketing talk.

I would like to have this clear to make a solid business-case (a real one, with design architecture and process behind), that will justify spending on DNA-Center appliance and setting a deployment and operation road-map, with all the dependencies in place.

Sorry for the long post

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

Alexx
Level 1
Level 1

Hi Jose,

To address your questions partly, I will try to answer some of your questions with what I have known about DNA Center.

1. There are many addition packages available for Automation & Assurance. You can either download them individually and upload into DNAC or update it directly inside your DNAC. Since you are using your Cisco IDs to start using your DNA Center, the charges may be applicable depending on the package you download.

2. To answer you second question, yes Path Trace and Easy-Qos are available inside the DNAC. It is said that the APIC-EM features are embedded into Cisco DNAC, so you will be able to avail most of the features that were available in APIC-EM 1.6.X which was the last version released. Additionally there are many new features in DNAC adding to the APIC-EM features. They call the DNA Center as APIC-EM 2.X version.

3. The hardware platforms supported in APIC-EM differ with that of DNA Center. To know more in detail about the products that are supported by Cisco DNAC, you can follow the link https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/enterprise-networks/software-defined-access/guide-c07-739242.pdf

4. We don't need to deploy a site like we do in APIC-EM, deleting and re-provisioning a site. We can change the DHCP/DNS and AAA Servers by simple steps.

For more information regarding the DNAC, refer the SD-Access CVD https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/solutions/CVD/Campus/CVD-Software-Defined-Access-Design-Guide-2018MAR.pdf

Hope this Helps!

Regards,

Alex Lawrance

View solution in original post

1 Reply 1

Alexx
Level 1
Level 1

Hi Jose,

To address your questions partly, I will try to answer some of your questions with what I have known about DNA Center.

1. There are many addition packages available for Automation & Assurance. You can either download them individually and upload into DNAC or update it directly inside your DNAC. Since you are using your Cisco IDs to start using your DNA Center, the charges may be applicable depending on the package you download.

2. To answer you second question, yes Path Trace and Easy-Qos are available inside the DNAC. It is said that the APIC-EM features are embedded into Cisco DNAC, so you will be able to avail most of the features that were available in APIC-EM 1.6.X which was the last version released. Additionally there are many new features in DNAC adding to the APIC-EM features. They call the DNA Center as APIC-EM 2.X version.

3. The hardware platforms supported in APIC-EM differ with that of DNA Center. To know more in detail about the products that are supported by Cisco DNAC, you can follow the link https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/enterprise-networks/software-defined-access/guide-c07-739242.pdf

4. We don't need to deploy a site like we do in APIC-EM, deleting and re-provisioning a site. We can change the DHCP/DNS and AAA Servers by simple steps.

For more information regarding the DNAC, refer the SD-Access CVD https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/solutions/CVD/Campus/CVD-Software-Defined-Access-Design-Guide-2018MAR.pdf

Hope this Helps!

Regards,

Alex Lawrance

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