AMA: Demystifying Cisco Catalyst Center PnP and LAN Automation

[Brooke Hammer]

Ask Me Anything Event

Welcome to the Cisco Community Ask Me Anything conversation. Submit your questions from  Friday, March 15, 2024 through Friday, April 5, 2024. Our colleagues Pandian Ponnuswamy, Gautami Sinai Neureker and Sankkar R will be waiting to assist you and resolve any questions that have not been clarified, or answer any new questions that you may have. We are waiting for you!

More about this event:

Join us for an Ask Me Anything (AMA) event where you can dive deep into Cisco Catalyst Center Plug-and-Play (PnP) and LAN Automation!

What is it?

• Cisco Catalyst Center offers innovative features to streamline network management.
• PnP simplifies device onboarding, eliminating manual configuration for new Cisco Catalyst switches. Imagine powering on a new switch and having it automatically discover its role and configure itself - that's the magic of PnP!
• LAN Automation builds upon PnP, automating the configuration of your entire underlay network, saving you hours (or even days) of manual configuration.

Get Expert Advice!

• This AMA session is your chance to get expert insights on these powerful features.
• Whether you're a seasoned network pro or just starting out, feel free to ask any questions you have about PnP, LAN Automation, or Cisco Catalyst Center in general.

Official Resources:

• Onboard and Provision Devices with Plug and Play

• Cisco Catalyst Center SD-Access LAN Automation Deployment Guide

• Youtube: Cisco Catalyst Center - PNP

• Youtube: Cisco Catalyst Center - LAN Automation

Note: Please post your post as a comment below no later than March 29, 2024.

Post your question below by clicking "Reply"

(Answers will be processed depending on the availability of the experts)
Don't forget to thank the expert by giving it a helpful vote!

---

Our experts

Pandian Ponnuswamy Leader, Customer Delivery

Gautami Sinai Neureker Technical Consulting Engineer

Sankkar R Technical Consulting Engineer

For more information, visit the Cisco Catalyst Center discussion forums . If you have questions or are experiencing technical problems with any of the Cisco products, post your question, request information or use the Cisco Community before opening a case with the TAC.

[gpairait]

Ideally the most common issue you face during a brownfield device on boarding is the preexisting config on the device.

You need to ensure that the device is clean without any configs/certs.

You can use the following commands for the same.

• [CLI config mode]
  no pnp profile pnp-zero-touch
  no crypto pki certificate pool
  Also remove any other crypto certs shown by
  "show run | inc crypto”
  crypto key zeroize
  config-register 0x2102 or 0x0102 (if not already)
  do write
  end
• [CLI exec mode]
  delete /force nvram:*.cer
  delete /force stby-nvram:*.cer (if a stack)
  delete /force flash:pnp-reset-config.cfg
  write erase
  reload (enter no if asked to save)

From 16.12.X
You can use the “pnpa service reset”

[vinothk3]

What logs should we check if the pnp is in a stuck state?

[gpairait]

You can check the following logs from DNAC CLI. You will need to access the maglev cli at port 2222

onboarding-service

connection-manager-service

network-orchestration-service

apic-em-inventory-manager-service

[vikasku8]

What are the benefits of using Cisco PnP compared to traditional manual device provisioning methods?

[gpairait]

Hey!

the manual method has several drawback

* it involves a lot of manual efforts and time to configure each of the devices.

* it can lead to inconsistency in the configuration due to human errors when deploying the config.
* configuration updates and device upgrades can take a lot of planning and implementation efforts.

DNAC pnp allows you to onboard your devices with minimal user intervention.
once the device is added to your network and the pnp-agent is able to communicate with DNAC , DNAC will push all the day-0 configs, templates, golden images in a matter of few mins.
more over, it provides consistency in network configuration with no changes on errors.