The Network Management Handbook
Your guide to making fabric management simple and reliable with the industry-leading end-to-end lifecycle automation solution
Introduction
Rapid change. It's the name of the game for today's data center experts. With an ever-increasing, ever-growing matrix of data spread around the globe, the scalability limits of data center environments are on the brink. From time-consuming operations, security, and compliance regulations, hybrid cloud connectivity and network management, to business-critical monitoring and maintenance, data center network operators and administrators need automation and management tools more than ever.
So how do you simplify your network and move at the speed required for your business in today's fast-paced environment? Let's explore.
The keys to success
It's no secret that the busiest engineers in the data center manage and maintain a wide variety of deployments. To do so, they need a scalable end-to-end lifecycle automation toolchain that offers management and consistency, as well as monitoring and visualization across a hybrid cloud environment. But why?
What automation can do for you:
Accelerate provisioning from days to minutes.
Provide an easy-to-understand and simple deployment approach for automatic bootstrapping of new fabrics.
Enable best practices to easily provision underlay and overlay networks.
Seamless connectivity between your on-premises and cloud.
What to look for in management and consistency:
A single point for management of data center operations.
Support for fabric-oriented configurations and operations management.
Solutions that ensure consistency and reliability of data center fabrics.
Manage your hybrid cloud enviroments.
Why monitoring and visualization are so important:
Provide active topology monitoring views per fabric and reduce troubleshooting cycles with extensive visibility of topology, network fabric, and infrastructure.
Get in-depth telemetry analytics when integrated with Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights.
The solution
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC) (formerly Data Center Network Manager-DCNM) makes fabric management simple and reliable. It provides end-to-end automation, extensive visibility, and consistent operations for data centers, reducing the complexities and costs of operating Cisco Nexus and storage network deployments while connecting and managing your cloud environments.
Key solution capabilities to fit your deployment mode
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC) (formerly Data Center Network Manager-DCNM) makes fabric management simple and reliable. It provides end-to-end automation, extensive visibility, and consistent operations for data centers, reducing the complexities and costs of operating Cisco Nexus and storage network deployments while connecting and managing your cloud environments.
Fabric Discovery for LAN deployments:
Offers discovery and inventory functions for IT teams that automate their switch configurations and provisioning by different means. It also enables Day-2 Operations capabilities without deploying the Fabric Controller.
Fabric Controller for LAN deployments:
Gain comprehensive management, control, monitoring, and visibility for various network fabrics including VXLAN networks, Layer-3-routed networks, three-tier vPC designs, and IP-based broadcast media fabrics and connect to cloud environments.
SAN Controller:
Provides a single pane of glass to manage and monitor storage networks built with Cisco MDS multilayer SAN switches and Cisco Nexus switches. Enables SAN insights to collect and visualize Cisco MDS SAN analytics data and capabilities.
Don't take our word for it
“We use Cisco DCNM [NDFC] to automate and orchestrate our top of rack switches. And we’re looking forward to using Cisco Nexus Dashboard, which unifies operational tools across all of our network fabrics and data centers.”
- Khoa Tran, Network Architect, MacStadium
“The network gives us two big benefits: end-to-end visibility and software defined automation.”
– Daniel Buttigieg, Director of Enterprise Technology, University of Melbourne
Frequently asked questions
- How do I buy Cisco NDFC?
- Cisco NDFC is available through Cisco Data Center Networking (DCN) or NX-OS Essentials, Advantage, or Premier license.
- Do I need to purchase Cisco Nexus Dashboard?
- Cisco NDFC runs exclusively as a service on Cisco Nexus Dashboard. You can purchase either a physical or a virtual form of Cisco Nexus Dashboard.
- Does Cisco NDFC integrate with other Cisco cloud networking and data center platform management products?
- Yes, NDFC integrates with Cisco Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator and Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights for multisite capabilities and in-depth visibility and telemetry data.
