Defining Viptela Observer jobs

You use the Viptela Observer to load managed Viptela SD-WAN control plane, vEdge and their associated network resources, and then visualize this data as a topology view in the Agile Service Manager UI.

Before you begin

Important: The Viptela Observer supports Version 18.4.302 of Cisco SD-WAN.

Ensure you have the server details to hand, such as the username and password.

The Viptela Observer is installed as part of the core installation procedure.
Remember: Swagger documentation for the observer is available at the following default location: https://<your host>/1.0/viptela-observer/swagger

About this task

The Viptela Observer targets the Cisco SD-WAN (or 'Cisco Viptela') system. A Viptela Observer job extracts server information and its associated network resources from Viptela via REST API. The observer loads and updates the resources and their relationships within the Agile Service Manager core topology service.

viptela_observer_common.sh
The configuration file you use to customize Viptela Observer settings.
The parameters defined here are then used by the viptela_observer_load_start.sh to trigger the Viptela Observer jobs.
Tip: Alternatively, you can set the appropriate environment variables. If an environment variable is set, it takes precedence over the configuration file settings.
You define and start the following job.
Full Topology Upload job
By default, these jobs are one-off, transient jobs that carry out a full upload of all requested topology data when they are triggered.
You can also run these jobs (again) manually from the Observer UI, or schedule them to run at set times when you configure them.

Procedure

To edit the parameters in the configuration file

  1. Open the viptela_observer_common.sh configuration file and edit the following parameters:
    Table 1. Viptela Load job parameters
    Parameter Action Details
    Unique ID Enter a unique name for the job. Required
    Data center name Specify the data center the vEdge runs in. Required. If you want to discover multiple vEdge locations or sets, then provide a different data center, for example EURDC01, USDC01.
    Cisco Viptela vManage host IP Enter the Cisco SD-Wan Viptela vManage host IP. Required
    Cisco Viptela API port. Specify the Cisco SD-Wan Viptela vManage API port. Required. The default value is 8443.
    Username to login to Cisco Viptela service Specify the Cisco SD-Wan Viptela vManage username. Required.
    Password for Cisco Viptela user Specify the Cisco SD-Wan Viptela vManage password. Required. Must be encrypted.
    Include the control plane data Select true to load the control plane data. Optional
    vEdge grouping preference for defined topology Specify the vEdge grouping preference for your topology. Optional.
    Supported grouping
    device-group (default)
    site-id
    Job schedule

    Specify when the job should run, and whether it should run at regular intervals.

    By default the job runs immediately, and only once.

    Optionally you can specify a future date and time for the job to run, and then set it to run at regular intervals after that.

    Optional. Transient (one-off) jobs only.

    If you set a job schedule, the run intervals must be at least 90 seconds apart. If you set them at less than 15 minutes, a warning is displayed, as the frequency can impact system performance.
    Observer job description Enter additional information to describe the job. Optional
    For encryption: Run the encrypt_password.sh script in the ASM_HOME/bin directory: 
    ./bin/encrypt_password.sh
    Enter and then confirm the password. The encryption utility returns an encrypted version.

To start the load job

  1. To start the Viptela job, use the following command: 
    $ASM_HOME/bin/viptela_observer_load_start.sh

Results

This job loads all requested data, and runs only once. Run this job whenever you need the topology data refreshed.

What to do next

You can also use the following scripts:
viptela_observer_load_stop.sh
Stops the Load job
viptela_observer_job_list.sh
Lists the status of current jobs
viptela_observer_log_level.sh
Sets the log level
Remember: As an alternative to being configured using the Observer Configuration UI, observer jobs have scripts to start and stop all available jobs, to list the status of a current job, and to set its logging levels. These scripts can be run with -h or --help to display help information, and with -v or --verbose to print out the details of the actions performed by the script, including the full cURL command. For the on-prem version of Agile Service Manager, observer scripts are configured for specific jobs by editing the script configuration files.