mdd-base

Table of Contents

• Initial Setup
• Topology Creation
  • Deploy Production Topology
  • Deploy NSO
  • Deploy Elastic Stack
  • Deploy Test Topology (Optional)
• Data Harvest
• Pipeline Deployment
• Data Validation
• Stateful Checks
• Telemetry Collection

Topology Creation

In this excerise, we will deploy our production environment. The repository contains both a mdd_prod topology file and an mdd_test topology file. Our production topology is fully configured, while our test topology has no configuration on it. For the instructor led classes, the test topology will already be created.

Deploy Production Topology

Execute the following playbook to launch the topology:

ansible-playbook cisco.cml.build -e startup='host' -e wait='yes' -i=inventory_prod

This will take a little while since we are booting up each device. Although Cisco Modeling Labs is a simulation platform, it does run the same fully featured software as physical infrastructure. As the topology launches. Explore your inventory_prod directory.

Once your prod environment is set up, you can run the following playbook to see an inventory and get the IP addresses of NSO and Elastic.

ansible-playbook cisco.cml.inventory -i inventory_prod

Take note of the IP addresses for NSO and Elastic so we can access them later in the labs.

Deploy NSO

For brownfield environments without a consistant API, NSO can be used as our single consistent API gateway into all of our infrastructure. To maintain a single source-of-truth, we use an NSO container for each environment (test and prod). When executing our pipeline, we target the NSO running in the correct environment.

Install NSO in server mode for prod environment.

ansible-playbook ciscops.mdd.nso_install -i inventory_prod

Note: If you find the playbook stalls, you may need to ssh into the ubuntu host just to add the fingerprint to your localhost, then execute the playbook. You can find the NSO IP address by running the inventory playbook and ssh using ubuntu/admin.

Install NSO MDD Packages in prod environment

ansible-playbook ciscops.mdd.nso_update_packages -i inventory_prod

Add Default auth group to your NSO prod environment

ansible-playbook ciscops.mdd.nso_init -i inventory_prod

Add devices to prod NSO inventory

ansible-playbook ciscops.mdd.nso_update_devices -i inventory_prod

Deploy Elastic Stack

To deploy the telemetry stack, run the telemetry install playbook.

ansible-playbook ciscops.mdd.telemetry_install_elastic -i inventory_prod

Note: Similar to NSO, if you find an issue with the playbook stalling, SSH into the host to add the fingerprint and execute the playbook again.

This may take some time, because we are installing docker on the host, deploying containers, and waiting for the stack to come up. Once the containers are up and running, you will see a report verifying each one is working correctly.

One complete, you can navigate to the IP address of your telemetry host using port 5601 to verify elastic came up.

Deploy Test Topology

Note: If your test environment is already set up, you can proceed to the Data Harvest section.

If you need to set up your test environment, you have to change your environment variable to target mdd_test in CML and follow the same set of instructions a second time using the inventory_test directory.

export CML_LAB=mdd_test

Deploy lab

ansible-playbook cisco.cml.build -e startup='host' -e wait='yes' -i=inventory_test

Deploy NSO

ansible-playbook ciscops.mdd.nso_install -i inventory_test

ansible-playbook ciscops.mdd.nso_update_packages -i inventory_test

ansible-playbook ciscops.mdd.nso_init -i inventory_test

ansible-playbook ciscops.mdd.nso_update_devices -i inventory_test

We do not need to push a second ELK stack since our testing will be targeted at the network configuration.