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Manual import of devices into Active Advisor

This seems to be the single most requested feature from users of Active Advisor. There are cases where directly scanning Cisco devices from a local host isn't feasible, due to:


  • local firewalls/policies prevent scanner from connecting directly
  • security concerns about actively scanning device configurations and uploading them (even when sanitized) to the cloud
  • java issues or "locked-down" desktops prevent scanner from executing directly
  • remote networks make collecting device information via scanner difficult 

Prior suggestions range from uploading collecting the device information (serial, pid, sku, an optional label, etc) and manually entering that data into the Active Advisor portal one device at a time, to uploading the devices in a batch using CSV or XML formats. Your comments and suggestions are welcome!
7 people like this idea

An API would nice!  If we could just perform a web post containing the model number, code version, and serial number to receive back EOL/EOS/contract information then we could write our own applications independent of the Web front end of ciscoactiveadvisor.  That would be INCREDIBLY useful...  any plans for that?

I agree,

either a defined import format (json, csv whatever) or an api which we could use to post data to the service would be very helpful.   We don't typically have workstations with JRE enabled sitting in locations that can access many of our network devices.

 

I'm happy to report that a first pass at this feature is nearing completion, and should make out into our production systems within the next couple of releases (generally one every 2-3 weeks) This initial feature will support upload of devices to register them into Active Advisor via an excel file. 


We hope to provide other mechanisms for bulk import of devices into the tool the future. Currently, we're working on a feature to support import of devices to/from SmartCare, and also a dedicated desktop version of the scanner application. I'd also like to mention that Cisco Network Assistant (CNA) can register supported devices into Active Advisor as well, more information on using this tool in conjunction with Active Advisor is available at https://help.ciscoactiveadvisor.com/solution/articles/5000612663-how-do-i-upload-devices-from-cisco-network-assistant-cna-into-active-advisor-


A public API for registering/querying devices is still in the planning stages of our backlog at the moment. The API already exists, but will take some work to make it a generally available feature.

Thanks Mike for the update.  I notice that there's a recent tool published that also helps with EOL info and contract status.  There isn't an official API exposed but perhaps this could be something that we could also leverage?


https://cway.cisco.com/sncheck/

Neat tool Andy, I hadn't seen that one yet. It looks like it will tell you if a particular device (via it's serial number) is covered under a contract, even if you aren't entitled to view details of the contract itself.

Hello,


Has there been any update on the manual import?


Trent

Not yet. It's on our roadmap, and is internally nearing feature completion, but I can't yet give a time-frame on when it will be released.


-mike


Any news on public API ?


Thanks Philipp. Not yet. We will be sure to let you know.

We've added the ability to register devices into Active Advisor via cut-n-paste of "show" commands. Please see https://help.ciscoactiveadvisor.com/solution/articles/13000043166-how-do-i-register-a-device-manually-with-show-command-outputs- for more details.


Currently, we support these methods of registering devices into Active Advisor:


Scanner - java-based and requires OS java to be installed, via web browser or native Windows/Mac desktop app

Manual registration of devices via their "show" commands (Tools > IOS Config Upload)

Manual upload of Serial Numbers from File

Cisco Active Advisor for APIC-EM

Cisco Network Assistant (CNA)



We're also currently testing a Docker-based scanner, which includes it's own java in a self-contained container image. We envisage the ability to trigger scans via "API" calls into the running container, providing a facility to automate device refresh scans on a regular basis.

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