Cisco Active Advisor Help
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Agent service on-premise
Mike Holloway
We do hear this request come up a lot from Active Advisor users, and our product managers are evaluating this for Active Advisor. There are services available from Cisco today that provide "always on" on-premise collection of network inventory. Active Advisor shares some features with other Cisco Support Services (namely Smart Net Total Care, or Smart Care) such as providing lifecycle information, however there are some key differences between these offerings:
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Cisco's Smart Net Total Care requires the installation of a hardware collector (CSPC) or running a software appliance, these persistently scan a network for new devices and updated configurations, while Cisco Active Advisor takes a snapshot in time of the network status, and is user driven.
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SmartNet Total Care can scan large enterprise networks while Cisco Active Advisor can scan up to 3 class C subnets at a time. You are not limited in the number of devices on your Active Advisor account, but would have to can scan many times to collect information about different network segments.
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SmartNet Total Care provides real-time information about a network, while Cisco Active Advisor uses only the latest information collected through the latest scan.
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Cisco's Product Support Services are for-fee services from Cisco, which not only shows knowledge of lifecycle information but also provides protection and support coverage for the network, including TAC access, OS updates and more. Cisco Active Advisor does not enforce obtaining a service contract and shows lifecycle information only.
With the above said -- larger networks that need real-time, current information and need product support and coverage should opt to use Smart Net Total Care. Smaller customers, or those with a tighter IT budget can use Cisco Active Advisor, while noticing its limitations on a single scan size, product support and TAC access.
The attached file shows a side-by-side comparison of the offerings. Also, here is a link to Cisco's Product Support Services: Cisco Product Support Services
Kyle Stewart
It would be nice to have an on-premise service that could occasionally scan the hosts to keep advisories and EOL announcements current. If I add a new line card, module, etc. I have to come into Active Advisor and run a new scan.
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