Cisco Releases Data Center Management App

Cisco released a mobile app version of its Cisco Intersight software. Cisco Intersight is a Software as a service infrastructure (SaaS) management program. Cisco was founded in 1984 and provides a wide range of networking, telecommunications, and data center hardware.

Cisco released a mobile app version of its Cisco Intersight software. Cisco Intersight is a Software as a service infrastructure (SaaS) management program. Cisco was founded in 1984 and provides a wide range of networking, telecommunications, and data center hardware.

I took some time to explore the app today and, other than the glaring lack of rotation support, the app looks to be well put together. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. All of the text is large enough to be easy to read, even for someone who needs glasses most days like me. The buttons are all large enough that I wasn’t worried about accidentally clicking on the wrong thing. The Health Summary categories are clickable, allowing users to quickly get more information about problems and potential problems.

Cisco's free Intersight mobile application has both the essential alarms page, and three dashboards breaking data up into Server, HyperFlex Cluster, or Fabric Interconnect views to present essential data to users. These dashboards keep most of the information immediately visible, but unfortunately, users do have to scroll down to see everything Cisco thinks a customer might want to know. In terms of diagnostic features, I want to talk in more detail about two of them. The first is that the app can be used to monitor the progress of requests initiated through Intersight via the requests tab which in turn is accessed via the top-right menu tab. For instance, if someone kicks off an OS installation on one of the servers being monitored by Cisco Intersight, the install will show up on the request list. Tapping the request pulls up more detailed information including execution flow and how close to completion the request is. A nice, simple interface and Cisco included a search filter to help find the exact request you're looking for. The second diagnostic feature I want to mention is that the app can turn server locator LEDs on (and presumably off) to help on-sight staff find and address a specific server.

In other Cisco news, they’ve been talking up FlexPod (a customer customizable server appliance built in partnership with NetApp), and Cisco Workload Optimization Manager(CWOM), which automatically manages service resource allocation to match demand, lately. We’re expecting to hear some new announcements about FlexPod at the NetApp INSIGHT 2019 conference at the end of this month (October 28-30), but Cisco hasn’t given us many hints as to what those new announcements will be yet. CWOM got an update to 2.3.0 just last month, so it would be surprising to see any new changes soon, but we’ll keep an eye out.

Availability

iOS Cisco Intersight app – Immediately

Android Cisco Intersight app – soon

Cisco Main Site

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