Operations views

To help you assess the overall health of your fabrics, the Fabric Services System includes some high-level perspectives on the current status of all managed regions and fabrics. These views are intended to help you assess at a glance what is working and what is not, what is configured or misconfigured, and to understand what other related objects could be affected by an unhealthy entity.

From these high-level views that begin at the regions level, you can drill down to see the health of individual fabrics, nodes, and links within a region.

Health is a reflection of the operational state of nodes, links, and any node-based alarms within the set of managed fabrics. Although health alarms are distinct from intent deviations and deployment status, they may be related.

You can access the main operational view by selecting Operation and Health Insights from the system's main menu. The resulting page includes two main overlays:
  • Health, which displays information about objects subject to alarms, and their operational state (Up, Down, or Missing Hardware)
  • Operational Deviation, which indicates where there are errors within the physical topology of a fabric.

In each case, this information is conveyed through a combination of graphical display for overall status, and the information panel on the right side of the page that provides more details.

Table 1. Operational health display
# Description
1 Breadcrumbs: as you drill down into a region, this displays the level of your current view and the sequence of objects between that view and the region level.
2 Scope selection: use this drop-down list to control whether the view displays Real objects, or simulated Digital Sandbox objects.
3 Overlay selection: use this panel to select one of the available views, either Health or Operational Deviations.
4 Edge Link status icon: this icon is only present on Leaf nodes, and indicates the presence (and status) of edge links leading to customer assets. Possible statuses are Up (green) or Down (red).
5 Alarm indicator: this icon indicates the aggregate alarm level for an object. If absent, there are no alarms on the object or its child objects. If present, it indicates (by its color and letter) the single highest-level severity of any alarms that are active on the object or any of its children.
6 Currently selected object: a light blue outline indicates the currently selected object within the view. The same light blue is superimposed on any ISLs associated with that object.
7 Information panel: open this panel by clicking the right of the page. The panel displays information about the currently selected object. Of particular interest are the aggregate status and count indicators:
  • For a region: Node Aggregate Status and Node Down Count
  • For a fabric: Node Aggregate Status, Node Down Count, Interface Aggregate Status, Interface Down Count
  • For spine nodes: ISL Aggregate Status and ISL Down Count
  • For leaf nodes: ISL Aggregate Status, ISL Down Count, Edge Link Aggregate Status, and Edge Link Down Count.

The Health overlay

  • Health, which displays information about:
    • which objects that are subject to alarms
    • for parent objects, the single highest-severity alarm on any of its child objects
    • which nodes and links are down
    • for parent objects the proportion of immediate child objects that are up or down
  • Operational Deviation, which indicates where there are errors within the physical topology of a fabric. A deviation in this context represents:
    • a port that should be connected to another port, but is not
    • a port that should not be connected to another port, but is
    • a port that should be connected to a specific other port, but is connected to a different port instead

Displays on the Health overlay follow the conventions for other maps in the Fabric Services System UI. The possible states that can be displayed vary depending on whether you are looking at the Health page or the Operational Deviations page.

Table 2. Operational states and alarm severities
Information type Display
Operational states (Health)
Operational states (Deviations)
Alarm severities

The Operational Deviation overlay

The Operational Deviation overlay indicates where there are errors within the physical topology of a fabric. A deviation in this context represents:

  • a port that should be connected to another port, but is not
  • a port that should not be connected to another port, but is
  • a port that should be connected to a specific other port, but is connected to a different port instead

Any object that is the subject of deviations is shaded orange in the overlay topology.

Figure 1. Operational deviation on a fabric
Figure 2. Operational deviation on a leaf node

Viewing the operational topology

  1. From the main menu, select Operational and Health Insights.
    The Operational and Health Insights page displays, showing a map of all configured regions.
  2. Use the Region Selector at the top of the page to select the region whose data should display.
  3. In the OVERLAY drop-down list, select Health.
  4. Optional: Select the type of fabrics to display by making a selection in the Fabric Type drop-down list.
    The drop-down list supports two fabric types:
    • Real (default)
    • Digital Sandbox
  5. To learn more about any region on the map, do the following:
    1. Check the circle in the center of the region.
      If the circle contains any red, that indicates the proportion of fabrics within the region that have operational issues. You can expand the region and view more information about its status by going to sub-step 5.b.
    2. Click the region icon to select it, then click the icon at the right of the page to open the information panel.
      The information panel displays more information about the selected region, including the number of fabrics and number of links it contains.
  6. To learn more about the fabrics within the region, do the following:
    1. Expand the region icon.
      The region icon expands to show all of the fabrics it contains. Fabrics that contain nodes with operational issues are shaded red.
    2. Select a fabric and, if the information panel is not open, click the icon at the right of the page to open the information panel.
      The information panel displays more information about the selected fabric. Pay particular attention to the following values:
      • Node Aggregate Status: summarizes the overall state of nodes within the fabric
      • Node Down Count: the number of nodes within the fabric that are currently operationally Down
      • Interface Down Aggregate Status: provides some information about the proportion of interfaces within with the fabric that are experiencing operational issues
      • Interface Down Count: the number of interfaces within the fabric that are experiencing operational issues
  7. To navigate to another view to learn more about an individual fabric, right-click the fabric on the map and select one of the following from the resulting contextual menu:
    • Open Fabric Design to open the fabric intent's Design view
    • Open Fabric Inventory to open the fabric intent's Inventory view
    • Show Intent Alarms to open the Alarms List
    The selected view displays, replacing the Regions and Health view. The new view adopts the context of the fabric whose row you selected.
  8. To learn more about the spine nodes within a single fabric, do the following:
    1. Double-click the fabric icon on the Operations and Health Insights map.
      The map shows the topology of the selected fabric, including any backbone, spine, and leaf groups.
    2. Select and expand a spine cluster.
      The expanded group shows the individual nodes within that cluster. Node icons are shaded green if Up, red if Down, and gray if Unassociated with hardware.
    3. Select an individual spine node within the expanded group and, if the information panel is not open, click the icon at the right of the page to open the information panel.
      The information panel displays more information about the selected node. Pay particular attention to the following values:
      • ISL Aggregate Status: provides some information about the proportion of ISLs associated with the selected node that are experiencing operational issues
      • ISL Down Count: the precise number of ISLs associated with the selected node that are experiencing operational issues
  9. To learn more about a leaf nodes within a single fabric, do the following:
    1. Select and expand a leaf group.
      The expanded group shows the individual nodes within that cluster. Node icons are shaded green if Up, red if Down, and gray if Unassociated with hardware. Similarly, the Edge Link icon at the bottom right of the leaf node icon is shaded green if all edge links are Up, or red if at least some edge links are Down.
    2. Select an individual leaf node within the expanded group and, if the information panel is not open, click the icon at the right of the page to open the information panel.
      The information panel displays more information about the selected node. Pay particular attention to the following values:
      • Edge Link Aggregate Status: provides some information about the proportion of edge links associated with the selected node that are experiencing operational issues
      • Edge Link Down Count: the precise number of edge links associated with the selected node that are experiencing operational issues
      • ISL Aggregate Status: provides some information about the proportion of ISLs associated with the selected node that are experiencing operational issues
      • ISL Down Count: the precise number of ISLs associated with the selected node that are experiencing operational issues

Viewing operational insights

  1. From the main menu, select Operational and Health Insights.
  2. Use the Region Selector at the top of the page to select the region whose data should display.
  3. Optional: Select the type of fabrics to display by making a selection in the Fabric Type drop-down list.
    The drop-down list supports two fabric types:
    • Real (default)
    • Digital Sandbox
  4. In the OVERLAY drop-down list, click Operational Deviation.
  5. Expand the region icon.
    The region icon expands to show all of the fabrics it contains. Fabrics that contain nodes that are the subject of deviations are shaded orange.
  6. Double-click a fabric icon on the Operations and Health Insights map.
    The expanded fabric cluster shows the individual nodes within that cluster. Nodes that are the subject of deviations are shaded orange.