CiscoWorks

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

This web page is about CiscoWorks, which according to Cisco, is a suite of applications supplied by Cisco, and which function as a set of LAN network management tools. However I think an extended family might be a better description.

I don`t have access to CiscoWorks, so this page is an overview of CiscoWorks, the information having been gleaned from numerous websites. I have found that the information on the web about CiscoWorks is fairly disjointed, with different websites discussing different parts of CiscoWorks. So I am afraid this web page may be a bit disjointed as well.

 

The various applications

As stated in the introduction, CiscoWorks is a suite of separate applications, but you can`t purchase them individually - Cisco sell them in bundles, with the different bundles having different sets of applications.

The applications that I have found so far include :-

 

  • Common Services - used for user accounts, logins, access levels

  • Cisco view - GUI displays of Cisco devices allowing for simpler user interaction with them

  • Campus Manager - manages physical and logical Layer 2 infrastructures, including VLAN`s

  • Resources Manager - for network inventory, device configuration, software updating, log file analysis

  • Internetwork Performance Monitor - measurement of network availability and analysis of congestion problems

  • Device Fault Manager - real-time detection, analysis, and reporting of device faults

  • Wireless LAN Solution Engine Express - for managing Aironet wireless LAN`s

  • Firewall Management Centre - used to manage and configure PIX and Firewall Services Module

  • Auto Update Server - used to update devices - definitely PIX, not sure about other devices

  • IP Telephony Environment Monitor (ITEM) - this is a sub-set of applications relating to IP Telephony

  • VPN/Security Management Solution (VMS) - this is a sub-set of applications that relate to various parts of network security

 

Server based

Most of these applications are server based, and Cisco produce versions that run on MS Windows Server 2003, or on Solaris 9 or 10.

They appear to be very greedy of server space, I have seen figures quoted of server space requirements of between 20Gb up to 85Gb.

However not all of them require servers - the Wireless LAN Solution Engine Express application comes in its own self-contained box. I`m not sure about the two PIX applications.

 

The client side

I think on all of them user access is via a web browser -

 

  • http access is on port 1741

  • https access - I`ve seen references to both port 443 and port 1742

 

Users can be set up with various types of passwords, and can be allocated a "role", with different roles having different levels of administration rights. The CiscoWorks Common Services software is the application that handles this kind of responsibility on behalf of many of the other ( server based ) applications. Some of the roles that can be allocated to users include -

 

  • Help desk - read only access

  • Approver - can review, accept, or reject changes

  • Network operator - can submit tasks

  • Network administrator - can do administrative tasks

  • System administrator - can do anything and everything

 

There were other roles described in one or two web pages, but they were a bit obscure, and according the pages, couldn`t actually do anything, so the above list should be taken as indicative of the various roles available, rather than as an absolute list.

 

CiscoWorks v Command Line Interface

One of the things that I found out is that the various CiscoWorks applications don`t neccessarily allow administrators to make all the configuration settings of devices, and in some cases only allow quite a small proportion of all the commands that the CLI make available for the respective devices.

So the command line interface lives on.

Another thing that I saw references to is the fact that many of the configuration settings that can be made through the CiscoWorks GUI`s are being made to the running configuration. It will be neccessary to "copy" or "write" the settings to NVRAM, in order for them to survive a reboot.

 

© 2009 Ron Turner

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