Cisco Prime Infrastructure 1.2 User Guide
Introduction

Table Of Contents

Introduction to Cisco Prime Infrastructure

Prime Infrastructure Workflows


Introduction to Cisco Prime Infrastructure


The Cisco Prime Infrastructure is a network management tool that supports lifecycle management of all your entire network infrastructure from one graphical interface. Prime Infrastructure provides network administrators with a single solution for provisioning, monitoring, optimizing, and troubleshooting both wired and wireless devices. Robust graphical interfaces make device deployments and operations simple and cost-effective.

Prime Infrastructure provides two different graphical user interfaces (from which you can switch back and forth by clicking the downward arrow next to your login name):

Lifecycle view, which is organized according to home, design, deploy, operate, report and administer menus.

Classic view, which closely corresponds to the graphical user interface in Cisco Prime Network Control System 1.1 or Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS).

Prime Infrastructure Workflows

The Prime Infrastructure web interface is organized into a lifecycle workflow that includes the following high-level task areas described in Table 1-1. This document follows the same general organization.


Note You are strongly advised not to enable third-party browser extensions. In Internet Explorer, you can disable third-party browser extensions by choosing Tools > Internet Options and unchecking the Enable third-party browser extensions check box on the Advanced tab.


Table 1-1 Prime Infrastructure Task Areas

Task Area
Description
Used By

Home

View dashboards. which give you a quick view of devices, performance information, and various incidents. See Dashboards and Dashlets for more information.

Network Engineers

Design

Design feature or device patterns, or templates. You create reusable design patterns, such as configuration templates, in the Design area. You may use predefined templates or create your own. Patterns and templates are used in the deployment phase of the lifecycle.

Network Engineers, Designers, and Architects

Deploy

Deploy previously defined designs, or templates, into your network. You specify how to deploy features, using templates created in the design phase. The deploy phase allows you to push configurations defined in your templates to one or many devices.

NOC Operators and Service Operators

Operate

Monitor your network on a daily basis and perform other day-to-day or ad hoc operations related to network device inventory and configuration management. The Operate tab contains dashboards, the Device Work Center, and the tools you need for day-to-day monitoring, troubleshooting, maintenance, and operations.

Network Engineers, NOC Operators, and Service Operators

Report

Create reports, view saved report templates, and run scheduled reports.

Network Engineers, NOC Operators, and Service Operators

Administration

Specify system configuration settings and data collection settings, and manage access control.

Network Engineers