Manifest Jobs - BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance - 25.2.0

BlueCat LiveAssurance User Guide
ft:locale
en-US
Product name
BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance
Version
25.2.0

LiveAssurance v9.0.0 introduces support for scheduling Manifest jobs which enable the automation of verification of a change (before and after) for devices.

A Manifest job allows for comparing the state of a device over a defined time (that is, before and after a change, including upgrades). When the Manifest job starts, the system captures an initial snapshot of specific device metrics (such as routing table, concurrent connections, ARP table, and so on). The metrics collected vary based on the vendors.

After the defined interval, the system captures another snapshot of the same metrics and compares the two sets of data to identify any changes. This comparison is presented in the form of a report that you can view in the UI and optionally, download to your computer.

Creating a Manifest job

  1. From the Scheduled Tasks tab, select Create > Manifest job.

    The Create New Manifest Job window opens.

  2. Configure the following fields:

    • Name and Description—Provide a meaningful name and optionally, a description for your manifest job. The name cannot exceed 128 characters.

    • Recipient(s) email address—Specify one or more email addresses of recipients to whom an email must be sent automatically once the Manifest job is completed.

    • Start date and time—Select the date and time for initiating the job.

    • Expected Duration—Specify the duration (in Days, Hours, or Minutes) for which you want the job to run.

    • Devices and/or labels—From the Select Devices drop-down list, select the devices for which you wish to capture a snapshot, and then click the + button.

      From the Select Labels drop-down list, select the labels for the group of devices for which you wish to capture a snapshot, and then click the + button.

      You must select at least a device or a label. If you select both, the system will concatenate the list of devices from the labels along with the selected devices.

  3. Click Create to create the Manifest job.

    You can see the newly created job and its details from the All/Upcoming Jobs page. After the Manifest job runs, the recipients (as configured in step 2) will receive an email indicating that the manifest job is complete. Then, from the All Jobs page, click the Expand icon corresponding to the job to view the generated report. If the job was successful, the report displays the Before and After snapshot for the selected devices. See Enhancements to Manifest reports for details on the latest enhancements to Manifest reports.

    The system displays results of the Manifest jobs in the UI for 14 days since the day they ran. After this period, the results of those jobs are not displayed in the UI.

Note: If the collection of metrics fails on one or more devices, the system will automatically retry the job three times. The system will wait for 10 minutes between each retry.

The following image shows a sample manifest report.

Enhancements to Manifest reports

Starting in v25.1.0, Manifest reports contain the following enhancements to simplify their interpretation.

  • By default, the report displays the Before and After snapshot for all selected devices. Starting in v25.1.0, you can filter the displayed details in the report by device, by using the Filter by device drop-down menu to select specific devices, as highlighted in the above image.

  • The After snapshot contains the following enhancements:

    • The Ratio (%) column for the Connections count metric to indicate the percentage change in the number of connections between the start and end values in the Before and After snapshots, respectively.

      The following image shows an example:

    • The values (UP/ACTIVE; DOWN/INACTIVE) in the Admin State and Interface State columns for the Interfaces metric are now color-coded to visually indicate state changes between the start and end values in the Before and After snapshots, respectively. Green indicates UP/ACTIVE and Red indicates DOWN/INACTIVE.

      The same enhancement applies to the Member Active and State columns for the Cluster metric.

      For example, if the state was down in the Before snapshot and then changed to up in the After snapshot, the value UP/ACTIVE is displayed in green.

      The following image shows an example:

    • The ARP table entries show the number of ARP entries at the start and end of the Manifest job, in addition to the retention ratio, grouped by interface name.

      The following image shows an example:

    • The Routing Tables metric includes the Action column that indicates whether a route has ben added or deleted, and the number of such routes. If a route exists at the start and end, the Action column is blank to indicate that there's no addition or deletion.

      The following image shows an example: