Meraki and Catalyst Center Global Overview

Unified Overviews

Challenge: Hybrid managed customers face difficulties due to the absence of a unified interface for managing networks across both Meraki and Catalyst Center platforms.

Solution: The Meraki and Catalyst Center Global Overview offers a centralized dashboard for health and alerts, simplifying your daily network operations.

Aggregated Meraki Organization and Catalyst Center Health and Alerts

Challenge: Ensuring performance for networks across multiple platforms can be difficult.
 

Solution: The Global Overview aggregates health and alerts from all of your Dashboard Organizations and Catalyst Center deployments, enabling administrators to swiftly troubleshoot critical issues.

One Dashboard for Critical Alerts from Poor Performing Networks & Sites

Challenge: Viewing alerts separately on Catalyst Center and Meraki Dashboard can delay incident response.
 

Solution: The Global Overview aggregates alerts into a single interface, enabling faster response times and better incident management.

Seamless Navigation with Single Sign-On

Challenge: Users need quick access to both Meraki Dashboard and Catalyst Center without multiple authentication steps.
 

Solution: Single sign-on capabilities allow users to use their Merkai Dashboard admin credentials for identity authorization when cross-launching to Catalyst Center.

Prerequisites

Before the you can connect your Catalyst Center to the Meraki Cloud the following is required:

• Catalyst Center software update: Catalyst Center must be running 2.3.7.X or 3.X.X.X
• Initiate Meraki Dashboard Global Overview: If your Meraki Dashboard account is currently only a member of a single Organization, you must create a temporary new organization to initalte the Global Navigation Menu. For directions on how to initializing the Global Overview, go to Global Overview.
• Register Catalyst Center with Cisco Catalyst Cloud:  Each Catalyst Center you wish to connect to the Meraki Cloud must be registered with Cisco Catalyst Cloud to enable Meraki application for connectivity. In Catalyst Center go to System Settings > External Services > Cisco Catalyst Cloud to register.
• Catalyst Center Integration Dashboard Cluster Support. For General Availability release, Catalyst Centers can only be integrated in the Meraki.com cluster. Additional Geo Cloud clusters will be supported in the future. 
  • Meraki.com - Supported at Public Beta and General Availability release.
  • Meraki.cn - Not supported at Public Beta and General Availability release.
  • Meraki.in - Not supported at Public Beta and General Availability release.
  • Meraki.ca - Not supported at Public Beta and General Availability release.
  • Meraki FedRamp Cloud - Not supported at Public Beta and General Availability release.

When Catalyst Center is integrated to the Meraki Dashboard, each Catalyst Center cluster will have a dedicated Dashboard Organization. This will be a Dashboard Organization with a limited experience and will allow users to view some basic "Organization Settings" about their Catalyst Center connection to the Meraki Dashboard and to manage Organization administrators.

Add Catalyst Center Organization

1. Dashboard administrators assigned to multiple Organizations  will see a link called  “Global Overview” at the top of the left hand navigation. Select Global Overview > Monitor > Overview. Navigate to Overview to add your Catalyst Center to the Meraki Dashboard.

2. To add Catalyst Center to Dashboard click Add organization, select Add Catalyst Center as an organization. 

 

 

3. Enter the following information and click Add Organization.

Cloud hosting region: Select witch geographical region this organization should be hosted in. Note: At launch, you can only add Catalyst Center to Organizations in the dashboard.meraki.com domain.

Organization name: Please name the organization that will host your Catalyst Center connection. Note: This is the name that will appear in the Global Overview organizations list as well as in the Meraki Organization navigation menu.

Catalyst Center IP address or FQDN (optional): You can optional enter the IP address or FQDN you use to access the Catalyst Centers user interface. Note: Dashboard will not attemp to initiate any connection to Catalyst Center, this IP address will help Dashboard build custom URLs used for cross-launching.

Catalyst Center Member ID: The Catalyst Center member ID is used to uniquely identify and register your Catalyst Center instance with the Meraki Cloud. You can find your Catalyst Center Member ID in the Catalyst Center Help Menu > About

4. After click Add organization, you will be prompted to sign in to your Catalyst Center to active the Meraki application.

Click Sign in Catalyst Center to open Catalyst Center. Note: Your browser must be able to reach the Catalyst Center management IP address for cross-launching to work from the Meraki Dashboard.

5. Log in to Catalyst Center and navigate to System > Settings > External Services > Cisco Catalyst Cloud. 

a. If your Catalyst Center is not yet registered with Catalyst Cloud click Register to complete the registration process. 

Cisco Catalyst Cloud window is displayed where you will be presented with a pop-up and a code. Click Next. 

b. Sign in with your Cisco virtual account administrator email and password to register Catalyst Center to Cisco Catalyst Cloud.

 

c. After you have logged in successfully, the screen will show the registration status between the Catalyst Center and the Cisco Catalyst Cloud.

d. Once Catalyst Center is registered, Catalyst Center will display a list of available Applications. Find Meraki Dashboard and click Activate.

Manage Org Admins for Catalyst Center Identity Authorization

Catalyst Center Authorization

When you integrate your Catalyst Center to the Meraki Dashboard Global Overview, Dashboard administrators can view Global Overview Catalyst Center data for each integrated Catalyst Center they are authorized for and can cross launch into Catalyst Center webUI interfaces without entering their username and password again if the same Dashboard administrator username exists in both Dashboard and Catalyst Center. Your passwords can be different. 

Dashboard administrators users are in email format. If an exact match is not found in Catalyst Center identity store (internal or external), authorization with Catalyst Center will then be attempted using the username (before the @) to find a match in the Catalyst Center identity store.

 

If external authentication is enabled on a specific Catalyst Center and it is integrated with the Meraki Dashboard, any cross-launch to that Catalyst Center fails and data specific to the controller is not fetched if the user has not logged in at least once to Catalyst Center using their external authentication credentials. Users must log in to Catalyst Center at least once before they can view any Catalyst Center controller data in the  Global Overview or perform a cross-launch.

Adding Organization Administrators to Catalyst Center Organizations

Catalyst Centers integrated will appear in the Meraki Dashboard navigation menu under Organizations. 

 

 

Under Organization >  Administrators, click Add Admin along the left side of the page

1. Enter the admin's Name and the Email they will use to log in.
2. Choose a role. There are no configurations that can be performed on Catalyst Center Organizations. However, Full Access role administrators will have permissions to delete the Organization and disable the integration.
3. Click Create admin.