Now that we’ve completed deployment of the Intersight Assist Virtual Appliance we can use it to claim 3rd party devices that exist locally in your on-premises data center.

To do this we will follow the Claim Through Intersight Assist process to register a single FlashArray, this time enter the following local device details and select Claim: –

• Intersight Assist being used
• Device Type (Pure Storage FlashArray)
• Hostname / IP Address
• Port
• Protocol
• Username
• Password.

Once the Claim process has completed we can see the FlashArray listed in Devices.

It’s important to understand that we can repeat this same process for each additional FlashArray as required.  So there’s the ability to independently manage multiple FlashArrays from a single Intersight Assist Virtual Appliance.

Finally you can select a FlashArray and obtain an overview of the inventory of the FlashArray from within Intersight.

Next we can repeat a similar process for VMware vCenter, enter the following local device details and select Claim: -…

• Intersight Assist being used
• Device Type (VMware vCenter)
• Hostname / IP Address
• Port
• Protocol
• Username
• Password.

Again, once the Claim process has completed we can see the VMware vCenter server listed in Devices.

While with the FlashArray management we have the ability to see each device in the inventory via the Storage tab, currently there’s no way to manage inventory of the VMware vCenter server as this is only being utilized for Active Management.  We will cover this further in the final post in this series.

JOIN THE BETA

You need to sign up for the beta program to get access to the Cisco Intersight Assist virtual appliance. Please contact your Cisco sales team to request access. As part of the beta process, you can try out the new integration if you already have a Cisco Intersight Essentials Subscription. If you haven’t subscribed to Cisco Intersight yet, you can sign up for an “all-you-can-eat” 90-day free trial that provides Essentials-level access, which enables you to try the integration.

STAY TUNED

This post is the fourth of a multi-part series. Check out the series below:

1. Cisco Intersight Pure Storage Integration – Overview
2. Intersight Sign Up and Initial Device Claim
3. Intersight Assist Deployment and Configuration
4. FlashArray device claim through Intersight Assist
5. Inventory Visibility, Health Status and Active Management of Pure FlashArray.