Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.

8 Quick Start Guide

Overview
This section provides basic information about the product and this Guide.
Related Topics
About This Guide, on page 1
Product Overview, on page 1
About Cisco Prime Infrastructure Licensing, on page 1

About This Guide

This guide describes how to install Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.8 as an OVA on VMware, Cisco Prime
Infrastructure as an ISO on Hyper-V Virtual Machine.Prime Infrastructure is also available as a hardware
appliance. For information on how to install the appliance, see the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure Appliance
Hardware Installation Guide. This guide also describes about the Upgrade & Migration from the supported
previous release Cisco Prime Infrastructure versions to Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.8.
For information about configuring and managing this product, see the Cisco Prime Infrastructure Administrator
Guide and the Cisco Prime Infrastructure User Guide .

Product Overview
Prime Infrastructure provides a single integrated solution for comprehensive lifecycle management of the
wired or wireless access, campus, and branch networks, and rich visibility into end-user connectivity and
application performance assurance issues. Prime Infrastructure accelerates the rollout of new services, secure
access and management of mobile devices, making “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) a reality for corporate
IT. Tightly coupling client awareness with application performance visibility and network control, Prime
Infrastructure helps ensure uncompromised end-user quality of experience. Deep integration with the Cisco
Identity Services Engine (ISE) further extends this visibility across security and policy-related problems,
presenting a complete view of client access issues with a clear path to solving them.
For:
• An overview of Prime Infrastructure features and benefits, see the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure Data
Sheets.
• Information about frequently used Prime Infrastructure features, see the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure
User Guide.
• Information about features intended for administrators, see the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure
Aministrator Guide.

About Cisco Prime Infrastructure Licensing

Prime Infrastructure licenses control the features that you can use and the number of devices you can manage
using those features. For more information about:

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 Before You Install

• Cisco Prime Infrastructure license types and how to order them, see the Cisco Prime Infrastructure
Ordering and Licensing Guide.
• How to apply purchased licenses, see the Cisco Prime Infrastructure Administrator Guide.

Before You Install

Complete the tasks in the following sections before installing Prime Infrastructure.
• Understand System Requirements, on page 2
• How to Scale Prime Infrastructure, on page 5

Note If your existing Prime Infrastructure is 3.6.x or 3.7.x, and your upgrade path contains 3.4.x or earlier versions,
then you cannot in-line upgrade that server to Prime Infrastructure 3.8 due to security vulnerabilities in the
underlying Red Hat 6 installation. You will need to take a backup of the Prime Infrastructure 3.6.x or 3.7.x
server, deploy a fresh Prime Infrastructure 3.8 server, and restore that backup into the Prime Infrastructure
3.8 server.

Understand System Requirements

Prime Infrastructure comes in two main forms:
• Virtual: The Prime Infrastructure virtual appliance is packaged as an Open Virtualization Archive (OVA)
file, which must be installed on a user-supplied, qualified server running VMware ESXi. This form allows
you to run on the server hardware of your choice. You can also install the virtual appliance in any of four
configurations, each optimized for a different size of enterprise network. For hardware requirements and
capacities for each of the virtual appliance’s size options, see Virtual Appliance Options, on page 2 .
• Hyper V: Cisco Prime Infrastructure for Microsoft Hyper-V extends Cisco networking benefits to
Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V deployments. For deploying Cisco Prime Infrastructure on Hyper-V
Virtual appliance, see the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure Installation and Migration Guide for Microsoft
Hyper-V Virtual Machine .
• Physical: The physical appliance is packaged as a rack-mountable server, with Prime Infrastructure
pre-installed and configured for you. For physical appliance hardware specifications and capacities, see
Physical Appliance Options, on page 3

Virtual Appliance Options

During installation, you can choose one of four deployment configuration options. The following table
summarizes the minimum server requirements for each option.

Table 1: Prime Infrastructure Minimum Server Requirements

Requirement Express Express-Plus Standard Professional

VMware Version ESXi 6.0, 6.5, 6.7, ESXi 6.0, 6.5, 6.7, ESXi 6.0, 6.5, 6.7, ESXi 6.0, 6.5, 6.7,
or 7.0 or 7.0 or 7.0 or 7.0

Virtual CPUs1 4 8 16 16

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 Physical Appliance Options

Requirement Express Express-Plus Standard Professional

Memory (DRAM) 12 GB 16 GB 16 GB 24 GB

HDD Size 300 GB 600 GB 900 GB 1.2 TB

Throughput (Disk IOPS) 200 MB/s 200 MB/s 200 MB/s 320 MB/s

Minimum CPU Speed 2.29 GHz 2.29 GHz 2.29 GHz 2.29 GHz
1
You can configure any combination of sockets and cores, the product of which must equal the number
of virtual CPUs required. For example, if 16 virtual CPUs are required, you can configure 4 sockets
with 4 cores, or 2 sockets with 8 cores, etc.
You can install any of the Prime Infrastructure options as an Open Virtual Appliance (OVA), running under
VMWare ESXi, on your own hardware. If you choose this implementation, the server that you supply must
meet or exceed the requirements shown in the table for the option that you select.

Physical Appliance Options

Prime Infrastructure is available on the Prime Infrstructure Physical Appliance and Digital Network Architecture
Center (DNAC) Appliance. Prime Infrastructure 3.8 not supported on the PRIME-NCS-APL-K9 (also known
as “Gen 1”). Prime Infrastructure 3.8 is supported on PI-UCS-APL-K9 (also known as the Gen 2 appliance),
PI-UCSM5-APL-K9 and PI-UCSM5-APL-U-K9 (also known as Gen 3 appliance) and DN1-HW-APL and
DN2-HW-APL known as DNAC Appliance). You can upgrade a Prime Infrastructure Physical Appliance
running Prime Infrastructure 3.6.x or 3.7.x to Prime Infrastructure 3.8. If the existing setup has 3.1.x, 3.2.x,
3.3.x, 3.4.x or 3.5.x versions, you must first upgrade it to 3.7.x version so as to upgrade to Prime Infrastructure
3.8 version. The physical appliance specifications are as follows:

Specification Configuration Gen-2 Appliance Gen-3 DNAC DNAC

Appliance Appliance Appliance(DN2-HW-APL)

Hardware CPU 10 C/20 T 20C/40T 44 C/88 T 44 C/88 T

Specifications (cores/threads)

Memory 64 GB 64 GB 256 GB 256 GB

Disk Capacity 4x900 GB 4x1.2 TB 4X 1.8 TB 6 X 1.9 TB

RAID Level 10 10 1, 1, 10 1, 1, 10
RAID (446(bootable), (446(bootable),
1787, 3574 in 1787, 5361 in GB)
GB)

Disk I/O Speed 320 MBps 320 MBps 320 MBps 320 MBps

System Users Concurrent 50 50 50 50

GUI clients

Concurrent 5 5 5 5
API clients

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 How to Improve the Performance of Appliances

Note Prime Infrastructure uses the 10G port as eth0 for Cisco DNA Center Appliance. You must perform the
following steps to use the 1G port.
1. Navigate to Compute > BIOS.
2. Select the Conifgure BIOS tab and then the Advanced tab.
3. Expand the LOM and PCle Slots configuration link.
4. Select the Disabled option from PCle Slot:MLOM OptionROM and PCle Slot:MLOM Link Speed
drop-down lists.
5. Perform reboot operation.
6. Install Prime Infrastrucure.

Note Gen-3 Appliance is supported from Prime Infrastructure 3.4.1.

While installing Prime Infrastructure on physical appliances, make sure network management IP address
should be configured to Gigabit Ethernet 0 interface for all network management traffic (eg. netconf, telemetry,
snmp etc).

Prime Infrastructure is also available pre-installed on Cisco-supplied hardware as a physical appliance. See
the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure Appliance Hardware Installation Guide for more information.
For maximum management capacities for each installation option, see How to Scale Prime Infrastructure, on
page 5

How to Improve the Performance of Appliances

For better performance on the Prime Infrastructure Appliance (Gen 2 & Gen 3) or DNAC Appliance, make
sure you configure the virtual drive Write Policy to Write Back Good BBU. To configure the virtual drive
Write Policy, follow these steps:

Procedure

Step 1 Launch the CIMC web interface (see the section How to Set Up the Appliance in the latest Cisco Prime
Infrastructure Appliance Hardware Installation Guide ).
Step 2 Click the Storage tab, click on the Modular RAID Controller name, click the Virtual Drive tab. .
Step 3 Select the Virtual Drive, then click Edit Virtual Drive.
Step 4 Click OK on the dialog box that appears.
Step 5 In the Write Policy field, select Write Back Good BBU, then click Save Changes.
If you are running ESX on custom hardware that has a RAID controller, we recommend you configure the
following RAID settings to optimize Prime Infrastructure performance and redundancy:
• RAID 10
• RAID cache of at least 2 GB

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 Web Client Requirements

• Use Write Back Good BBU

Web Client Requirements

Prime Infrastructure users access the product using a web browser client. Web client requirements are:
• Hardware—A Mac or Windows 7 or Windows 10 laptop or desktop compatible with one of the following
tested and supported browsers:
• Google Chrome 74 or later
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 (No plug-ins are required.)
• Mozilla Firefox ESR 60 or later
• Mozilla Firefox 67 or later

• Display resolution—Prime Infrastructure supports 1366 x 768 or higher, but we recommend that you set
the screen resolution to 1600 x 900.

Note Due to strict certificate check in Firefox browser, when you have two different Prime Infrastructure server
with same hostname you will get the below error code:
• Failed : Error code: SEC_ERROR_REUSED_ISSUER_AND_SERIAL

To avoid this you can import CA Signed certificate in PI server through admin CLI. See Import CA-Signed
Host Certificates from Ciso Prime Infrastructure 3.8 Admin Guide steps to generate CSR and import CA
signed certificate.

How to Scale Prime Infrastructure

Prime Infrastructure comes with a variety of server installation options (see Understand System Requirements,
on page 2). Ensure that you select an option appropriate for the size and complexity of your network.
The following table lists the maximum number of devices, clients, events, NetFlow-related data flows, and
other scale parameters for each option. For example, the Professional option can manage 200,000 wireless
clients and 50,000 wired clients.

Table 2: Supported Scale for Prime Infrastructure Installation Options (includes Assurance)

Parameter Express Express-Plus Standard Professional Hardware Hardware DNAC

(Maximums) Appliance Appliance Appliance
2
(Gen 2) (Gen 3)

Maximum number of 500 3000 10,000 14,000 24,000 24,000 24,000

devices (combination
of wired and wireless
devices)

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How to Scale Prime Infrastructure

Parameter Express Express-Plus Standard Professional Hardware Hardware DNAC

(Maximums) Appliance Appliance Appliance
2
(Gen 2) (Gen 3)

Unified APs 300 2500 5000 10,000 20,000 20,000 20,000

Autonomous APs 300 500 1500 2500 3,000 3,000 3,000

Wired Devices 300 1000 6000 10,000 13,000 13,000 13,000

NAMs 5 5 500 800 1000 1000 1000

Controllers 5 25 500 800 1,000 1000 1000

Wired Clients 6000 50,000 50,000 50,000 50,000 50,000 50,000

Wireless Clients 4000 30,000 75,000 150,000 200,000 200,000 200,000

Cisco Mobility 1 1 6 10 12 12 12
Services Engine (MSE)

Changing Clients 1000 5000 25,000 30,000 40,000 40,000 40,000

(every 5 minutes)3

Events Sustained Rate 100 100 300 500 1000 1000 1000
(events per second;
includes syslogs, traps,
and system events)

Syslog Rate 70 70 210 350 600 600 600

Trap Rate 20 20 60 100 300 300 300

System Event Rate 10 10 30 50 100 100 100

NetFlow Rate (flows 3000 3000 16,000 40,000 80,000 80,000 80,000
per second)4

Supported Hourly Host 144,000 720,000 2,100,000 6,000,000 12,000,000 12,000,000 12,000,000
Records

Interfaces 12,000 50,000 250,000 250,000 350,000 350,000 350,000

Compliance Violation — — 20000 80000 80000 80000 80000

Limit5

NAM Data Polling 5 5 20 30 40 40 40

Enabled

Polling Interfaces 2400 8000 48,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000

(polling of trunk ports)

Number of 200 500 2500 2500 2500 2500 2500

Sites/Campus

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 How to Scale Prime Infrastructure

Parameter Express Express-Plus Standard Professional Hardware Hardware DNAC

(Maximums) Appliance Appliance Appliance
2
(Gen 2) (Gen 3)

Groups: User-Defined 50 100 150 150 150 150 150

+ Out of the Box +
Device Groups + Port
Groups

Location Group 100 100 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000

Virtual Domains 100 500 750 750 750 750 750

Concurrent GUI 5 10 25 50 50 50 50
Clients
Concurrent API (or 2 2 5 5 5 5 5
northbound interface)
Clients
2
Compliance is supported on the Standard, Professional virtual appliance (OVA) and the Gen 2 appliance,
Gen 3 appliance and DNAC Appliance only. It is not supported on: Express, Express Plus, OVAs that
have been resized to Standard or Professional. If you are running Prime Infrastructure on an unsupported
OVA or physical appliance and want to enable Compliance, you must perform a fresh install of the 3.8
Standard or Professional OVA or Gen2 appliance or Gen 3 Appliance or DNAC Appliance, then use
backup/restore to migrate data from your old server to the new server. See Enabling Compliance Services
in the Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.8 Administrator Guide .
3
Changing Clients are wireless users who are roaming across APs or disassociating and associating to
APs.
4
The NetFlow rate depends on the number of unique clients in the flows. The supported NetFlow rate is
also based on the translated number of hourly host records (or unique combinations of server/client and
applications) per day.
5
If the Compliance violation for the Professional virtual appliance exceeds 80000, the compliance job
will not show any data.

Note When there is a high inflow of data for hosts, it triggers hosts_lt and hosts_mt tables to exceed the default
max record count and retention age. Prime Infrastructure performance might get affected, and the services
might go down while creating the backup file because of disk space issues. To address this issue, you must
reduce the maximum records and age of the retention by 65% of the actual default settings of highly utilized
tables, maximum records, and age.

Note Please ensure to select the Unified APs/Wireless client range within the specified limits mentioned in the
table. If the AP count/Client count exceeds the given limit, Prime Infrastructure will throw an error "PGA
memory used by the instance exceeds PGA_AGGREGATE_LIMIT".

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 How to Scale for Service Provider Wi-Fi

Note Supported Scale for PnP Provisioning:

• Maximum number of devices per profile: 100
• Maximum number of Simultaneous Deployments per APIC-EM limitation : 50 (Threads)

Important We recommend that you maintain an acceptable level of latency between your devices and the Cisco Prime
Infrastructure server. A high latency might result in the server being unable to manage your devices, or the
background tasks running slowly. A typical example of such a scenario is when you have thousands of APs
and multiple Cisco Wireless Controllers managed by Prime Infrastructure across a WAN. In such a situation,
we recommend that you install Prime Infrastructure in a local setup to ensure that the device response time
is not impacted by queries from Prime Infrastructure.

How to Scale for Service Provider Wi-Fi

The following table lists the Service Provider Wi-Fi parameters.

Table 3: Scaling for Service Provider Wi-Fi

Parameter Maximum Supported

Number of APs 20,000

Number of clients 100,000

Sustain trap rate 300/sec

Burst trap rate 400/sec for 10-minute duration

How to Scale for Operations Center

When using Operations Center, we recommend that you:
• Use the Standard OVA installation option.
• Ensure that your network is providing the following performance levels between Operations Center and
its managed devices:
• Bandwidth—250 Kbps
• Latency—up to 5 ms. This is not a hard requirement, but Operations Center will only be as fast as
its slowest managed instance. The higher the latency, the slower the overall performance. Use the
Network Latency column on the Operations Center Manage & Monitor Servers page to spot managed
instances that may be acting as bottlenecks.
• Ensure all instances managed by Operations Center are running Prime Infrastructure 3.7.

To help you roll out new versions of Prime Infrastructure at your own pace, Operations Center always supports
management of instances of both the current and the very last version of Prime Infrastructure (also known as
“N-1 management”). For example: If you upgrade your Operations Center management server to 3.7, you

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 How to Scale for Data Center

can use that server to continue managing Prime Infrastructure 3.6.x instances, as well as upgraded 3.7 Prime
Infrastructure instances.

Note Make sure that you do the following when you are upgrading the Operation Center:
• Remove the managed instances before upgrading the Operation Center.
• Upgrade the Operation Center.
• Re-add the managed instances.

The following table lists the Operations Center scaling parameters.

Table 4: Scaling Operations Center

Operations Center Parameter Maximum Supported

Number of managed instances 15

Concurrent GUI clients 100

See Physical Appliance Options, on page 3 for physical appliance options and the table under the section
How to Scale Prime Infrastructure, on page 5 for installation option scaling information. For more information,
see Set Up Operations Center in the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure Administrator Guide.

How to Scale for Data Center

The following table lists the Data Center parameters.

Table 5: Scaling Data Center

Parameter Devices Standard Professional Hardware Hardware DNAC

Appliance (Gen Appliance Appliance
2) (Gen 3)

Data Center Cisco Nexus devices 2500 3000 3000 3000 3000
Switches

Virtual Cisco UCS B-Series 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000

infrastructure devices, Cisco UCS
C-Series devices

VMware vCenters 7 14 14 14 14

VMware Hosts 472 1219 1219 1219 1219

VMware Clusters 8 15 15 15 15

Virtual machines 5500 12000 12,000 12,000 12,000

Total 10587 18648 18,648 18,648 18,648

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 How to Scale for CDB

How to Scale for CDB

The following table lists the number of records with the approximate size on disks for CDB parameters.

Table 6: Supported Scale for CDB

CDB/ Install Express Express- Standard Professional Hardware Hardware DNAC

Type Plus Appliance Appliance Appliance
(Gen 2) (Gen 3)

CoreConv 123120000 123120000 123120000 123120000 6156000000 6156000000 6156000000

950 MB 950 MB 950 MB 950 MB 45 GB 45 GB 45 GB

ARTCltSvr 100440064 100440064 100440064 100440064 5022000000 5022000000 5022000000

750 MB 750 MB 750 MB 750 MB 40GB 40GB 40GB

Custom 100440064 100440064 100440064 100440064 5808098304 5808098304 5808098304

NetFLow
500 MB * 500 MB * 500 MB * 500 MB * 5 GB * no. 5 GB * no. 5 GB * no.
(per CDB
no. of no. of no. of no. of of custom of custom of custom
created by
custom cdbs custom cdbs custom cdbs custom cdbs cdbs created cdbs created cdbs created
user)
created created created created

Disk Space 3 GB 3 GB 3 GB 6 GB 10GB 10GB 10GB

used by approximately approximately approximately approximately approximately approximately approximately
Other CDBs

Installation Options
Prime Infrastructure provides the following installation options:
• New installation on a virtual machine—See Before You Begin Installation on a Virtual Machine, on
page 10.
• New installation on a physical appliance. Prime Infrastructure comes preinstalled on physical appliances,
or you can install an image on an existing appliance. See Set Up Prime Infrastructure on a Virtual Machine
or Physical Appliance, on page 12.
• Upgrade a previous version of Prime Infrastructure—See How to Upgrade From Previous Releases of
Prime Infrastructure, on page 13.

Before You Begin Installation on a Virtual Machine

Before installing Prime Infrastructure on a virtual machine, you must:
• Check that the installed VMware ESXi host is reachable. See the VMware documentation on how to
install the VMware vSphere Client. After the virtual host is available on the network, you can browse to
its IP address to display a web-based interface from which you can install the VMware vSphere Client.
• Ensure that the Prime Infrastructure OVA is saved to the same machine where your VMware vSphere
Client is installed. Depending on your arrangement with Cisco, you may download the OVA file
PI-VA-3.8.0.0.310.ova from Cisco.com or use your Cisco-supplied installation media. Verify the integrity
of the OVA file using its checksum listed on Cisco.com.

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 Install Prime Infrastructure on a Virtual Machine

Install Prime Infrastructure on a Virtual Machine

The following steps explain how to install Prime Infrastructure on a virtual machine. Make sure that all of the
system requirements are met before you deploy the OVA. Review the sections Understand System Requirements
and Before You Begin Installation on a Virtual Machine, on page 10.

Note If you are using Esxi 6.5 or later, you can deploy latest ova using Web Client.

Procedure

Step 1 Launch your VMware vSphere Client and connect to the ESXi host or vCenter server.
Step 2 Choose File > Deploy OVF Template.
Step 3 Click Browse to access the location where you have saved the OVA file on your local machine, then click
Next.
Step 4 Verify the details on the OVF template details page, then click Next.
Note We will reserve half of the CPU resources and memory based on your OVA selection.

Note Ensure the Publisher field shows Cisco Systems, Inc.

Step 5 In the End User License Agreement window, click Accept, then click Next.
Step 6 In the Name and Location window, specify:
• In the Name field, enter the name of the new virtual machine.
• In the Inventory Location area, select the appropriate folder. (If the vSphere Client is connected directly
to an ESXi host, this option does not appear.)

Step 7 Click Next.

Step 8 In the Deployment Configuration window, select the desired configuration (for example, Express, Express
Plus, Standard, Professional, etc.) and view the resources required for the configuration you selected.
Note It is mandatory to reserve 100% of CPU and memory resources for optimal performance.

Step 9 Click Next.

Step 10 In the Host/Cluster window, select the host or cluster on which you want to deploy the OVF template, then
click Next. (If the vSphere Client is connected directly to an ESXi host, this option does not appear.)
Step 11 In the Storage window, select the datastore that has the required space requirements described in Understand
System Requirements, on page 2, then click Next.
Step 12 In the Disk Format window, select Thick Provisioning to provision the virtual machine virtual disks, then
click Next. Do not select Thin Provision because if there is no free disk space when the virtual machine needs
it, Prime Infrastructure will fail.
Step 13 In the Network Mapping window, select a network for the virtual machine to use, then click Next.
Step 14 In the Ready to Complete window, review your settings, select Power on After Deployment, then click
Finish.

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 Set Up Prime Infrastructure on a Virtual Machine or Physical Appliance

Depending on your network speed and the IOPS of the server, the deployment can take a few minutes to
complete.

Set Up Prime Infrastructure on a Virtual Machine or Physical Appliance

Prime Infrastructure comes preinstalled on physical appliances, or you can install an image on an existing
appliance. Complete the following steps to set up and start Prime Infrastructure on a virtual machine or physical
appliance.

Procedure

Step 1 If you are using a virtual machine and it is not already powered on, in the VMware vSphere Client, right-click
the deployed virtual appliance and choose Power > Power On.
Step 2 Click the Console tab.
After the server boots up, you’ll see the localhost login prompt.

Step 3 At the localhost login prompt, enter setup.

Step 4 The console prompts you for the following parameters:
• Hostname—The host name of the virtual appliance.
• IP Address—The IP address of the virtual appliance.
• IP default netmask—The default subnet mask for the IP address.
• IP default gateway—The IP address of the default gateway.
Note If an IPv6 address is not manually configured on the interface, or discovered dynamically, the
IPv6 address will be automatically configured.

• Default DNS domain—The default domain name.

• Primary nameserver—The IP address of the primary name server.
• Secondary name servers—The IP address if the secondary name server, if available. You can add up to
three secondary name servers.
• Primary NTP server—The IP address or host name of the primary Network Time Protocol server you
want to use. (time.nist.gov is the default).
• Secondary NTP servers—The IP addresses or host names of the secondary NTP servers to be used when
the primary is not available.
• System Time Zone—The time zone code you want to use. See the chapter Time Zones Supported By
Cisco Prime Infrastructure in the Cisco Prime Infrastructure User Guide.
• Clock time—The clock time based on the server’s time zone.
• Username—The name of the first administrative user (known as “admin”). This is the administrator
account used to log in to the server via the console or SSH. You can accept the default, which is admin.
• Password—Enter the admin user password and then confirm it.

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 How to Upgrade From Previous Releases of Prime Infrastructure

Tip Keep your Prime Infrastructure password in a safe place. If you forget the password, see the section
How to Recover Administrator Passwords on Virtual Appliances in the latest Cisco Prime
Infrastructure Administrator Guide.

Step 5 When you are done entering these values, you will be prompted for the following parameters:
• High Availability Role Selection—Enter yes at the prompt if you want this installed server to serve as
the secondary server in a high availability implementation. You will be prompted to provide an
authentication key to be used for high availability registration. If you enter no at the prompt, the server
will act as the primary server (standalone) and the installation will proceed with the following prompts:
• Advance Security option— You will be prompted for accessing root shell. Enter Yes at the prompt to
enable root shell access. Enter No to disable root shell access.
• Web Interface Root Password—Enter and confirm the password used for the default root administrator.
This is the account used to log in to the Prime Infrastructure web user interface for the first time and set
up other user accounts.

Step 6 Select Yes to proceed with the installation, or select No to re-enter high availability options.
Step 7 When you are done entering these values, the installer application tests the network configuration parameters
you have entered. If the tests are successful, it begins installing Prime Infrastructure.
Step 8 When the installation is complete, the appliance reboots and you are presented with a login prompt.
Step 9 Log in to the virtual machine using the “admin” username and password that you specified in Step 4.
Step 10 Run the ncs status command (see the section Check Prime Infrastructure Server Status in the latest Cisco
Prime Infrastructure User Guide) to verify that the processes have restarted. You should see the following
process statuses:
• All Processes are up and running.

How to Upgrade From Previous Releases of Prime Infrastructure

You can upgrade the following versions of Prime Infrastructure to 3.8:
• Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.7.1
• Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.7
• Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.6 update 2
• Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.6 update 1
• Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.6

If your existing Prime Infrastructure is 3.6.x or 3.7.x, and your upgrade path contains 3.4.x or earlier versions,
then you cannot in-line upgrade that server to Prime Infrastructure 3.8 due to security vulnerabilities in the
underlying Red Hat 6 installation. You will need to take a backup of the Prime Infrastructure 3.6.x or 3.7.x
server, deploy a fresh Prime Infrastructure 3.8 server, and restore that backup into the Prime Infrastructure
3.8 server.

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 How to Perform an Inline Upgrade

Note Setting the hostname using hostnamectl changes the uppercase letters to lowercase. Although Redhat 7 and
CentOS 7 provide hostnamectl to set the hostname permanently, the real hostname will only be lowercase
even if the users specify any uppercase letters.

If you are running multiple versions of Prime Infrastructure from which you want to migrate data, see Migrate
Data From Previous Releases of Prime Infrastructure, on page 17.
Remember that backups can only be restored to a new Prime Infrastructure server that is the same size or
bigger than your previous server. SeeHow to Scale Prime Infrastructure, on page 5.
Before you upgrade from Operations Center 3.6.X or 3.7.x to 3.8, make sure you upgrade any Prime
Infrastructure instances that are managed in Operations Center from Prime Infrastructure 3.6.X or 3.7.x to
Prime Infrastructure 3.8
To back up your data from a previous supported version of Prime Infrastructure, follow these steps:

Procedure

Step 1 If you have not already done so: Set up a remote backup repository for the Prime Infrastructure version you
are currently running. For details, see the section Using Remote Backup Repositories in the latest Cisco Prime
Infrastructure Administrator Guide.
Step 2 Take an application backup of the Prime Infrastructure version you are currently running, and store the backup
in the remote repository. For details, see the section Perform an Immediate Application Backup Using the
CLI in the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure Administrator Guide.
Step 3 Verify the integrity of the backup as explained in .Before You Migrate Your Data, on page 16

What to do next
You can upgrade Prime Infrastructure using either of the following methods:
• Perform an inline upgrade of existing 3.6.x and 3.7.x system—See How to Perform an Inline Upgrade,
on page 14.
• Restore data from backup on running system—See Before You Migrate Your Data, on page 16.

How to Perform an Inline Upgrade

Inline upgrade is simpler than system migration, and requires no new hardware. Prime Infrastructure 3.8
supports inline upgrade from Prime Infrastructure 3.6.x, and 3.7.x.
Prime Infrastructure supports only the upgrading of secondary server from 3.6.x and 3.7.x to 3.8. To pair HA
with primary server in Prime Infrastructure version 3.8, you must either install a new secondary server from
the Prime Infrastructure 3.8 OVA image or upgrade from 3.6.x and 3.7.x to 3.8 using the upgrade bundle file
and integrate it with the primary server for high availability. For details, see Install Prime Infrastructure on a
Virtual Machine, on page 11.
The following steps explain how to upgrade from primary Prime Infrastructure 3.6.x, and 3.7.x to Prime
Infrastructure 3.8.

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 How to Perform an Inline Upgrade

Procedure

Step 1 Set up a remote backup repository for the Prime Infrastructure version you are currently running. For details,
see the section Use a Remote Backup Repository in the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure Administrator Guide.
Step 2 Take an application backup of the Prime Infrastructure version you are currently running, and store the backup
in the remote repository. For details, see the section Perform an Immediate Application Backup Using the
CLI in the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure Administrator Guide.
Step 3 Verify the integrity of the backup as explained in Before You Migrate Your Data.
Step 4 Remove any existing High Availability configuration from your primary Prime Infrastructure server. You
can do this using either of the following options:
• Launch Prime Infrastructure, choose Administration > Settings > High Availability > HA
Configuration, and click Remove. Ensure the configuration mode changes to “HA Not Configured.”
• Ensure the primary server is the active Prime Infrastructure server, go to the admin console on the primary
server and run the ncs ha remove command.

Step 5 Move backup files (all files with the tar.gz extension) from the /localdisk directory to another server and
ensure that /localdisk has 80% free space. For details, see the sections copy and delete commands and show
disks command in the latest Command Reference Guide for Cisco Prime Infrastructure.
Please ensure that /tmp folder has 80% free space for the upgrade to complete successfully.

Step 6 Download the upgrade bundle PI-Upgrade-36x_37x_to_3.8.0.0.310.tar.gz from Cisco.com and verify the
integrity using its checksum listed on Cisco.com.
Step 7 Copy the verified upgrade file to the default repository:
Example:

admin# copy source

disk
:/defaultRepo

Where:
• source is the upgrade file’s URL, path and filename (for example:
FTP://<YourFTPServer>/(PI-Upgrade-36x_37x_to_3.8.0.0.310.tar.gz)
• diskis the disk and path to the local defaultRepo.

Step 8 Ensure the current version of Prime Infrastructure is 3.6.x, and 3.7.x.
Step 9 Ensure the local repository (defaultRepo) contains no backup files.
Step 10 Stop the Prime Infrastructure server by entering the command ncs stop
Step 11 It is recommended to run the application upgrade from the console. For a virtual appliance, you can run the
application upgrade from the VM console. For a physical appliance, you can run the application upgrade from
the KVM, VGA, or serial console. (If you are using the serial console, make sure baud rate is configured to
9600
Example:

admin# application upgrade PI-Upgrade-36x_37x_to_3.8.0.0.310.tar.gz defaultRepo

This step can take several hours to complete, depending on the size of the application database.

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 Before You Migrate Your Data

Step 12 When the upgrade is complete:

• Verify that the application is running by entering the ncs status command in the admin console.
• Instruct users to clear the browser cache on all client machines that accessed an older version of Prime
Infrastructure before they try to connect to the upgraded Prime Infrastructure server.
• If you were using external AAA (RADIUS or TACACS) before the upgrade, see the section Renew AAA
Settings After Installing a New Prime Infrastructure Version in the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure
Administrator Guide.
• If you are using Prime Infrastructure to manage Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers, see Resynchronize
WLC Configurations after Migration
• Synchronize your devices as explained in the sectin Synchronize Devices in the latest Cisco Prime
Infrastructure User Guide.

Note When you upgrade from Prime Infrastructure version 3.6.x & 3.7.x to 3.8 that uses two NICs,
network outage occurs post the upgrade. This can be avoided by performing the following steps:
You must not add 2 NICs before the first power up of deployment. Also, adding 2 NICs at the same
time is not recommended.
• Login to VMware vSphere.
• Choose the Virtual Machine where the Dual NIC has to be configured.
• Power off the Virtual Machine.
• Choose edit settings and then add the second NIC.
• Turn on the Virtual Machine.

Note When customer runs Virtual Machine with two network interfaces, after installation of the
patch/upgrade, the Prime instance will reboot automatically.
We recommend you to check the network weather the MAC address and network interface match
with each other and manually change if there is a mismatch.

Before You Migrate Your Data

You should check the validity of your Prime Infrastructure backup data by setting up an additional Prime
Infrastructure server (either a spare Prime Infrastructure appliance or a new Prime Infrastructure virtual
machine) and perform the restore operation as explained in Restore an Application Backup in the Cisco Prime
Infrastructure Administrator Guide. If you do not have an additional Prime Infrastructure system to validate
the backup, take at least two backups to reduce the risk of losing data.
If the restore operation does not work, or there are problems with the backed up image, try taking another
backup from a production system, or try restoring from an earlier Prime Infrastructure backup.
If you cannot create a verified backup before installing this version of Prime Infrastructure, open a support
case with Cisco TAC.

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 Migrate Data From Previous Releases of Prime Infrastructure

Migrate Data From Previous Releases of Prime Infrastructure

You can migrate from the following 3.6.x, and 3.7.x Prime Infrastructure versions to Prime Infrastructure 3.8
:
• Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.7.1
• Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.7
• Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.6 update 2
• Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.6 update 1
• Cisco Prime Infrastructure 3.6

If you are running multiple previous releases of Prime Infrastructure (for example, you are running version
3.6.x or 3.7.x), you must select one version from which to restore data. You cannot restore data from more
than one Prime Infrastructure version. To combine data from multiple Prime Infrastructure versions:
1. Perform the restore operation for one Prime Infrastructure system running a previous Prime Infrastructure
version.
2. Export your device inventory and maps from other Prime Infrastructure systems and import the information
into the Prime Infrastructure 3.6 system.

See Before You Migrate Your Data before you start the following steps to restore your data from Prime
Infrastructure 3.6.x, and 3.7.x to your newly installed Prime Infrastructure 3.8 server:

Procedure

Step 1 Configure the new Prime Infrastructure host to use the same remote backup repository as the old host. For
details, see Use a Remote Backup Repository in the Cisco Prime Infrastructure Administrator Guide.
Step 2 Restore the application backup on the remote repository to the new host, as explained in Restore an Application
Backup in the Cisco Prime Infrastructure Administrator Guide.
Step 3 When the process is complete:
• Instruct users to clear the browser cache on all client machines that accessed an older version of Prime
Infrastructure before they try to connect to the upgraded/restored Prime Infrastructure server.
• If you are using Prime Infrastructure to manage Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers, see Resynchronize
WLC Configurations after Migration, on page 18.
• Synchronize your devices as explained in Synchronize Devices in the Cisco Prime Infrastructure User
Guide.

Step 4 After the new Prime Infrastructure 3.8 server is operational, decommission your previous server.

Assurance Data after Migration

After restoring Prime Infrastructure 3.6.x, and 3.7.x on a new Prime Infrastructure 3.8 virtual machine or
hardware appliance, your Assurance license is automatically applied to the new server.

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 Resynchronize WLC Configurations after Migration

When you move your data to Prime Infrastructure 3.8, the following Assurance data is not migrated:
• Raw NetFlow information
• Custom NetFlow reports
• Packet capture files
• Processed non-aggregated data, such as PFR data and URLs

5-minute, 1-hour, and 1-day aggregated data is migrated from Prime Infrastructure 3.6.x, and 3.7.x to 3.8.

Resynchronize WLC Configurations after Migration

After restoring Prime Infrastructure 3.6.x, and 3.7.x backup on a new Prime Infrastructure3.8, your server’s
records of Cisco Wireless LAN Controller configurations might be out of sync with the configurations stored
on those devices. Resynchronize them using the following steps before continuing.

Procedure

Step 1 Log in to Prime Infrastructure.

Step 2 Choose Inventory > Network Devices > Wireless Controller. Prime Infrastructure displays a list of all the
controllers it is managing, including all Cisco WLCs.
Step 3 Select a device, then click Sync.
Step 4 Repeat steps 2 and 3 for all your other WLCs.

Post-Installation Tasks
Follow the instructions in this section once you have finished installing Prime Infrastructure.
Log in to the Prime Infrastructure User Interface, on page 18
Get Started Using Prime Infrastructure, on page 19

Log in to the Prime Infrastructure User Interface

We strongly recommend you use signed certificates to ensure secure connections between clients and the
Prime Infrastructure server. For information about creating a signed certificate, see Import CA-Signed
Certificates in the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure Administrator Guide.
Follow these steps to log in to the Prime Infrastructure user interface through a web browser:

Procedure

Step 1 Launch one of the Supported Browsers (see Understand System Requirements, on page 2) on a different
computer from the one on which you installed and started Prime Infrastructure.
Step 2 In the browser’s address line, enter https://ipaddress, where ipaddress is the IP address of the server on which
you installed Prime Infrastructure. The Prime Infrastructure user interface displays the Login window.

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 Get Started Using Prime Infrastructure

When you access Prime Infrastructure for the first time, some browsers will display a warning that the site is
untrusted. When this happens, follow the prompts to add a security exception and download the self-signed
certificate from the Prime Infrastructure server. After you complete this procedure, the browser will accept
the Prime Infrastructure server as a trusted site in all future login attempts.

Step 3 Enter the root administrator username and password, as specified in Set Up Prime Infrastructure on a Virtual
Machine or Physical Appliance, on page 12
Step 4 Click Login to log in to Prime Infrastructure. The user interface is now active and available for use. The home
page appears.
If any licensing problems occur, a message appears in an alert box. If you have an evaluation license, the
number of days until the license expires is shown. You are also alerted to any expired licenses. You have the
option to go directly to the Administration > Licenses page to address these problems.

Step 5 To ensure system security, choose Administration > Users, Roles & AAA > Change Password to change
the password for the root administrator.
To exit the user interface, close the browser page or click Logout in the top-right corner of the page. Exiting
a Prime Infrastructure user interface session does not shut down Prime Infrastructure on the server.
If a system administrator stops the Prime Infrastructure server during your Prime Infrastructure user interface
session, your session ends, and the browser displays this message: “The page cannot be displayed.” Your
session does not re-associate to Prime Infrastructure when the server restarts. You must start a new Prime
Infrastructure session.

Get Started Using Prime Infrastructure

After you install Prime Infrastructure, you must perform additional tasks to begin managing your network. If
you are an administrator, see the following sections in the latest Cisoc Prime Infrastructure Administrator
Guide:
• Configure Data Sources for Cisco Prime Infrastructure With Assurance, including enable NetFlow and
Performance Agent.
• How to Manage Disk Space Issues on Prime Infrastructure servers.
• Renew AAA Settings After Installing a New Prime Infrastructure Version
• Prime Infrastructure Software Updates

For information about installing the Cisco Plug and Play Application, see the Cisco Plug and Play Application
Solutions Guide.
Users should complete the tasks listed in the chapter Get Started with Prime Infrastructure chapter in the
latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure User Guide . After you complete these tasks, you are ready to start monitoring
and configuring your network.

Reference Information
The following sections provide reference information about Prime Infrastructure and its support options.
• Ports Used by Prime Infrastructure and Assurance, on page 20

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 Ports Used by Prime Infrastructure and Assurance

• Remove the Prime Infrastructure Virtual Appliance, on page 22

• Navigation and Documentation Reference, on page 22
• Related Documentation, on page 23
• Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request, on page 23

Ports Used by Prime Infrastructure and Assurance

The below table lists the ports used by Prime Infrastructure and Assurance. These ports must be open in
firewalls if you are using these services.

Table 7: Ports Used by Prime Infrastructure and Assurance

Port Protocol Direction Usage

7 TCP/UDP Server to endpoints Endpoint discovery via ICMP

20, 21 TCP Bidirectional server/devices FTP transfer of files to and from devices

Server to Cisco.com FTP download of files from Cisco.com

22 TCP Server to endpoints To initiate SSH connection to endpoints during

troubleshooting processes

Client to server To connect to the Prime Infrastructure server

23 TCP Server to devices Telnet communication with devices

25 TCP Server to SMTP server SMTP email routing

49 TCP/UDP Server to TACACS server Authenticate users using TACACS

53 TCP/UDP Server to DNS server DNS

69 UDP Devices to server TFTP

80 HTTP Server to devices Provisioning of Nexus devices

161 UDP Server to devices SNMP polling

162 TCP/UDP Endpoints to server SNMP Trap receiver port

443 TCP Client to server Browser access to Prime Infrastructure using

HTTPS (enabled by default).

443 TCP Server to cisco.com To check for software updates between the
Prime Infrastructure server and cisco.com.

443 TCP Prime Infrastructure to Cisco Device, Groups, Maps, CMX migration to DNA
DNA Center server Center.

514 UDP Devices to server Syslog server

830 TCP Prime Infrastructure to Device To open the NETCONF port for communication

1099 TCP/UDP AAA server to server RMI registry

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 Ports Used by Prime Infrastructure and Assurance

Port Protocol Direction Usage

1522 TCP/UDP Primary to secondary server, To configure high availability database

Secondary to primary server connection between the primary and secondary
Prime Infrastructure

1645 UDP Server to RAS Authenticate Prime Infrastructure users via

RADIUS Remote Access Server
1646 RAS to server

1812 Server to RAS

1813 RAS to server

4444 TCP AAA server to server RMI server

8078 TCP Client to Server Browser access to Prime Infrastructure via

HTTPS to the Cisco DNA Center Coexistence
Tool

8080 TCP Devices (Cisco Wireless SSL (HTTPS) port for receiving Wireless Client
Controllers version 8.6 or Health Metrics from WLC devices
higher) to Server

8082 TCP Client to server Health Monitor web interface, Apache/Tomcat

JSP engine

8085 TCP Client to server Used by the Health Monitor process to check
network bandwidth speed between Primary and
Secondary servers, when the user executes
readiness test under High Availability

8087 TCP Client to server Secondary server software update page

9991 UDP Devices to server NetFlow data receiver

9992 TCP Lync server to Prime Lync data receiver

Infrastructure server

10022 to TCP Devices to server Range of ports used for passive FTP file
10041 transfers (controller backups, device
configurations, report retrieval, and so on)

110116 TCP Endpoints to server Plain text dispatcher port for the Plug and Play
Gateway

11012 SSL dispatcher port for the Plug and Play

Gateway

11013 Plain text plug and play port

11014 SSL port for the Plug and Play Gateway

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 Remove the Prime Infrastructure Virtual Appliance

Port Protocol Direction Usage

20830 TCP Devices to Coral Coral accepts TDL based telemetry including
AP and client data from devices. (Specific to
17.12 Cisco Catalyst 9800 Wireless
Controllers.)

616177 TCP Server to endpoints SSL port for Java Message Service connections
6
Used when the Plug and Play Gateway is integrated with the Prime Infrastructure server.
7
Used by the Prime Infrastructure Plug And Play Gateway only.

Remove the Prime Infrastructure Virtual Appliance

Removing Prime Infrastructure using the following method will permanently delete all data on the server,
including server settings and local backups. You will be unable to restore your data unless you have a remote
backup. For other methods of removal, see How to Remove Prime Infrastructure in the latest Cisco Prime
Infrastructure Admin Guide .

Procedure

Step 1 In the VMware vSphere client, right-click the Prime Infrastructure virtual appliance.
Step 2 Power off the virtual appliance.
Step 3 Click Delete from Disk to remove the Prime Infrastructure virtual appliance.

Navigation and Documentation Reference

This section provides information about navigational paths to access Prime Infrastructure features, and the
details of the chapters where the features are covered in the latest Cisco Prime Infrastructure User Guide and
the Cisco Prime Infrastructure Administrator Guide.

Table 8: Navigation and Documentation Reference

Task Navigation in Cisco Prime Chapter in Cisco Prime Infrastructure

Infrastructure Guides

Adding licenses Administration > Licenses and Licenses and Software Updates in the
Software Updates > Licenses Administrator Guide

Managing Users Administration > Users > Users, User Permissions and Device Access
Roles & AAA in the Administrator Guide

Discovering your network Inventory > Device Management > Add and Organize Devices in the User
Discovery Guide

Setting up virtual domains Administration > Users > Virtual User Permissions and Device Access
Domains in the Administrator Guide

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 Related Documentation

Task Navigation in Cisco Prime Chapter in Cisco Prime Infrastructure

Infrastructure Guides

Using monitoring Dashboard > Overview > General Get Started With Cisco Prime
dashboards Infrastructure in the User Guide

Using templates for Configuration > Templates > Create Templates to Automate Device
configuring and monitoring Features & Technologies or Monitor Configuration Changes in the User
> Monitoring Tools > Monitoring Guide
Policies

Viewing alarms Monitor > Monitoring Tools > Monitor Alarms and Events in the User
Alarms and Events Guide

Maintaining device Inventory > Device Management > Manage Device Configuration Files in
configurations Configuration Archive the User Guide

Reconfiguring devices that Configuration > Plug and Play > Use Plug and Play to Deploy New
will be added to your Dashboard Devices in the User Guide
network in the future

Related Documentation
The Cisco Prime Infrastructure Documentation Overview lists all documentation available for Prime
Infrastructure:

Note We sometimes update the documentation after original publication. Therefore, you should also review the
documentation on Cisco.com for any updates.

Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

For information on obtaining documentation, submitting a service request, and gathering additional information,
see the monthly What’s New in Cisco Product Documentation , which also lists all new and revised Cisco
technical documentation, at:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/general/whatsnew/whatsnew.html
Subscribe to the What’s New in Cisco Product Documentation as an RSS feed and set content to be delivered
directly to your desktop using a reader application. The RSS feeds are a free service. Cisco currently supports
RSS Version 2.0.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and
other countries. To view a list of Cisco trademarks, go to this URL: www.cisco.com go trademarks. Third-party
trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply
a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. (1721R)
Any Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and phone numbers used in this document are not intended to be actual
addresses and phone numbers. Any examples, command display output, network topology diagrams, and

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 other figures included in the document are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any use of actual IP addresses
or phone numbers in illustrative content is unintentional and coincidental.

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© 2020 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.