Cisco AI Pods Repository Guide

This repository contains automation and runbooks for Cisco AI Pods infrastructure across Intersight, storage, OpenShift, and observability workflows.

Table of Contents

• Cisco AI Pods Repository Guide
  • Table of Contents
  • Overview
  • Primary Workstreams
  • Repository Layout
  • Runbook Documents
  • Environment Preparation
  • Quick Start Workflow
  • Common Commands
  • Troubleshooting and Operations
  • Architecture
  • Support and Contribution

Overview

The repository provides centralized Ansible-based automation for complete Cisco AI Pods infrastructure deployment across:

• Intersight and UCS - Policy provisioning, resource pool management, and server profile deployment
• Everpure Storage - FlashArray and FlashBlade configuration with Portworx CSI integration
• Red Hat OpenShift - Cluster installation, authentication, certificates, GitOps, and ArgoCD
• Splunk Observability - Full-stack visibility and monitoring integration

All workflows use centralized playbooks in playbooks/ with tag-based conditional execution and variable auto-loading from host_vars/.

Primary Workstreams

All workflows execute through centralized Ansible playbooks from the repository root:

1. Full Stack Deployment (playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml)

   • Orchestrates all domains in deployment order
   • Automatically loads variables from host_vars/ subdirectories
   • Supports --tags for selective execution

2. Intersight and UCS (playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml --tags intersight)

   • Guide: docs/intersight.md
   • Includes policy, pool, and profile provisioning

3. Everpure Storage and Portworx (playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml --tags everpure,portworx)

   • Guide: docs/everpure.md

• Role details: roles/everpure/README.md
• Role details: roles/portworx_csi/README.md

4. OpenShift Platform (playbooks/deploy_openshift.yml or playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml --tags openshift)

   • Guide: docs/openshift.md
   • Includes authentication, certificates, GitOps, and ArgoCD

5. Splunk Observability (playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml --tags observability)

   • Guide: docs/splunk_observability.md

• Role details: roles/splunk_observability/README.md
• Full-stack monitoring and observability integration

Repository Layout

Top-level structure:

Cisco-AI-Pods/
  docs/                          # All documentation
    intersight.md
    openshift.md
    everpure.md
    splunk_observability.md
    guide_cisco_ai_pods_runbook.md
    guide_prepare_the_environment.md
    guide_troubleshooting.md
  playbooks/                     # Centralized Ansible playbooks
    deploy_ai_pod.yml            # Full stack orchestration
    deploy_openshift.yml         # OpenShift only
    deploy_storage.yml           # Storage/Portworx only
    deploy_intersight_ucs.yml    # Intersight only
    deploy_observability.yml     # Splunk Observability only
  roles/                         # Ansible roles
    intersight_*/
    openshift_*/
    everpure/
    portworx_csi/
    splunk_observability/
  host_vars/                     # Environment variables (auto-loaded)
    everpure/
    intersight/
    openshift/
    splunk_observability/
  examples/                      # Example variable templates
  schema/                        # YAML schema for validation
  requirements.txt               # Python dependencies
  requirements.yaml              # Ansible collection dependencies

Runbook Documents

All documentation is in the docs/ folder:

• Start here: docs/guide_prepare_the_environment.md — Install dependencies and prepare your environment
• Main runbook: docs/guide_cisco_ai_pods_runbook.md — Complete deployment workflow and playbook usage
• Troubleshooting: docs/guide_troubleshooting.md — Cross-component triage and solutions
• Domain-specific guides:
  • docs/intersight.md — Intersight/UCS provisioning
  • docs/openshift.md — OpenShift deployment
  • docs/everpure.md — Storage configuration
  • docs/splunk_observability.md — Observability integration

Environment Preparation

Prepare tools and dependencies first:

1. Follow docs/guide_prepare_the_environment.md.
2. Install Python dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Install Ansible collections:

   ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yaml

Quick Start Workflow

1. Prepare Environment

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt
ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yaml

# Copy example variables to host_vars/ and customize for your environment
mkdir -p host_vars
cp -r examples/intersight host_vars/
cp -r examples/openshift host_vars/
cp -r examples/everpure host_vars/
cp -r examples/splunk_observability host_vars/

2. Deploy Full Stack (All Domains)

ansible-playbook playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml

3. Deploy Specific Domains (Optional)

Intersight and UCS only:

ansible-playbook playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml --tags intersight

Storage and Portworx only:

ansible-playbook playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml --tags everpure,portworx

OpenShift only:

ansible-playbook playbooks/deploy_openshift.yml

Splunk Observability only:

ansible-playbook playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml --tags observability

For detailed procedures, see docs/guide_cisco_ai_pods_runbook.md.

Common Commands

Run playbook in dry-run mode (check mode):

ansible-playbook playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml --check

Run with verbose output for debugging:

ansible-playbook playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml -vvv

List all available tags:

ansible-playbook playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml --list-tags

Run a specific role or tag:

ansible-playbook playbooks/deploy_ai_pod.yml --tags certificates

Troubleshooting and Operations

• Cross-component triage: docs/guide_troubleshooting.md
• Domain-specific issues:
  • Intersight: docs/intersight.md
  • OpenShift: docs/openshift.md
  • Storage: docs/everpure.md
  • Observability: docs/splunk_observability.md
• Keep host_vars/ configurations and documentation synchronized as environments evolve
• Variables are auto-loaded from host_vars/ subdirectories at runtime — no manual file copying needed

Architecture

The repository uses a centralized Ansible architecture:

• Playbooks (playbooks/deploy_*.yml) — Orchestrate roles in dependency order
• Roles (roles/*/) — Task implementations for each domain
• Variables (host_vars/<domain>/) — Environment-specific configuration auto-loaded at runtime
• Tags — Control which roles execute via --tags flag
• Examples (examples/) — Template variable files for reference
• Schema (schema/) — YAML validation for configuration files

For detailed architecture information, see docs/guide_cisco_ai_pods_runbook.md.

Support and Contribution

For issues, feature requests, or contributions, please use the GitHub repository issue tracker.

For detailed deployment procedures, consult the documentation in docs/.