CH
A

P

T

E

R
16-1
User
Guide

for

the

Cisco

Application

Networking

Manager

5.2
OL-26572-01
16
Using
Configuration

Building

Blocks
Date:
3/

28/12
Note
Beginning
with

ANM

software

Version

5.1,

the

building

block

feature

by

default

is

hidden.

If

you

have
used
the

building

block

feature

in

the

past

and

want

to

continuing

using

it

after

upgrading

to

ANM

5.1,
you
must

enable

it

(see

the

“Enabling

the

Building

Block

Feature”

section

on

page

16-5 ).
Note
When
naming

ACE

objects

(such

as

a

real

server,

virtual

server,

parameter

map,

class

map,

health

probe,
and
so

on),

enter

an

alphanumeric

string

of

1

to

64

characters,

which

can

include

the

following

special
characters:
underscore

(_),

hyphen

(-),

dot

(.),

and

asterisk

(*)

.

Spaces

ar

e

not


al

lowed.


If
you

are

using

ANM

with

an

ACE

module

or

ACE

appliance

and

you

configure

a

named

object

at

the
ACE
CLI,

keep

in

mind

that

ANM

does

not

support

all

of

the

special

characters

that

the

ACE

CLI

allows
you
to

use

when

configuring

a

named

object.

If

you

use

special

characters

that

ANM

does

not

support,
you
may

not

be

able

to

import

or

manage

the

ACE

using

ANM.
Building
blocks

allow

authorized

users

to

create

and

design

reusable

configuration

attributes

which

can
then
be

applied

to

virtual

contexts.

The

ANM

also

allows

you

to

extract

the

configuration

of

an

existing
virtual
context

and

tag

it

as

a


building

bl

ock.
In
many

cases,

the

same

configuration

settings

can

be

used

in

several

virtual

contexts

(for

example,

it
can
offer

the

same

service

bundle

to

many

customers).

To

avoid

repeating

virtual

context

configuration
and
testing

each

time

you

create

a

virtual

context,

you

can

create

a

building

block

of

many

configuration
attributes
that

can

be

applied

to

virtual

contexts

as

appropriate

or

as

needed.
With
building

blocks,

you

can

also

create

a

variety

of

configurations

that

address

customers’

differing
needs.
The

ability

to

customize

configurations

to

customer

needs

also

allows

you

to

use

network
resources
most

efficiently.
Benefits
of

co

nfiguration

building

blocks

include:

•
You
can

est

ablish

baseline
versions
of

working

configurations.

•
Users
can

make

real-time

changes

to

configurations
and
roll

back

to

a

previously

working
configuration,
if

needed.

•
Building
blocks

can

be

extracted

from

proven,

working
configurations.

•
Building
blocks

can

be

placed

under

version
control,
with
tagged

versions

that

cannot

be

modified.