Cisco Cisco Enhanced Device Interface 2.0 Data Sheet
Data Sheet
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Cisco Enhanced Device Interface 2.2
Product Overview
Cisco
®
Enhanced Device Interface (EDI) is an external implementation of the network element
interface at these levels:
●
Command-line interface (CLI)
●
Extensible Markup Language programmatic interface (XML PI).
●
GUI applications
The CLI interface, a CLI-like command emulator with added features enhanced for usability, allows
the user to manage multiple network elements from a single location, individually or as a group.
The exposed CLI is based on the CLI of the managed network element; in this release, the Cisco
IOS
®
Software, Cisco Catalyst
®
OS, and Cisco PIX
®
OS CLIs are supported.
The XML PI in Cisco EDI provides a programmatic interface to be used by management
applications for configuring Cisco devices. The programmatic interface has a well-defined set of
operations based on the IETF NETCONF Internet draft along with a supporting data model defined
using the XML schema language. Customers who configure or monitor devices with scripting tools
and do not wish to use the data model can continue to use CLI commands as payload in the
management operations supported over the XML PI.
The GUI applications help enable users to view and edit device configurations, perform macro
command operations, translate commands, analyze commands, and create CLI models.
Key Features and Benefits
The goal of Cisco EDI is to increase productivity of both the end user and the management
application developer in the areas of device configuration and troubleshooting. Having an external
device interface supporting multiple Cisco operating systems (Cisco IOS Software, Cisco PIX OS,
and Cisco Catalyst OS initially) simplifies deployment because it eliminates the need for device OS
upgrades and provides consistency in management information exchange with the devices. Cisco
EDI provides comprehensive device configuration coverage, given its ability to “learn” the CLI of
the device. This feature makes it possible to position Cisco EDI as a single point of access to the
network elements, thus minimizing if not completely eliminating the need to access devices by
other means—often the cause of data synchronization loss between management applications and
the network elements.
Device CLI information and knowledge are included in the Cisco EDI distribution software; it also is
available to Cisco EDI users for download from Cisco.com at
http://www.cisco.com/cgi-
bin/tablebuild.pl/E-DI-2.0
. Ongoing incremental support is provided through incremental device
updates (IDUs), which also are available through Cisco.com.