Running Configuration Compliance audits with the Audit and Compliance tool

Learn how to quickly run configuration compliance audits across all of your Cisco Meraki networks.

Written by Boundless

Updated 3 years ago

Overview

Boundless Audit and Compliance (A&C) is an advanced compliance toolkit that lets you quickly audit your networks against predefined compliances rules.

You can define constraints on settings such as Security rules and content filters, Configuration settings, Naming conventions around networks and devices, and also ensure any Tag compliance to keep your tagging organized.

Follow this article to learn about how the Boundless Audit and Compliance Configuration tool works.

Prerequisites

Initial setup
Before using the Boundless Audit and Compliance tool, you must have previously setup your Boundless account and synchronized the Boundless Platform with your Meraki organization.

Using the Audit and Compliance Configuration Tool

Step 1 | Select your Compliance rule se

On the Network Management Dashboard, tap on the Audit and Compliance section.

Then, select what kind of rule set you want to create - in this case it will be a Configuration rule set, but you can eventually choose amongst naming conventions, tags or security rule sets.

This will open an initial page, where you can find a summary of your previously deployed security rule sets, and also create new ones.

Note that if you are using the application for the first time, the summary will look empty.

Finally, click on the New Rule Set button (on the right side of your screen).

Step 2 | Create a Configuration rule set

Once you've gone through the first step, you'll get redirected to the Configuration Rule Set template. Here, you'll just need to fill in the fields as per your requirements.

Rule set name
First of all, enter a name for your rule set.

We recommend you to be as specific as possible on your naming conventions, or to use nomenclatures to easily track the deployed rule sets and quickly understand what each of them contains. This will save you some time in the long run.

Targets
Select the network you'd like to audit. You can either select all networks, or type the name of the networks you'd like to audit.

Define you configuration rule set
The Audit and Compliance Configuration template includes all network configuration parameters available through the Meraki API.
You can choose to define:
- Network rule sets
- Security and SD WAN rule sets
- Switch rule sets
- Wireless rule sets

You can combine as many configuration settings from different categories within one same Configuration Rule Set.
Look at it as if you were creating a FlexTemplate - just, instead of directly deploying to your networks, you'll be using it to run an automated network audit.

Save your Rule Set
Once you have your template ready, click on Save Changes and go back to the initial page.

Step 3 | Run a Compliance audit

Once the Configuration rule set is created the system will automatically audit your organization and alert you if any network isn't compliant with the new rule set.

The rule sets are a dynamic asset. This means that after deployed, they will continue to audit your Meraki organization and launch an alert when non-compliant changes take place.

When that happens, you can use the Boundless FlexTemplates for rapidly applying the necessary configuration changes to one or more networks.

You can also dismiss selected network alerts by clicking on the trash icon (on the right of the screen) or the dismiss button (included in each individual alert report).

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