Introduction
NCC Overview
The Zyxel Nebula Control Center (NCC) is a cloud-based network management system that allows you to remotely manage and monitor Zyxel Nebula APs, Ethernet switches and security gateways. Being a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution, it provides access to the licensed software and applications on a subscription basis over the Internet.
Feature support includes:
• System accounts with different privilege levels
• Site Administrator: manage one site
• Organization Administrator: manage one or more organizations
• Multi-tenant management
• Inventory and license management
• Alerts to view events, such as when a device goes down
• Graphically monitoring individual devices
• Securely managing Nebula devices by using the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) over TLS
At the time of writing, the supported Nebula devices are NAP102, NAP203, NAP303, NAP353, NWA1123-ACv2, NWA1123-AC HD, NWA1123-AC PRO, NWA1302-AC, NSW100-10P, NSW100-28P, NSW200-28P, NSG50, NSG100 and NSG200.
NCC Versions
Zyxel offers two versions of the NCC: Nebula Professional Pack and Nebula. The professional pack requires NCC licenses and provides the whole set of features you would need or expect to manage your network. Nebula is the free version of NCC, that has limited features.
The two NCC versions are organization-based. You can create and manage either one or both Nebula Professional Pack organization(s) and Nebula free organization(s) on one account.
Nebula Professional Pack
To set up an organization with Nebula Professional Pack, you should at least have a 90-day NCC service license to manage all Nebula devices registered to the organization. To extend the license before it expires, you can register a new Nebula device that comes with a NCC service license or enter a license key and enable it in the Organization > License Management screen.
Note: If the NCC licenses of an organization expires, the NCC service will be automatically downgraded from Nebula Professional Pack to Nebula.
Nebula
With a Nebula free organization, you can manage supported devices without any NCC license. Even though you add a Nebula device that comes with a license, its license credit will not be consumed in the Nebula organization.
Note: The NCC service will be automatically upgraded from Nebula to Nebula Professional Pack when an license is activated and the number of days remaining before the license expires is greater than 90.
After logging into the NCC and selecting to manage a Nebula free organization, you will see a warning banner about feature limitations. Besides, you also see the upgrade (
) icon next to a feature, which indicates the feature is available only for Nebula Professional Pack organizations. When you click the icon, a window then displays asking you to upgrade to Nebula Professional Pack with a license key before you can use this advanced feature.
NCC Version Differences
The differences of Nebula from Nebula Professional Pack are listed below.
• Maximum limits
• Number of administrator accounts: 5
• Number of cloud authentication entries: 100
• Service limitations
• No email summary reports
• No email alerts
• No organization change logs
• No support tickets (forum and regional support still available)
• Features disabled
• Viewing the site-wide network topology
• Adding clients for a managed AP
• Cloning site settings
• Specifying login IP address ranges for an organization
• Exporting data to a CSV or XML file
Relationship between Organizations, Sites and Accounts
In the NCC, a site is a group of devices. An organization is a group of sites. To use the NCC to manage your Nebula devices, each device should be assigned to a site and the site must belong to an organization.
• A site can have multiple Nebula devices, but can only belong to one organization.
• A site can be managed by more than one site/organization administrator.
• An organization can contain multiple sites and can be managed by more than one organization administrator.
• A myZyxel.com account can be an organization administrator and/or site administrator in the NCC (see
Administrator).
• An organization administrator can manage more than one organization and use the MSP portal page to view the organization summary (see
MSP Portal).
• A site administrator can manage more than one site.
NCC Portal Overview
The NCC portal screen is divided into these parts:
• Title Bar
• Navigation Panel
• Main Screen
Title Bar
Select the organization and site you want to manage. If you create multiple organizations, select MSP Portal from the Organization drop-down list box to view your organization summary. If you need to have another organization, select Create Organization from the Organization drop-down list box to create a new organization.
MSP Portal
The MSP (Managed Services Provider) Portal option allows you to view the summary of organizations when you are managing more than one organization. Click the organization entry you want to manage and go to its SITE WIDE > Dashboard screen.
The following table describes the labels in this screen.
NCC MSP Portal
Label | Description |
Status | This shows whether the organization is online (green), has generated alerts (yellow), goes off-line (red) or has been off-line for at least six days (gray). |
Organization | This shows the descriptive name of the organization. |
Type | This shows your NCC version type. |
NCC License Status | This shows whether the license is valid (ok), will expire soon, has expired or not required (N/A). It shows Warning if the license should be renewed within one month. |
NCC License expiration (UTC) | This shows the date when the license will expire, or N/A when there is no Nebula device in the organization or this is a Nebula free organization and NCC license is not required. |
Sites | This shows the number of sites belonging to this organization. |
Devices | This shows the number of Nebula devices in this organization which are online (green), have generated alerts (yellow), go off-line (red) or have been off-line for at least six days (gray). |
NAP | This shows the number of Nebula APs connecting to the sites in this organization. |
NSW | This shows the number of Nebula switches connecting to the sites in this organization. |
NSG | This shows the number of Nebula security gateways connecting to the sites in this organization. |
Create Organization
Use this screen to create an organization before you can create a site (network) in the organization and add devices to the network in order to manage them via the NCC.
Note: You have to contact Zyxel customer support if you need to change the device owner at myZyxel or remove an Organization from the NCC. Please configure your device owners and organizations carefully. See also
License Management.
1 Click Create Organization from the Organization drop-down list box in the title bar to access this screen.
2 Enter a name for your organization.
3 If you already have one or more than one organizations under your account and you want to copy the organization settings of an existing one, select the organization name from the Copy setting from field before clicking the Create organization button.
4 Click the Create organization button to add a new organization.
Choose Organization
When you have at least one organization on your account, the following screen displays after you log in. Select the organization you want to manage now or click Create organization to add a new one.
Login Account
Click your login account at the top right hand corner of the screen to display a menu, where you can click a link to view your account profile settings, login history and active sessions, select the language you prefer, or log out of the NCC portal.
Alert
Click the alert icon to view log messages for the selected organization and site.
Navigation Panel
Use the NCC menu items to configure network management for each site, organization and/or Nebula device.
NCC Menu Summary
Level 1 | level2/level3 | Function |
SITE-WIDE | | Use these menus to view information on all Nebula managed devices that are deployed in the selected site. |
Monitor |
Dashboard | Use this menu to view device connection status and traffic summary. |
Summary Report | Use this menu to view network statistics for a site, such as bandwidth usage, power usage, top devices, top clients and/or top SSIDs. |
Map & Floor Plan | Use this menu to locate devices on the world map and even on a floor plan. |
Topology | Use this menu to view the site’s network topology. |
Configure |
General Setting | Use this menu to change the general settings for the site, such as the site name, device login password and firmware upgrade schedule. |
Alert Setting | Use this menu to set which alerts are created and emailed. You can also set the email address(es) to which an alert is sent. |
Add Device | Use this menu to register a device and add it to the site. |
AP | | Use these menus to monitor and configure the managed AP(s) by the NCC. The settings are applied when a Nebula AP is registered and attached to the selected site. |
Monitor |
Access Point | Use this menu to view the list of APs added to the site. |
Client | Use this menu to view WiFi clients which are connecting to the APs in the site. |
Event Log | Use this menu to view all events on the AP. An event is a log of something that has happened to a managed device. |
Summary Report | Use this menu to view network statistics specific to APs in the site. |
Configure |
SSIDs | Use this menu to enable and configure basic settings for SSID profiles. |
SSID Schedule | Use this menu to set whether the SSID is enabled or disabled on each day of the week. |
Authentication | Use this menu to configure WiFi security, L2 isolation, intra-BSS and walled garden settings for SSID profiles. |
Captive Portal | Use this menu to configure captive portal settings for SSID profiles. |
Radio Setting | Use this menu to configure global radio settings for all APs in the site. |
Client Steering | Use this menu to configure load balancing settings and enable smart clients steering for all APs in the site. |
Port Setting | Use this menu to enable or disable a port on the managed AP and configure the port’s VLAN settings. |
SWITCH | | Use these menus to monitor and configure the managed switch(es) by the NCC. The settings are applied when a Nebula switch is registered and attached to the selected site. |
Monitor |
Switch | Use this menu to view the list of switches added to the site. |
Client | Use this menu to view detailed information about the clients which are connecting to the switches in the site. |
Event Log | Use this menu to view all events on the switch. An event is a log of something that has happened to a managed device. |
Summary Report | Use this menu to view network statistics specific to switches in the site. |
Configure |
Switch Ports | Use this menu to view the switch port statistics and configure switch settings for the ports. |
IP filtering | Use this menu to configure the access control list in order to control access to the switches. |
RADIUS Policy | Use this menu to configure port authentication. |
PoE Schedule | Use this menu to set the schedule for switches in distributing power to powered devices. |
Switch Configuration | Use this menu to configure global switch settings, such as (R)STP, QoS, IGMP snooping, port mirroring, authentication servers, voice VLAN and DHCP white list. |
GATEWAY | | Use these menus to monitor and configure the managed security gateway(s) by the NCC. The settings are applied when a Nebula gateway is registered and attached to the selected site. |
Monitor |
Security Gateway | Use this menu to view the detailed information about a security gateway in the selected site. |
Client | Use this menu to view the connection status and detailed information about a client in the selected site. |
Event Log | Use this menu to view all events on the gateway. An event is a log of something that has happened to a managed device. |
VPN Connection | Use this menu to view status of the site-to-site VPN connections. |
Summary Report | Use this menu to view network statistics specific to the gateway in the site. |
Configure |
Interfaces Addressing | Use this menu to configure network mode, port grouping, interface address, static route and DDNS settings on the gateway. |
Firewall | Use this menu to configure firewall rules for outbound traffic, application patrol, schedule profiles and port forwarding rules for inbound traffic. |
Site-to-Site VPN | Use this menu to configure VPN rules. |
L2TP over IPSec Client | Use this menu to enable and configure L2TP VPN settings. |
Network Access Method | Use this menu to enable or disable web authentication on an interface. |
Walled Garden | Use this menu to configure walled garden web site links, |
Captive Portal | Use this menu to configure captive portal settings for each gateway interface. |
Traffic Shaping | Use this menu to configure the maximum bandwidth and load balancing. |
Security Filtering | Use this menu to enable or disable Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP) on the security gateway. |
My Authentication Server | Use this menu to configure external AD (Active Directory) server or RADIUS server that the security gateway can use in authenticating users. |
ORGANIZATION | Monitor |
Overview | Use this menu to view a list of sites belonging to the selected organization and detailed information about the devices connected to the sites. |
Change Log | Use this menu to view log messages about configuration changes in this organization. |
Configure |
Create Site | Use this menu to create a new site. |
Inventory | Use this menu to view the summary of devices which have been registered and assigned to the sites in the selected organization. |
License Management | Use this menu to view and manage your licenses. |
Setting | Use this menu to configure the security and notification settings. |
Administrator | Use this menu to view, remove or create a new administrator account for this organization. |
Cloud Authentication | Use this menu to create or remove user accounts which are allowed access to the Nebula devices via different authentication methods, such as the MAC-based authentication, captive portal or the IEEE 802.1x authentication method. |
VPN Members | Use this menu to view and manage the VPN members in the organization. |
HELP | Forum | Use this menu to go to Zyxel Nebula Forum, where you can get the latest Nebula information and have conversations with other people by posting your messages. |
Online Document | Use this menu to view the documentation for the NCC and Nebula devices. |
Support Request | Use this menu to view or submit a new eITS ticket. |
Security Policy Information | Use this menu to view information required for firewall rules to allow management traffic between the NCC and Nebula devices, such as the port number and protocol type. |
License Calculator | Use this menu to specify the number of Nebula devices and a time period to determine the license credit (device points) you should get for the NCC service within a specific time frame. |