Back at Cisco Live 2013, there was some chatter around the Insieme deal and the potential to see a new switch from Cisco during the event.  I think even Greg over at EtherealMind was hoping for some more juicy Insieme announcements at Cisco Live as well ( see post –  http://etherealmind.com/musing-predicting-what-insieme-might-announce-at-cisco-live/ )Well, what we actuall got at Cisco Live was the Nexus 7700 switch and the Gold Cisco 6608 Catalyst Switches, not the hoped for Insieme switch.

Then today I saw that there an article posted over on NetworkWorld ( http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/100213-interop-cisco-insieme-274455.html ) in regards to the Insieme Nexus 9K and Hardware Defined Networking that caught my attention. There is another article there –  http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/cisco-nexus-9000-aimed-40g –  that has some output from a 9508 switch as well.

]]>https://hugo.fryguy.net/2013/03/26/author-series-ron-fuller/Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:55:00 +0000Fryguyhttps://hugo.fryguy.net/2013/03/26/author-series-ron-fuller/

Time to continue the Author Series of posts, this time with Ron Fuller, CCIE 5851.   It is the intention of these interviews to bring a human side to the technical author.  I feel that each author has a story to share , and I wanted to provide them a way to share that story.

Author Name: Ron Fuller

Book Title: NX-OS and Cisco Nexus Switching – Next-Generation Data Center Architectures 2^nd Edition

Book Publisher: CiscoPress

Author Social Media Handle/Web Site/Public Contact: @ccie5851 ccie5851.blogspot.com

Other books authored:

NX-OS and Cisco Nexus Switching – Next-Generation Data Center Architectures 1^st Edition

Building Cisco Wireless LANs

Cisco QoS

1.       Tell us a little background on yourself; is there anything unique about you that you would like to share that people might not be aware of?

]]>https://hugo.fryguy.net/2012/04/19/cisco-nexus-show-tech-support-aka-tac-pac/Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:10:18 +0000Fryguyhttps://hugo.fryguy.net/2012/04/19/cisco-nexus-show-tech-support-aka-tac-pac/

The inevitable TAC call and the request for a Show Tech to help with the support. Normally this is not a big problem on most systems, but if you ever try this on somehting like a Nexus 7000 – it takes a loooooong time and pulls well over 100 megs of information in that file. Capturing this output to a terminal is a test of patience (lets not mention console), or even if you redirect it to the bootflash it can still take some time. Then, there is getting a 100+ meg file copied from the bootflash to your computer, etc etc etc. I did do a quick post some time ago about using GZip to compress the file – you can find that post here.
But that is not what this post is about, this post is about a command called TAC-PAC. TAC-PAC seems to be a little known command to most people who have never run into a problem and had to pull a show tech of a N7K, of for that matter any NX-OS platform. I was able to confirm this command on Nexus 7000, 5000, and 1000 as well as the SAN MDS.
So, what is TAC-PAC? It is a single command that redirects the output of show tech-support details to a file, and then automatically compresses it for you. One command – nice and simple. The only thing that you will still have to do is pull the file via FTP or so.

Recently Cisco officially announces the CCIE Data Center on their The Cisco Learning Network website – LINK. This certification track has been long rumored – probably for about 1-2 years now some of us have been waiting for the announcement.
A complete list of the written exam topics in PDF format can be found here – LINK. The Beta exam of the written will be available at Cisco Live San Diego this year if you are interested in taking it during the event, if not – you can take the beta beginning May 1 through June 14 at a cost of $50. If you pass the beta, you will recertify your existing CCIE (like any CCIE level written will) and you will be qualified to take the lab (same deal). My advice on this would be to not take it at Live, you get a free test – use the coupon wisely. If you want to take this test at Cisco Live, invest the $50. If you would rather wait for the go-live of the exam, that will be September 3, 2012.

Let me preface this post with a quick word – all the information presented here is pure speculation with a little bit of evidence to back up my speculation.  By no means is any of this a guarantee nor a near-time release for any of these modules.  This is me just presenting the information that I am able to find and sharing it with you.  Now, I am excited for some of this – and it definitely shows where the Nexus 7000 is going – so I hope that this type of information can help keep you informed on where this platform is going.  The future looks bright.

While I was doing the research on the track names for the Nexus line cards I came across a few things.  Things that we have all either assumed or have heard rumors of, but I guess now we know what is coming in the future for the Nexus 7000. First this is a listing for Silverstone – Supervisor 2 module, a little curious for sure.

The second thing that I came across was a bit more interesting to me – its a Service Module – N7K-SVC-APP-HW-1 – named after the Indian God, Agni.  What is curious is that Agni is a messenger from and to the other gods (modules), so it is aptly named.  I am guessing that this will be a 2-port module (Agni has 2-heads) similar to what the WS-X6582-2PA adapter is to the 6500. @matthewnorwood just also suggested perhaps this is an Application Load Balancer similar to the ACE30 on the Cat6k, I actually think that might be a more realistic option.(continued)

]]>https://hugo.fryguy.net/2011/07/19/nexus-7009-more-information/Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:00:38 +0000Fryguyhttps://hugo.fryguy.net/2011/07/19/nexus-7009-more-information/ &nbsp; A few months ago I did a quick post on the Nexus 7009 when it was pseudo announced (<a href="http://blog.fryguy.net/2011/04/04/the-nexus-7009-and-what-is-this-nexus-7006/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a> ).  When I was attending Cisco Live 2011 last week in Las Vegas I found out that they had a Nexus 7009 in their Data Center booth in World of Solutions for all to see.  So, I figured I would post some updated information that I was able to gather or figure out. All this information was being openly spoken in the booth, nothing here was gathered from any other resource then what I was able to hear. To recap, below is a picture of the new family member, the 7009 along side its big brothers the 7010 and the 7018.  As you can see there are some nice size differences.  The Nexus 7009 us 14RU, the 7010 21RU, and the 7018 25RU. [][2]https://hugo.fryguy.net/2011/07/05/ccie-data-center-rumored/Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:12:17 +0000Fryguyhttps://hugo.fryguy.net/2011/07/05/ccie-data-center-rumored/link. While that is all still rumors, here is what I can gather by researching available resources and taking some educated guesses on what would be on the lab.  I will also admit that this was briefly discussed at Cisco Live 2010 and that was in a session that would have the knowledge about the topic, so much of this comes from what I can read from my chicken scratch notes.  Obviously, Cisco has been working on this for some time and the maturity of the line is finally at the stage and market saturation where this certification makes sense.]]>https://hugo.fryguy.net/2011/04/04/the-nexus-7009-and-what-is-this-nexus-7006/Mon, 04 Apr 2011 12:00:52 +0000Fryguyhttps://hugo.fryguy.net/2011/04/04/the-nexus-7009-and-what-is-this-nexus-7006/Since Cisco posted that picture the other day, you know this one:

Well, since that picture was posted there has been some buzz around the chassis in the twitter feeds.  Not much is officially know about this box – but the picture above proves it does exist.  Not only that, I recall seeing a picture from Cisco Live 2011 – London where the EMC booth had one of these Nexus 7009 looking switches in their booth.  Well here is some additional information that I have located using the assumed part number of N7K-C7009
On Cisco’s website they have a MIB posted called CISCO-ENTITY-VENDORTYPE-OID-MIB.my (clicking on that MIB will allow you to view/download it – original link here ).  From what I can gather in the MIB – the Nexus 7009 will have the new Fabric-2 cards, no Fab-1 cards are even listed for this chassis.  When you search the MIB, you can find the following information:
cevChassisN7Kc7009              OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { cevChassis 932 }  — N7K-C7009 nexus-9-slot chassis
cevBackplaneN7Kc7009                    OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { cevBackplane 57 }       — MosPort9 N7K-C7009 Nexus-9-slot-backplane
cevFanN7Kc7009FanTray           OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { cevFan 129 } — N7K-C7009-FAN  Trinacria-fan-nexus9slot
cevN7Kc7009Fab2         OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { cevModuleN7KType 14 }           — dijon9 N7K-C7009-FAB2 Fabric for Nexus7000 9slot boxster
Bonus information contained within the MIB is information on the, yet unannounced, Nexus 7006!
Granted, this is only speculation and such – but the MIB information matches what the 7009 has as well.  Only time will tell if this is true.
cevChassisN7Kc7006              OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { cevChassis 1054 } — Nexus7000 6slot elsie n7k chassis N7K-C7006
cevBackplaneN7Kc7006                    OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { cevBackplane 60 }       — Nexus7000 6slot elsie n7k backplane N7K-C7006
cevFanN7Kc7006FanTray           OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { cevFan 147 } — N7K-C7006-FAN  fan for nexus 6slot-chassis
I also did some searching and found this list of Nexus 7009 Part Numbers, and my assumed descriptions (in blue) of what they are.
N7K-C7009-ACC-KIT    Nexus 7009 Accessory Kit
N7K-C7009-BSK             Nexus 7009 Bottom Support Kit
N7K-C7009-CAB-TOP    Nexus 7009 Top section Cable Management?
N7K-C7009-CM-BLK      Nexus 7009 Cable Management Blank?  Unknown
N7K-C7009-F-BLANK  Nexus 7009 Fabric Blank Interface ?
N7K-C7009-FAB-2        Nexus 7009 Fabric 2 Card
N7K-C7009-FAN            Nexus 7009 Fan Tray
N7K-C7009-FD-MB       Nexus 7009 Front Dook Kit
N7K-C7009-L                  Nexus 7009 License
N7K-C7009-RMK           Nexus 7009 Rack Mount Kit
N7K-C7009-SHPPKG    Nexus 7009 Shipping package
N7K-C7009-XL               Nexus 7009 XL
L-N7K-C7009-XL           Nexus 7009 Scalable Feature License (allows XL featuers without requiring a hardware module change)
Another part-number that I have found that is NOT referenced on the Cisco site is this 5.6KW power supply. Wonder if the 7009 can support a smaller power supply, or this is for the Nexus 7006
N7K-AC-5.6KW         5.6kW AC Power Supply