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.

Well, Day two of Cisco Live 2011 for me (for some this is your first day as you are still arriving).

For me, I am taking an 8 hour Techtorial on Next Generation Data Center Infrastructure TECDCT-8001.  This is a paid seminar that has covered some great material – and probably help to generate some future blog posts as well!

Mike Herbert took the first part of the class and did a great review of some of the changes that have happened in the data center over the past few years. From the evolving 3-tier architecture with Spanning Tree and such all the way to Fabric Path and TRILL.  Nothing was really in depth but was a great setting of the stage for the day.  Some of the things that I liked was the discussion on the Data Center Standards and where different things are in the flow.  Another nice discussion was data center cabling and the potential future of cabling.  From the traditional home-run cabling that many of us use today to the discussion of top of rack (TOR) and end of row (EOR) drivers with regards to 10g and beyond cabling.  Problems discussed where primarily the cost of running those lengths of cables to the cross-talk potentials due to the power required to drive the data.  Oh yeah, Mike gets some bonus points for mentioning LISP during the presentation as well.

]]>https://hugo.fryguy.net/2011/04/20/cisco-live-2011-schedule/Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:22:21 +0000Fryguyhttps://hugo.fryguy.net/2011/04/20/cisco-live-2011-schedule/ Saturday Fly and check in at Mandalay Bay as well as register for the event Sunday 8:00 – 17:00 TECDCT-8001 Next Generation Data Center Infrastructure Monday 9:30 – 11:30 BRKARC-3470 Cisco Nexus 7000 Switch Architecture 12:30 – 14:30 BRKARC-3471 Cisco NXOS Software – Architecture 15:00 – 17:00 BRKRST-2335 IS-IS Network Design and Deployment Tuesday 8:00 – 9:30 BRKRST-3045 LISP – A Next Generation Networking Architecture 10:00 – 11:00 GENKEY-4700 Keynote and Welcome Address 12:30 – 14:30
15:00 – 15:30 BRKCOM-1005
GENNOC-9190 UCS Systems Architecture Overview
Cisco Live NOC Tour (CCIE/NetVet) 16:00 – 18:00 BRKCRS-3144 Troubleshooting Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches Wednesday 8:00 – 10:00 BRKCOM-2006 UCS Reference Architecture for Enterprise Applications 10:30 – 11:30 GENKEY-4701 Cisco Technology Keynote 12:30 – 14:30 BRKDCT-2121 Virtual Device Context (VDC) Designing and Implementation Considerations with Nexus 16:00 – 18:00 BRKVIR-3013 Deploying and Troubleshooting the Nexus 1000V virtual switch Thursday 8:00 – 10:00 BRKCOM-1002 Data Center Architectures and Virtual Private Data Centers with UCS 10:30 – 11:30 GENDCT-4642 Town Hall: Data Center 12:00 – 14:00 BRKARC-3472 NX-OS Routing & Layer 3 Switching 14:30 – 15:30 GENKEY-4702 Closing Keynote: William Shatner 16:00 – 17:30 BRKMPL-2108 Global WAN Redesign Case Study Friday Fly home! ]]>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

So, what does this new chassis give us over its bigger brothers?  Well for one thing, SPACE!  The Nexus 7009 is only 14RU compared to the 7010 at 21RU and the 7018 at 25RU. What does that actually mean, well if you look at a standard 6509 / 6509E chassis – they are 15RU.  This new Nexus 7009 is actually 1RU smaller, nice!  One of the biggest complaints with the Nexus is that it is difficult to install if you are replacing an existing 6509 chassis with one, the 7010 is bigger and – as we all know – space in a data center is very precious!