Cisco has had Fabric Extenders in their Nexus datacenter switch portfolio since 2009. Since there are various models and they all are still appearing in the datacenters here is a summary of all the different FEX models. Updated on 12-Oct-2014: Added Nexus 2348TQ. Updated on 22-Apr-2015: Added Nexus 2332TQ. Nexus 2148T Nexus 2148T was the […]
Cat6500/6800 IOS 15SY Feature and Packaging Information
Have you ever wanted to find out what are the differences in Cisco Catalyst 6500/6800 IOS packages (or feature sets)? This is apparently the best source I’ve ever found: Cisco IOS Software Major Release 15SY on Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches (cisco.com) It has a clear table of all the packages (IP Base, IP Services, […]
Hostname or Path? Does It Matter?
I was recently taken to a discussion: Should the online service or application name be included in the hostname or the path of the site address? The actual discussion went a bit differently but the basic idea was just that. The customer has an own domain name (like majornetwork.net) which is also a well-known brand […]
Home Computing History
I did some inventory once again in my cabinets and found some remains of my previous computers and old accessories. The old hard disks are being wiped as I write this (IDE-USB adapter FTW!) so that I can throw them away. I stopped for a moment to refresh my memory about my home computing history […]
QSFP+ Specifics on Nexus 5500 and Nexus 6000 Series Switches
Some of you may be interested in QSFP+ connections with Cisco Nexus 5500 and Nexus 6000 series switches. The scope of this post is not to present all the different flavors of QSFP+ pluggables or all QSFP+ capable devices but I’ll present some special features that need to be understood and considered when deploying QSFP+ […]
Originating Default Route in OSPF in Junos
I have a Junos router (Juniper SRX) with the default route pointing to the ISP (IP and default route assigned by DHCP) and a pair of Cisco Nexus switches with OSPF routing between all the boxes. I needed to originate a default route from SRX to Nexus switches. First, in order to be able to […]
Junos authentication-order Configuration
In Cisco IOS you usually configure RADIUS or TACACS+ authentication with local user database as a backup, and you explicitly define the “local” keyword to tell that the local database is used if external servers are not responding. If the external server says “rejected” then the local database is not consulted. In Junos you use […]
Review: Sena Parani-SD1000 Bluetooth Serial Adapter
I have always disliked using serial console connection to a switch or other network device with my laptop. The serial cable just ties me to that particular place and device. Depending on the situation you may have options like using a console server or a dedicated management network connection. But every now and then the […]
Configuring BGP Sessions in IPv6
My colleagues were faced with an IPv6 implementation case where the router IOS feature set prevented them from configuring the BGP sessions. I labbed something for them and thought this overall IPv6 BGP session configuration would be worth of documenting here because there are some differences when compared to the usual IPv4-only BGP configurations. I […]
Cisco Nexus 7000 Features Available on Modules
In the Cisco Nexus 7000 series switches there are several features that are bound to the hardware, meaning that your module selection restricts the features you can run on the switch ports. Thus, here is once again a summarization of the module-dependent features: Update 20-Apr-2013: Added OTV and LISP, clarified M1 FEX support. Update 22-Jul-2013: […]