Cisco becomes a storage vendor
Twitter, Facebook, Google+… it’s all over the (social) news Wednesday September 11 it was all over the news: all my popular news resources mentioned in one way or the other that Cisco is now into...
View ArticleSocial acknowledgement: Cisco Champion for Datacenter
Cisco does Social Media recognition It didn’t come as a surprise: after Microsoft MVP, VMware vExpert and the relative new EMC Elect program, Cisco just started another social champions program called...
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Cisco anounces their Data center Champions for 2014
Cisco Data center Champions 2014 Just like other big IT names like VMware with their vExpert, Microsoft with their MVP and since last year EMC with their Elect, now Cisco started their own community...
View ArticleWhich Cisco NX-OS should I use?
This time a really short reminder-like post. Somehow I often end up trying to locate certain release notes of various equipment, but Cisco organized theirs for the SAN switches in an orderly manner:...
View ArticleCisco releases update for its SAN switches to fix the Shellshock aka Bashbug
Although I was triggered by a daily update I received from EMC in this knowledge base article: https://support.emc.com/kb/194669, it was Cisco who finally published an update for various firmwares that...
View ArticleCisco Smart Zoning: is it really worth the effort? YES!
It’s been available since NX-OS 5.2(6), but is the community ready for a change? It seems the majority of SAN managers are still afraid to start using it, but why? the concept is so simple: it looks...
View ArticleCisco zoning: some commonly used – show – commands
When you need to look up the current zoning config of a Cisco SAN-switch / VSAN, there’s a number of commands that will help you. Because a “show run” doesn’t always do the trick well, especially if...
View ArticleCisco MDS: Fabric is already locked
When you encounter a fabric lock, because you accidentally left the GUI or CLI without committing the changes, you can try the following to clear the lock and retry to apply your changes: run ‘show cfs...
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Maximum distances using fiber cable types OM1/OM2/OM3/OM4/OS1
What are the maximum distances using different fiber grades? This post is meant as an easy reference for when you plan to switch to higher FC or Ethernet speeds or when you’re connecting distant...
View ArticleCisco MDS NX-OS zoning on the CLI
The Cisco Fabric Manager or the newer DCNM can be great for creating a limited number of zones and aliases, but when the number of zones exceeds 10 or 20 or so, creating, cloning and editing these can...
View ArticleSetting Daylight Savings Time on a Cisco MDS switch
I recently ran into a log time difference at a customer’s site so I want to repeat my blog from last year (Configuring the timezone and NTP). It’s slightly different on Cisco LAN / Routing equipment,...
View ArticleAdding or replacing a Cisco SAN switch in an IVR topology
If you have multiple datacenters or a multi tenant fibre channel environment and you’re using Cisco FC switches, it’s a best practice to use VSANs to separate the configurations of each location /...
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Cisco Smart zoning – part II: examples
Smart zoning examples In my smart zoning post from last February I already presented the way to get started with Cisco smart zoning. I initially planned to give a more detailed calculation on how much...
View ArticleThe EMC / Dell merger: my tears and thoughts
It’s been a few weeks now since Mr Dell, Silver Lake and MSD Partners announced they want to take over EMC and with that become the world’s largest privately held IT company. For me I relived the whole...
View ArticleCisco MDS “fabric merge” and “switch add” prerequisites
Prerequisites when adding a new SAN switch to an existing SAN fabric When using enhanced device aliases, make sure you enable this on the new switch as well: device-alias mode enhanced device-alias...
View ArticleHow to add new members to an existing Cisco smart zone
DCNM is down. I love the tool, but the downside is that you forget how to use the CLI. I faced downtime of our DCNM appliance and was forced to use the CLI instead. No big deal actually, but I still...
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Using putty instead of the default ssh from Cisco device manager
How do I configure Cisco DCNM so Putty starts when I select to go to the command line of a switch? If you right click on a switch in the overview section in DCNM, you can go to the command line of that...
View ArticleChanging the time of Cisco DCNM
You’ve just deployed the DCNM appliance and you notice that the reports are displayed in the PDT timezone format. How do you change this into your own timezone? For this you can log on to the command...
View ArticleCisco MDS CLI commands when checking for defects or signal degradation
Checking the environment of a switch: show environment temp = what are the temperatures of the intake(s) and outlet(s) show environment power = are the PSUs still working fine? show environment fan =...
View ArticleHow to upgrade a Cisco MDS SAN switch
After a few years of not having had to perform switch upgrades, I had to perform a few firmware upgrades on MDS switches. I decided to write down the steps I had to take: First make sure you have a...
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