Preface: This isn’t going to be a technical posting. This is a personal recap of my professional life over the last 6 years. After more than 6 years I’ve decided to leave my employer for good. An employer which is very loyal and fair to its employees and where I got the chance to grow from of a Senior Systems Engineer Role into a Datacenter Architect over my time there. Before I come to the “why”, a little bit of history. When I start a new job in a new…
APIC / Nexus Factory Reset
Today there’s an easier topic. How to reset your ACI Fabric (APIC and Nexus Switches) to factory defaults. First. Log into your Nexus 9k via the CLI or Console: Switch# setup-clean-config.sh Switch# reload This command will reload the chassis, Proceed (y/n)? [n]: y Second. Log into your APIC via ssh or local Console (Monitor or KVM over CIMC): log in as “admin” or “rescue-user” acidiag touch clean acidiag touch setup acidiag reboot Once you’ve done that, continue with the new fabric initialization: Only power up the first APIC and do…
Cisco Nexus 9000 as Hardware VTEP for NSX
Finally, after all the waiting and poking around there is now an official guide for using a Nexus 9300 as HW-VTEP for NSX. The recommended NX-OS release is: 7.0(3)I6(1) or later in same main release The supported VMware NSX release is: 6.3.3 and later on the same main release Here is the Link to the guide: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-9000-series-switches/white-paper-c11-740091.html#_Toc502975411 I hope i have some time in the coming days to deploy it in my lab and test it. But after a first overview the guide look pretty forward.
CCIE DC
It’s now 4 days since the exam and my mind comes slowly to the point to accept that the journey to the CCIE DC had home to a very successful end. And what a ride has it been. From a very slow start about 12 months ago. To the first time i felt a bit confident after the INE Bootcamp in January, just to hit the bottom again a few weeks later after Cisco Live where i had attended the CCIE DC Techtorial. That was a point that made me…
APIC: APIC doesn’t find the Leaf Switches
There can be a nasty little problem (you might want to call it bug) that prevents the APIC from discovering the connected Nexus Leaf Switches. The reason behind it is that after an CIMC Update and/or wipe of the CIMC it can happen that LLDP is enabled on the VIC Card. The problem here is that if it is enabled on the VIC, the LLDP messages get intercepted by the Firmware on the VIC and never reach the APIC Software. So the APIC can’t discover the Leaf’s. Here’s how to…
APIC: No suitable disks found. Exiting installer
This week I got some demo ACI equipment for a bigger PoC. Before shipping everything out to the customer I wanted to test everything so that it will work fine. While trying to boot up the APIC’s we found out that they didn’t want to boot. So ok, maybe we got them without the image, so who cares, just reinstall them with the ISO (I’ve done that quite a few times). But while the install we hit the following screen on all 3 of the APIC’s: Ok, that looked weird,…
The failed lab exam, was it just an expensive lunch?
As I already mentioned through a few channels, I failed my first attempt. And since I don’t like to jump to premature conclusions, I wanted to wait for the feedback from the Cisco case before writing a bit more about it. Today I got it and now I fulfill the promise and write a few lines about the exam day. I know most people would like to know more, but the NDA won’t allow to get into any specifics. I went to my closest testing center (Brussels) the afternoon before…
N5600 – Verify Switching Mode
Usually you don’t have to change the hardware forwarding mode on the Nexus 5600 from the standard cut through to mode. But if you want to run VxLan on them, you have to. The syntax to change the forwarding mode is pretty forward: N5K1# sh run | inc hardware hardware ethernet store-and-fwd-switching But after the change you need to reload the switch! And here is the problem. If you don’t do the reload immediately, there is was no show command to verify in which switching mode the switch actually is. It seems…
ACI – Basic Object Workflow
Here’s something I was working on for the last weeks. I saw some examples of such a diagram, but so far non of them really did satisfy me so i made my own. But i had a lot of support from other enginners, even some Cisco SE’s who did take a look and gave me some hints. I can’t really tell all names now, but rest assured I’m very glad you all did look over it! So here it is. If you have comments, please leave a note or drop…
ACI – Preferred Groups
Since APIC Release 2.2(1n) Cisco enabled a feature called Preferred Groups. What does it and when do you need it? It allows defined EPGs in a VRF still to communicate with each other even when the Policy enforcement is enabled and there are no contract between those EPG’s. This can be, for example, really useful for migration scenarios. You can use them with all kind of EPG’s: EPG, uEPG or External EPG. But there are a few things you should be aware when you use it: You have to specify…