New product: Cisco UCS "Mini"

Cisco has a new update few days ago to her Unified Computing System (UCS): the UCS Mini. Here is what I have known of it from the public web sites.

Sun is rising at Hualian County of Taiwan on August 30, 2014.

My notes about Configuration Register on Cisco Routers

This page on Cisco.com defines all details about "Configuration Register" on Cisco routers.
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/routers/10000-series-routers/50421-config-register-use.html

The Purpose of the Configuration Register
The configuration register can be used to change router behavior in several ways, such as:

• how the router boots (into ROMmon, NetBoot)
• options while booting (ignore configuration, disable boot messages)
• console speed (baud rate for a terminal emulation session)

Configuration registers are indeed DIP switches on most of PC motherboard.

DIP-Switch as part of a PCB from 1976, by Rainglasz.
Captured on Wikipedia.

Cisco APIC Enterprise Module provides SDN on existing Cisco routers and switches

Here is my understanding about this coming, new APIC Enterprise Module from Cisco Systems.

Enable Jumbo Frame function of Cisco Nexus 5000 and 7000

An autumn view of Taipei Campus of National Taipei University (NTPU).

For Data Center networking, and in most of the cases, jumbo frames should be enabled. However, Jumbo frame feature is not enabled by default. So the next question would be "How to enable them in Cisco's Data Center switches such as Nexus 5000 and Nexus 7000 families"?

The answer is in this page on Cisco's official site.

No more CMP on Nexus 7000 next-generation supervisor modules Sup2 and Sup2E

Connectivity Management Processor (CMP) is like an embedded terminal server dedicated for a single Nexus 7000 data center switch. I personally like this feature because we do not have to prepare another set of terminal server just to monitor the console output while we reboot the switch.

However, starting from Supervisor 2 (Sup2) and Supervisor 2 Enhanced Module (Sup2E), CMP hardware is removed from supervisor module itself.

I am not sure whether this feature will come back in the future or not. For the time being, we will have to prepare terminal servers or reserve asynchronous serial ports for Nexus 7000 switches administration.


[Supervisor 1]

Captured on Cisco.com.

1	CMP Status LED	4	ACT LED
2	Link LED	5	CMP MGMT Ethernet LED
3	CMP MGMT Ethernet port

1

CMP Status LED

4

ACT LED

2

Link LED

5

CMP MGMT Ethernet LED

3

CMP MGMT Ethernet port

Strange "rollback" failure of Cisco Nexus 5500

Left to right: "Taipei 101" and "International Trade Building (ITB)"
Taipei City, Taiwan.

After doing "write erase" and reboot, Cisco Nexus 5500 will fail to rollback even to its previously saved configuration files of checkpoints!

Cisco UCS C210 in Greenplum MR Hadoop Reference Configuration

Major hardware components and interconnection of Greenplum MR Hadoop Reference Configuration. This diagram is a screen capture of Figure 5 of  this White Paper on Cisco.com.

In fact, I shared the following content in this Google Plus Community: Using Cisco UCS. If you like to explore more about Cisco UCS, welcome to join us anytime!

---

I used to say UCS C Series are designed for "smaller deployment". However, recently I found an interesting application in DCUCD v5.0 training materials,  which contradicts to what I said before. Greenplum MR Hadoop Reference Configuration is a quite-large deployment with UCS C Series only. I really should correct my saying from now on!

New updates to be in Cisco ISE 1.2

Jih Yueh Shan Jing Leisure Farm (日月山景休閒農場).
Changhua County, Taiwan (Google Plus)

I summarize the key points I learned from this Q&A on Cisco web site.

[New Features]

• MDM Integration
• Device Feed Service
• Doubling of Scale and Performance
• Bootstrap Wizards

Cisco ISE Licensing in plain words

Feng-Le Sculpture Park (豐樂雕塑公園). Taichung City, Taiwan. (Google Plus)

Maybe I can summarize the description in this post as below.

No worry at all when exceeding device license count.

You can continue to manage and use ISE to authenticate and authorize network uses even when you run out of licenses count. The only inconveniences are the annoying warnings.

If you've reached limits of your current license, you also need to obtain new license. It could be completely new license, or an upgrade. ISE implements the concept of soft limits. So the system will throw "license enforcement" alarms (see http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/ise/1.0.4/user_guide/ise10_mnt.html).

Important note: ISE is not locked when license is overhelmed.

Video: Hacking Cisco Phones

Hackers demonstrated how to transform a Cisco phone (with vulnerabilities firmwares) into a audio recording station for spying without loosing phone's original capabilities.

Amazing!

My study notes on Cisco ASA 1000V video: "See the Cisco ASA 1000V in Action"

Here are the points I learned from this video. Have fun with it!

Configuring Cisco UCS Native Zoning (Video)

A plane was taking off Green Island Airport, Taiwan.

Starting from UCS Manager 2.1, you can configure FC Zoning to protect FC network. This video demonstrate how to configure FC Zoning at UCS Manager side.

New Google Plus Community: "Using Cisco UCS". Welcome!

A rock near Green Island, Taiwan

Are you deploying Cisco UCS as your Data Center Server solutions? Are you administering Cisco UCS pods? Are you designing solutions based on Cisco UCS? Or, are you just interested in what Cisco UCS is? Here I have a good news for you.

+Michael Gaskin and I created a new Google Plus Community named "Using Cisco UCS". You can share your experiences, ask a question, or answer other people's question, anything about Cisco UCS in one place.

Resetting admin password to save my time re-installing Cisco ISE on VMware

Take a biking rest. From 20010616 花蓮

Because installing Cisco ISE 1.0 on VMware takes over 30 minutes, it is a natural choice to let the fresh installation run overnight.

When I come back in the morning, I found myself locked out even using default “admin” password “cisco”, when I try to log into the web interface. The error just showed something like “Account has been disabled …”.

Fw: Cisco Positioned as a Leader in the 2010 Magic Quadrant for SSL VPNs

The Magic Quadrant.
Captured from original Gartner's Report

I am refreshed by a blog post on Cisco's "The Platform" blog, that Cisco is now "positioned as leader in SSL VPNs".

Cisco Blog, The Platform, Cisco Positioned as a Leader in the 2010 Magic Quadrant for SSL VPNs

(Yes, Cisco used to call SSL VPN as WebVPN.)

Why we need TelePresence?

TelePresence for short, is a better video conference "room" system with "HD video quality" and "1:1 people size".

Cisco stopped Web Application Firewall (WAF) product

Full name of this product on Cisco.com is "Cisco ACE Web Application Firewall".

Performance Estimate of new Cisco NSS 300 Series Smart Storage

Cisco's new NSS 300 Series has much more performance than predecessors!

Smart Grid and new Cisco Connected Grid solutions

Cisco recently released new Connected Grid routers and switches.

IPv6 hardware support: new Cisco Catalyst 4948E Ethernet Switch

Cisco's new hardware: Catalyst 4948E Ethernet Switch.