Ask the Expert Live Discussion – YouView from BT

Hi All
I’m pleased to announce our next live discussion with some BT experts! It's about our latest new product, YouView from BT, and we thought this would be a great chance to get our YouView experts onto the community to tell you a bit more about that and answer any YouView from BT-related questions you may have.
Our experts Sam, Rob and Francesca will be chatting with you on Thursday 06/12 at 7pm.
For anyone who wasn't able to join us for the chat, we have included the chat transcript below
6:58
Nigel Elliott: 
Hi Everyone, let’s get this chat started! Welcome to our live discussion with our experts about YouView from BT
6:58
Nigel Elliott: 
Today we are joined by Rob, Sam, Francesca and Gary. Welcome everyone! Today’s chat is tech focused on YouView from BT, so if you have any individual service queries we can’t answer them during the chat, but do raise them in the forum as normal.
6:58
Nigel Elliott: 
This chat is about the YouView from BT service itself, all comments will be moderated and the usual forum terms apply.
7:03
Comment From Phil 
Hi guys I'm interested in getting this but wondered what the connection options are - does the box support HDMI, Scart and Component?
7:03
Nigel Elliott: 
Hi Phil, good question our experts are typing up a reply right now
7:07
Gary: 
Hi Phil, the box supports HDMI and SCART but not Component.
7:08
Comment From Guilbo 
Hi folks. We have heard much about live channels launching on Vision at some point. Will these be available on YouView Vision player at the same time and will they be recordable?
7:10
Nigel Elliott: 
Thanks for the question Guilbo - keep them coming guys!
7:11
Gary: 
Hi, we are launching live channels on our Vision+ box soon and are also working on live channels on the YouView box. These will be available later in 2013
7:12
Gary: 
You will be able to record them when they become available
7:13
Comment From Guilbo 
Thanks, Gary. Will Sky Sports become available on YouView when you launch the linear channels?
7:14
Comment From Dee 
Hi guys, will YouView usage count towards my broadband usage?
7:16
Gary: 
We will release the full channel line up next year
7:16
Nigel Elliott: 
Thanks Gary, does that answer your questions Guilbo?
7:18
Comment From Guilbo 
Yes, mostly.
7:21
Comment From Dee 
OK thanks. If I have BT Vision can I still have YouView?
7:21
Sam: 
Hi Dee, Yes, with a BT Vision subscription, all your on-demand viewing (including all Vision on-demand, all catch-up as well as players such as NowTV) is exempt from any broadband usage allowance. So you don't need to worry how much you watch.
7:22
Francesca Mahoney: 
Hi Dee, thanks for your question. If you have had your BT Vision+ box for more than 12 months then you can get YouView for £49.
7:24
Comment From b-1 
Any word on when manual padding will become available on YouView?
7:25
Francesca Mahoney: 
Hi Dee again - just to add - when you take YouView for £49 you will recontract your TV and broadband subscriptions. Thanks!
7:27
Comment From Guilbo 
Some people have been experimenting with running a Vision and a YouView box simultaneously. Can they coexist? Also are their any plans for multiroom with YouView.
7:28
Nigel Elliott: 
Thanks for the questions b-1 and Guilbo, your replies are on their way shortly.
7:30
Sam: 
Hi Guilbo The use of two or more YouView/ Vision boxes on the same broadband line is not supported. If you plug in a YouView box from BT, your old BT Vision+ box may stop working and so you should watch the recordings on your old box before plugging in your new one. We hope to introduce a multiroom offering in 2013
7:31
Nigel Elliott: 
Out of interest, do the people watching this chat already have YouView or are you thinking about signing up?
7:33
Sam: 
also see FAQ's www.bt.com/help/youview
7:34
Comment From Dee 
Hi me again OK so, if I sign up to YouView with BT, what happens when my contract with BT ends? Will the box still work?
7:35
Rob: 
Hi b-1, Are you having problems with clipped recordings? YouView are looking at why this is sometimes happens and are working with broadcasters to improve the accuracy of their recording signals but they are not planning to add padding at the moment.
7:37
Comment From Guilbo 
Thanks, Sam, that's interesting stuff. I don't have YouView (yet) but it is something that I will most likely move on to at some point. To follow on from a previous question, if I am in contract for Broadband, but out of contract for Vision, can I still get YouView for 49 squids by taking out a contract to Vision Player?
7:38
Nigel Elliott: 
Just typing up your replies now guys
7:39
Sam: 
Hi Guilbo, yes you can get the Box for £49 if you are in contract on your BB but out of contract on your Vision, taking the Youview box for £49 will recontract your Vision for another 12 months.
7:39
Francesca Mahoney: 
Hi Dee again
At the end of your contract the YouView box will still function but we hope you'll want to stay with your BT Vision subscription so you'll have access to all of our On Demand content and none of your YouView usage will count towards your broadband allowance.
7:42
Comment From Guilbo 
Thanks folks. This is really helping to firm up on some things which up to now have been sketchy.
7:42
Francesca Mahoney: 
No probs Guilbo
7:44
Nigel Elliott: 
No problem Guilbo, if you have any other questions keep them coming!
7:44
Rob: 
Hi All, Did you hear that YouView have just launched a free iPhone app to let you set a recording on your box while you're on the move? It's not yet available for Android phones. If you have an iPhone 3GS or later, an iPod touch or iPad, it's well worth downloading.
7:47
Comment From Steph 
Hi Rob, if I have YouView from BT will I still be able to get BT Player programs via the app?
7:47
Comment From MikeC 
Are there any plans to offer boxes with large hard-drives and can I get 3D content via BT Vision on YouView?
7:48
Comment From Guilbo 
Interesting about the app. Will the services on it ever be able to stream to mobile devices, I wonder?
7:49
Nigel Elliott: 
Thanks folks, you'll get your replies very soon
7:53
Rob: 
Hi Steph & Guilbo, The YouView app is just for setting recordings at the moment. It will get better over time I'm sure, but streaming to mobile devices won't be possible for a while I expect.
7:56
Nigel Elliott: 
Just a couple of minutes left guys, if you have any other questions now's the time to submit them!
7:56
Sam: 
Hi Mike, we are looking into the possibility of bringing 3D content on Youview from BT in the future. The Youview Box from BT is 500GB but the High Street Retailers have both 500GB and 1TB.
7:57
Comment From Linz 
Just purchased bt freestyle 750 duo and one of the handsets constantly says searching please help
7:58
Nigel Elliott: 
Hi Linz, have a look over at the Phones board - one of our community members will be able to offer advice with this
7:59
Comment From James 
On the mobile app - any plans to support windows phones?
8:00
Comment From MikeC 
ok cheers thx guys
8:00
Comment From Guilbo 
You were originally going to use a Pace box. Is the Humax a stopgap or is this now the permanent offering. Will there ever be a choice of boxes from BT?
8:00
Sam: 
Hi James, sorry no not at the moment but it may be something Youview do in the future
8:01
Nigel Elliott: 
No problem Mike
8:03
Nigel Elliott: 
Thanks Guilbo, the experts are typing up your answer.
8:05
Rob: 
Hi Guilbo, The YouView from BT box is a Humax box and as soon as any other other box types are announced we will let you know.
8:06
Comment From Guilbo 
Cheers, Rob. Think that's me out of questions now, so thanks very much for your time. It has been useful.
8:07
Nigel Elliott: 
Cheers Guilbo, glad you found it useful.
8:07
Nigel Elliott: 
Hi folks, thank you very much, that was our last question.
8:07
Nigel Elliott: 
Big thanks to Rob, Francesca, Sam and Gary for joining the chat and all you guys for posting some very interesting questions. It’s been a great session, I hope you’ve found it useful. I will close the chat now, but it will be available on the replay if you want to re-read any of the comments.
8:07
Nigel Elliott: 
If anyone has got any further YouView from BT queries do raise them on the forum as normal.
See you all on the next chat
Here's some info on our experts:
Francesca
Francesca has been working in telecommunications for over 8 years and joined the BT TV team this summer. In her previous job, she was responsible for leading all commercial and P&L activities. Francesca is Head of Acquisition for BT TV and is responsible for delivering all TV sales, and most recently delivered the go to market strategy for the launch of YouView from BT.
Rob
Rob joined BT about 6 years ago and has been working on YouView almost since it was conceived around 4 years ago. Initially seconded to YouView when it was called Project Canvas, Rob came back to BT to work in BT Vision operations. Rob is currently the Product Manager for YouView from BT within BT Retail’s consumer division.
Sam
Sam has worked in telecommunications for 16 years and joined the BT TV Customer Service team 3 years ago. Sam is responsible for ensuring New Products and Service deliver the best possible customer experience and works closely with the operational units to improve customer satisfaction.
We do ask that this chat is not used to bring up BT service or YouView service queries – this is an information chat to help learn about YouView from BT and any individual billing/order/service issues and complaints will not be included in the chat. These should be raised in the forum as normal.
Check out our FAQs for taking part in a Live event
Chat to you soon!
Stephanie
Stephanie
BTCare Community Manager
If you like a post, or want to say thanks for a helpful answer, please click on the Ratings star on the left-hand side of the post. If someone answers your question correctly please let other members know by clicking on ’Mark as Accepted Solution’.

Hi everyone,
The chat is now available on replay, so you can now check out the transcript by clicking on the “play” button in my post above
Stephanie
Stephanie
BTCare Community Manager
If you like a post, or want to say thanks for a helpful answer, please click on the Ratings star on the left-hand side of the post. If someone answers your question correctly please let other members know by clicking on ’Mark as Accepted Solution’.

Similar Messages

  • Ask the Expert Live Discussion – BT Infinity

    Hi All
    I’m pleased to announce our next live discussion with some BT experts!  It’s on a subject that is of great interest to many of you – BT Infinity!  We’ve recently announced the changes to the BT Infinity service and thought it was a great chance to get our Infinity experts on to the community to tell you a bit more about that and answer any Infinity related questions you may have.
    Our experts Charles and Martin will be chatting with you on Tuesday 15th May at 7pm.
    The format is pretty simple – simply come back here on that date and the box you see below will turn into an area where you can submit your questions.  Enter your email address in the reminder section  so you don't miss any of the chat.
    BT Infinity Expert Chat Transcript
    (05/15/2012) 
    7:00
    KerryG: 
    Hi Everyone, let’s get the chat started! Welcome to our live discussion with our BT Infinity experts.
    7:01
    KerryG: 
    Today we are joined by Charles and Martin from the Infinity team. Welcome everyone!        
    7:01
     KerryG: 
    Today’s chat is tech focused on BT Infinity, so if you have any individual service queries, we can’t answer them during the chat, sorry. Those queries can be raised in the forum as normal. This chat is focused on the Infinity service itself, all comments will be moderated and the usual forum terms apply.
    7:01
    Charles: 
    Hi everyone!                                                                                                              
    7:02
    KerryG: 
    We have our first question...                                                                                        
    7:03
    Comment From GedGed:
    my wired infinity speed is 54 kps but I can only get 20 when wireless - any way I can improve the wireless speed - Thanks 
    7:04
    KerryG: 
    We're typing up the answers, so bear with us as we get the answers through to you...      
    7:05
    Charles: 
    Hi Ged 
    • Upgrade your computer to ‘N’ standard wireless hardware. If needed, buy a suitable N wireless adaptor from BT atwww.bt.com/nwireless 
    • Keep your computer streamlined eg. by running our ‘PC Healthcheck’ app (part of BT’s Desktop Help software atwww.bt.com/desktophelp) 
    • Reserve wireless for mobile devices, use Ethernet for main computer 
    • Consider powerline adaptors for longer ranges 
    7:05
    Comment from
    john 46
    hi all                                                                                                            
    7:06
    KerryG: 
    Hi gooch - thanks for your question, but this is an Infinity tech chat so we need to keep it on topic if you post in the Phones board there's lots of helpful community members that will help you out with your query 
    7:07
    Comment From Neil Potter
    How soon after an exchange goes live with Infinity will BT allow other providers to sell Fibre To The Cabinet services from that exchange? My existing ISP is waiting to announce pricing details to me so I can make an informed choice. Thanks
    7:08
    KerryG: 
    Hi John Good to see you on the chat - who else is here?                                              
    7:09
    Comment From Chris
    Hello world.                                                                                                    
    7:10
    Comment From Helen
    hi all.                                                                                                                
    7:11
    Comment From Paul
    Are we able to get fastpath on BT infinity,or will this ever be available ?               
    7:12
    Martin S.: 
    i Neil. When Openreach enables an exchange for fibre, all internet service providers are able to use that service equally - so other ISPs should be able to offer their fibre products at the same time as BT Retail's Infinity product
    7:12
    KerryG: 
    Thanks for all the great questions coming through guys... answers being typed as we speak!
    7:13
    Charles: 
    Hi Paul, We don't support Fastpath on BT infinity at the moment, I'm afraid.                   
    7:13
    Comment From Helen
    I've recently upgraded to Infinity 2. The ethernet connection is fine, but the wifi is constantly dropping. I have an old Homehub 2 , which we had for total broadband, will it work, so I can test the wifi.
    7:14
    Comment From Simon
    Hi all                                                                                                      
    7:15
    Martin S.: 
    Neil - also its worth remembering that when an exchange is enabled for fibre, this does not automatically mean that all cabinets and lines connected to that exchange are also enabled, which might explain if your exchange has been enabled but your line is not appearing as eligible yet
    7:16
    Comment From Kevin
    Whats the upgrade path from fttc to fttp does it mean a new contract or can we just expect it to migrate?
    7:17
    KerryG
    Out of interest...are those on the chat existing Infinity customers or people thinking about it?
    7:18
    Charles
    Hi Helen, your wireless should work ok on your Hub 2, though our more recent Hub 3 is better. If you're expereincing drop outs, it's usually a sign of radio interference. Have you any powerline adaptors you could use instead?
    7:18
    Comment From Neil Potter
    Thanks Martin - Workmen recently dug up the path outside my driveway to install FTTC so I know it's there  My exchange goes live on 30th June - I can't wait!I have another question: I'm in the process of consolidating my TV, Telephone and Broadband into one bundle. The "BT Vision Unlimited" looks ideal.
    7:19
    Comment From Paul
    Is there a estimated date that fast path will be available ?                                           
    7:19
    Martin S.
    Hi Kevin - Due to the structure of how fibre has been deployed, your line will either be FTTC or FTTP; there is no way to change your technology type. If you mean 'how do you move to the faster 80mb product (on FTTC)?', this can be done using the links on BT.com
    7:19
    Comment From Helen
    I'm an existing customer.                                                                                       
    7:19
    Charles
     No, 'fraid not, Paul.                                                                                                    
    7:19
    Comment From Neil Potter
    thinking about re-joining BT just for Infinity product(s)                                    
    7:19
    Comment From Paul
    existing customer here                                                                                     
    7:20
    Comment From Chris
    I've recently ordered my Infinity package, installation is due the 22nd.            
    7:20
    KerryG
    Great to see you all on here... roll on the 22nd for you Chris                                             
    7:20
    Comment From Kevin
    Why are you fitting 2 separate items a modem and a wireless router? cant we have a combined unit, without the need for 2 adaptors and sockets its not the tidiest install
    7:21
    Comment From Chris
    Regarding the Infinity installation, is it mandatory for the BT O/R Engineerer to have access to your PC?
    7:22
    Martin S.
    Hi Chris - It is not mandatory, but we recommend allowing the engineer to show you on your own equipment your fantastic new speeds!
    7:22
    Comment From Simon
    hi, im trying to setup port forwarding to my old draytek, as it has more powerful wirelelss capabaility then the bt homehub, is it possible
    7:23
    KerryG
    Hi Simon - that sounds like a great question for the forum boards, the Draytek is not a BT product so we can go into detail here in this chat, but there will be lots of people who i'm sure can help in the forum.
    7:24
    Charles
    Evening Kevin, for BT Infinity is based on thecurrent FTTC product offered by BT Openreach, which comprises the VDSL modem provided by Openreach and the Home Hub 3 provided by Retail. If/when Openreach move to supporting a single box solution, then we would look to moving to that. Openreach will shortly be trialling this.
    7:24
    Comment From Helen
    I've already checked there's nothing interfering with the Hub.                              
    7:24
    Comment From Helen
    I don't have a Hub3, both the one that is currently connected, and the old one I have in the box are Hub 2.
    7:25
    Comment From Chris
    Yes, going from 3mb to an estimated 50mb+ is quite the upgrade, I would even be happy if it was merely a 10MB upgrade. - If I remember correctly FTTC is around(if not the same) price as standard broadband these days.
    7:26
    Charles
    Helen - could you post your issue in the Bt Infinity forum and one of our mods will look into this for you.
    7:26
    Comment From Kevin
    My install is planned for the 28th May my question is i have my master socket downstairs directly below the room i want my fttc modem installed is it possible to have the modem upstairs with the extension cable ?
    7:27
    Comment From Mike B
    I have an istalation question. I understand that the modem for Infinity needs to be sited close to the BT phone socket. Am I right in thinking that the modem is then connected via a Cat 5/6 cable to the wireless router situated elsewhere in the house? Does this impact on the speed?
    7:27
    Comment From Helen
    Ok charles, I will do..                                                                                    
    7:28
    Comment From Neil Potter
    On the subject of Powerline Adaptors (PA's) - I have a unique setup here at home whereby I would need to utilise 4 x PA's. Are there any known performance issues sharing data, experiencing latency or dropped packets from Desktop PC's all connected via PA's at the same time?
    7:28
    Martin S.
    Kevin / Mike B: The engineer can use an extension cable up to 30m long to help position your equipment where you want it - this should not affect your speed.
    7:29
    Comment From Eric Simpson
    I have bt broadband .. I am currently getting 3M download. I have two "estimates" from the BT site. One says I should get between 10-17 ... the other which does some sort of check/diagnostic (and appears to be the real thing) says I should get between 1-4. We are meant to get Infinity next month. How would that impact me?
    7:31
    Charles
    Hi neil - good question. I've found from experience that powerline performance is very much dependent on the adaptor manufacturer and your home environment, specifically how 'clean' your electrical spectrun is. All I can say is give it a try. That said, i would always recommend an Ethernet connection for the fastest and most stable speeds.
    7:31
    Martin S.
    Hi Eric. You can find your predicted BT Infinity speed (if it is available on your line) at bt.com/infinity and entering your number into the availability checker
    7:31
    Comment From Simon
    hi, really I'm just asking a tech question - can the bt home hub port forward?
    7:32
    Comment From Eric Simpson
    Does my question pop up only when it comes up the queue?
    7:33
    KerryG
    Hi Eric - Yes, they will flow in as they get answered - it helps to make the chat easier to read as the Q & As flow in a reasonable order. 
    Great questions coming through... lots more to get through...been a quick 33 mins! 
    7:33
    Charles
    Hi simon - I'm assuming you're talking about the Hub 3 (our latest Hub). Yes, it does support port forwarding. You can set this up via the configuration menu in your Hub. See instructions in your Hub user guide for how to do this. 
    7:33
    Comment From Glynn
    Will BT Retail be selling fibre-on-demand at an affordable cost for home users?
    7:35
    Comment From guilbo
    Hello folks. I have a question. We often see on the Vision forum that users start having problems with their service on Infinity that they weren't having with ADSL. Do you know of anything that would cause this?
    7:35
    Martin S.
    Hi Glynn, we are currently reviewing Fibre on Demand and have not yet announced any pricing or availability details.
    7:36
    Comment From Chris
    How reliable is that checker by chance?                                                         
    7:37
    Comment From Paul (Heanor)
    Also I am booked for installation on 22nd May                                 
    7:37
    KerryG
    Nice one Paul  You'll be enjoying super fast speeds then too                                                  
    7:38
    Charles
    HI guilbo - I'm not aware of any technical issues for Vision customer regrading to Infinity. We have hundreds of orders go through each week. If the problem persists, I would suggest customers contact the Infinity helpdesk.
    7:38
    Comment From Neil Potter
    Thanks for your reply Charles - If I could ask, the PA's you supply with the current BT Vision boxes are manufactured by Simpler Networks - would I need to purchase identical PA's from the same manufacturer for extending my network? Will BT Retail sell me these as an additional extra? This will be my last question - I feel I have been fortunate to have two answered already 
    7:39
    Martin S.
    Hi Chris - The speeds estimated in the checker are a very good indication of actual speeds, but we can only know the exact speed once installed.
    7:39
    Comment From Eric Simpson
    it says not available yet. I am just frustrated because I get faster speed from my little Android phone using it as a hotspot. If there is a bottleneck somewhere in the system, would fibre really make a difference
    7:41
    Comment From Kevin
    I have been given the estimate of 59.4Mb download 20.0Mb upload will this be accurate?
    7:42
    Charles
    Hi neil - yes you should always stick to the same model for all your PA's. I am pretty sure that additional Vision PA's can be bought from the BT Shop, and these should be fine. I have had 70mbps out of mine! seewww.bt.com/shop
    7:43
    Martin S.
    Eric - Generally fibre can make a very significant difference to overall speeds, though individual increases can't be guaranteed. If / when it becomes available on your line, the checker will tell you how much of a difference it could make to you.
    7:43
    Comment From Chris
    I'm assuming it's based on the length of copper from my house to the Green Cab. - The exchange is 2miles~ away from me and the said Cab. Will this also effect my speed?
    7:45
    Charles
    Hi Kevin - our estinmates are as accurate as we can make them, but your actual speed will depend on your underlying phone line speed. We will only know your true speed once Infinity is live - it will then train to your optimal line speed, which should be approx as shown by your prediction.
    7:45
    KerryG
    Glad to see you all keeping Charles and Martin busy here... keep the questions coming in, we're in the last 15 mins now...
    7:45
    Martin S.
    Chris - Yes, your speed is primarily affected by the total amount of copper between you and the exchange. With FTTC fibre products, the old copper between the exchange and the cabinet is replaced by fibre, meaning less copper overall and faster speeds. 
    7:45
    Comment From Lewis
    Why does DLM take so long to take interleaving off?                                     
    7:45
    Comment From Neil Potter
    Thank you very much for your time this evening Charles / Martin / Kerry. It's nice to see these types of events becoming more accessible to your customers and I for one feel I've got a lot from joining you all this evening 
    7:46
    Martin S.
    Thanks Neil - you're welcome!                                                                                  
    7:46
    KerryG
    Great stuff Neil.... glad you've found it useful.                                                                     
    7:46
    Comment From Chris
    The Cab is 500-600 metres away from me, and according this graph the the BT estimated speed is just right on that.
    7:47
    Charles
    Hi Lewis - DLM will apply interleaving only if it detects an ustable line. It will not apply interleaving unless it is warranted.
    7:47
    Comment From Kevin
    I guess when i get my infinity installed a lot of sites and links will still be on dsl or adsl+ or even slower and the speed my end wont improve the speed there end ie my speed will depend on the site i visit and there upload speed for my download speed?
    7:48
    Comment From Dom
    I am moving to BT infinity, but I had to order my line and then wait for it to be activated before ordering infinity. Is this a technical issue or a process at BT issue?
    7:49
    Charles
    Evening Dom. It's a process issue - we can only provide Infinity once a Retail line is up and running.
    7:49
    Comment From William Sinclair
    Hi guys. I've upgraded to Infinity 2 with an estimated max download of 49.5 Mbps however my IP profile hasn't budged from the Infinity 1 value of ~30. Any thoughts?
    7:50
    Comment From Dom
    Thanks - this is a great service BT, keep it up!                                                   
    7:51
    Martin S.
    Hi Kevin - yes, some websites that you visit may not be able to keep up with your superfast speeds! We aim to give you the best speeds at your end, but sadly there may sometimes be bottlenecks in the wider internet.
    7:51
    Charles
    HI William - sorry for the delay in responding. Best thing to do is to reboot your Hub, then it should pick up the new speed. If not, contact the Infinity forum.
    7:51
    Comment From Lewis
    What would cause an unstable line?                                                        
    7:53
    KerryG
    @wiesiek @ Martin (not S) thanks for your questions, but as they're individual issues we can't pick them up as part of this chat. Please post in the forum and we can help.
    7:53
    Comment From guilbo
    Apologies in advance for my ignorance. If Infinity is installed does the 'phone continue to use copper all the way to the exchange or does this also go over fibre?
    7:54
    Charles
     Hi lewis - the most common cause is interference on your phone line, in which case DLM will moderate your BB speed until the line stablises. There'smore lot of info on this at the Infinity FAQs on BT.com
    7:54
    Martin S.
    Hi Guilbo - good question - yes, the phone still uses the copper.                                          
    7:54
    Comment From Paul (Heanor)
    Will downloading from such as Xbox market place or apple store as examples max out the connection?
    7:55
    Comment From Kevin
    Thanks to Martin, Kerry, and Charles for all your answers to the questions very much appreciated and a credit to BT Kevin  
    7:55

    Hi everyone
    Just a reminder that we have our Infinity Expert chat this evening at 7pm.  If for any reason you can't make the chat, you can PM me your questions in advance and we'll try to include them.  There will also be a replay available of the chat here on the same post after the event.
    Thx
    Kerry
    Retired BTCare Community Manager - StephanieG and SeanD are your new Community Managers
    If you like a post, or want to say thanks for a helpful answer, please click on the Ratings star on the left-hand side of the post.
    If someone answers your question correctly please let other members know by clicking on ’Mark as Accepted Solution’.

  • Ask the Experts Live Chat - Home Hub 4

    Hello,
    Stephanie and I are pleased to announce our next live discussion with some of our BT experts! It's about one of our latest new products, the Hub 4. This will be a great chance to get our Hub 4 experts onto the community to tell you a bit more about that and answer any questions you may have.
    We have added the Chat transcript below for any of you guys who missed this event.
    7:02
    JacquiBT: 
    Hello everyone.
    Thank for you joining our ‘Ask the Experts’ Live chat. I would like to introduce Dave, Sam and Emma who are our hub 4 experts and will be answering your questions tonight. I would like to invite you to ask your questions now.
    7:03
    [Comment From imjolly imjolly : ] 
    why are there no adsl stats available on the HH4
    7:04
    [Comment From DS DS : ] 
    evening all. Are the antennae omni directional?
    7:05
    Sean Donnelly: 
    Thanks for the question, Emma will respond
    to that question Imjolly
    7:05
    JacquiBT: 
    Thanks DS, Dave will respond to your question now
    7:05
    Dave: 
    Hi DS, yes they are
    7:05
    [Comment From Steve Steve : ] 
    Are there any plans for new firmware on the hub 4 to bring new features?
    7:06
    JacquiBT: 
    Thanks Steve, Dave is answering that question for you
    7:07
    Dave: 
    Hi Steve - yes there are. There will be more information available about this - and any new features - before each firmware drop.
    7:07
    [Comment From Steve Steve : ] 
    why can you not opt out of BT WIFI on the home hub 4?
    7:07
    Dave: 
    Hi Steve - you should have no problem doing this through the Hub Manager
    7:09
    JacquiBT: 
    Some great questions coming through, the experts are typing up responses now
    7:09
    [Comment From DS DS : ] 
    Personal testing - Why is the 2.4GHz range less than the HH3 when at a distance from the hub, but better close up than the HH3?
    7:10
    JacquiBT: 
    Thanks DS, Dave is answering this now for you
    7:10
    [Comment From George George : ] 
    Will the 'Home Network' page show a HH4 instead of the Current image of the HH3?
    7:11
    JacquiBT: 
    Thanks George, Sam will answer that for you
    7:11
    Sam: 
    Hi George, the HH4 image will be displayed in place of the HH3 in the next firmware release
    7:12
    Dave: 
    Thanks again DS - you shouldn't find that, but this can depend on a lot of different factors in the home. I've found mine to be a bit better actually! But it should be pretty much the same for most customers.
    7:12
    Sean Donnelly: 
    Did you know the Hub 4 has Smart Setup?
    Easy set up in just a few minutes. No CD or computer needed, it's all online and works on any device. Set up your Hub 4 router and access all your free extras like BT Cloud and BT Family Protection in just a few clicks.
    7:12
    [Comment From DS DS : ] 
    Is it possible for BT to allow us to move the BTWifi SSID's to another channel, leaving our own SSID on a less congested channel?
    7:12
    Dave: 
    Hi imjolly, sorry for the delay, Emma asked me to reply on her behalf. We have made the stats in the Hub manager simpler for customers to understand, we were reacting to feedback that it was too general for the wide range of customers and tech understandings.
    7:12
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi DS, Sam is replying to you now
    7:14
    [Comment From JamesS JamesS : ] 
    What speeds can I achieve over wifi, assuming I'm connected to 5ghz? Thanks.
    7:14
    Sean Donnelly: 
    Did you know the hub offers Easy Wireless?
    Connect wirelessly by selecting your BT Home Hub connection on any compatible device and just push a button on the Hub and you're connected. It's that simple. No passwords needed.
    7:14
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi JamesS. Dave will reply to your question
    7:14
    Emma: 
    Hi imjolly, we have made the stats in the Hub manager simpler for customers to understand, we were reacting to feedback that it was too general for the wide range of customers and tech understandings.
    7:15
    Sam: 
    Hi DS, moving BT Wifi SSID's to another channel is not possible on the HH4. However, we are looking closely at the wi-fi SSID's the hub broadcasts to see whether we can improve this experience.
    7:15
    Dave: 
    Hi James, 5GHz maximum data transfer rate of 300Mb/s; this will tend to translate as an optimal actual speeds of up to 100 Mb/s - depending on lots of factors in your home
    7:15
    [Comment From George George : ] 
    Why did you remove the built in plastic wireless info tab with a card?
    7:15
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi George, Dave is going to reply to that question
    7:16
    Dave: 
    Hi George - this was part of the design process, we've tried to make it even easier for customers to find their wireless information. Now it's not integrated it's a little bit more accessible.
    7:16
    [Comment From thebennyboy thebennyboy : ] 
    I currently have the HH3 and would like to know what noticable difference it will make having a HH4 over a HH3? We use the ethernet ports and the wireless.
    7:17
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi Bennyboy. Emma is going to reply to that question.
    7:17
    [Comment From Paul Paul : ] 
    How much faster is the processor in the home hub 4, compared to previous versions? how will this effect my online experience?
    7:18
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi Paul. Sam will answer that for you
    7:18
    Sam: 
    Hi Paul, the processor is a staggering 3x faster compared to the HH3
    7:19
    [Comment From Guest Guest : ] 
    Although opted out of BT wifi the hub still shows as being active
    7:19
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi Guest, could we ask that you post this on the community so the moderators can pick this up
    7:19
    Sean Donnelly: 
    Did you know that the hub 4 offers Dual band frequency which makes for a more reliable wireless connection?
    Smart dual-band technology reduces wireless interference and drop out’s giving you a reliable connection for all your devices.
    7:20
    [Comment From Guest Guest : ] 
    When you opt out of BT WIFI it appears to only opt out on the 2.4ghz channel and not the 5ghz channel. Are you looking into this?
    7:20
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi Guest. Dave will reply to your question
    7:21
    Dave: 
    Hi - thanks for this feedback, we'll definitely look in to it for you
    7:21
    Sean Donnelly: 
    Excellent questions coming through folks
    7:21
    Sean Donnelly: 
    Our experts are typing answers so please keep them coming
    7:22
    [Comment From Josh Josh : ] 
    Is it a known issue that the HomeHub 4 has problems identify the Xbox 360 as a media center extender when connected through a wired connection?
    7:23
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi Josh. Sam is replying to your question
    7:23
    [Comment From Winston Winston : ] 
    How much power does the home hub 4 use?
    7:24
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi Winston. Dave will respond to your question
    7:24
    Sam: 
    Hi Josh, we are aware of this issue. This is a problem with the Xbox rather than the HH4 but something we are reviewing together.
    7:24
    Emma: 
    Hi the bennyboy, the main advantages of the hub 4 are the faster processor (3 x faster) and 5 GHz wifi. There is no interference with 5GHz so you get better performance and as the range isn't as wide you dont have to share the bandwidth with neighbours etc. the hub still has 2.4 GHz so you still have the range you have withhub 3 too!
    7:24
    Dave: 
    Hi Winston, I am afraid there's no simple answer as it really depends on what features are in use. But the Hub 4 meets the latest Broadband Equipment Energy Code of Conduct targets for energy consumption.
    7:25
    [Comment From Mel Mel : ] 
    Why did you ignore your existing customers loyalty by charging them for a new hub, don't they pay enough already in their monthly fees?
    7:25
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi Mel, Dave will reply to your question
    7:25
    [Comment From Winston Winston : ] 
    How long did it take you to design and develop the home hub 4?
    7:26
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi Winston, Emma will reply to your question
    7:27
    [Comment From George George : ] 
    Will we get manual power save back?
    7:27
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi Gerorge. Sam will answer your question
    7:28
    [Comment From Jade Jade : ] 
    Does the home hub 4 support ip6 through a future upgrade?
    7:28
    Emma: 
    Hi Winston, It was about 2 years when we first started the project with the first ideas and concepts
    7:29
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi Jade. Emma will reply to your question.
    7:29
    Emma: 
    Hi Jade, thats something we are working on so yes something for the future
    7:30
    Sam: 
    Hi George. With regards to the manual power save feature, we have looked to make this automatic for all of our customers. However, you are able to change the brightness of the lights as an additional step.
    7:30
    Dave: 
    Hi Mel - we've made a lot of changes for our existing customers since the launch of the Hub 3 a couple of years ago. Our customer offer for the Hub 4 only £35 - a really big discount compared to the full price of £109! We've also created a range of recontracting deals that contain a Hub 4 for only the cost of delivery. If you're out of contract or in the last 3 months, you could take advantage of those offers as well. We really want all of our customers to be able to take advantage of these options!
    7:31
    Sean Donnelly: 
    Did you know the Hub 4 has a faster processor? Inside the BT Home Hub 4 router is our latest Broadband processor – the brains of your Hub. It allows you to pass information between connected devices quicker than ever. So if you are transferring files from one computer to another or watching a film streamed from another device, the BT Home Hub 4 won't slow you down.
    7:31
    [Comment From thebennyboy thebennyboy : ] 
    Our house has very thick stone walls and the wireless is weak in certain rooms. We have a few devices in our house that support 5Ghz Wi-Fi. Does the HH4 also work ok with home plugs that use your power cables to provide network connectivity?
    7:32
    JacquiBT: 
    Hi thebennyboy. Sam will respond to your question
    7:32
    [Comment From Calvin Calvin : ] 
    What future developments are in the works for home hub 4?
    7:33

    DS wrote:
    Not many of my Q's are showing either. Could be busy I guess......
    yeah I can tell, I know your quesitons are pretty good but if you notice that JacquiBT is deliberately choosing the questions she wants to go through. The whole chat is based around the fact that they have added 5ghz. I am appauled as I was hoping to at least ask one question. 

  • Ask the Expert: Technical Discussion on UCS-Mini platform

    Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation.
    Ask your technical questions on UCS-Mini platform.
    The Discussion/Q&A is from November 24th through December 5th, 2014
    Cisco UCS, originally designed for the data center, is now optimized for branch and remote offices, point-of-sale, and smaller IT environments with Cisco UCS Mini. UCS Mini is for customers who need fewer servers (expandable to 15 servers) but still want the robust management capabilities provided by UCS Manager.  UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect is main component which makes this solution possible on UCS 5108 Chassis with B200 M3 Blade Servers
    This solution delivers servers, storage, and 10 Gigabit networking in an easy-to-deploy, compact form factor.
    Vishal Mehta is a customer support engineer for Cisco’s Data Center Server Virtualization Technical Assistance Center (TAC) team based in San Jose, California. He has been working in the TAC for the past 3 years with a primary focus on data center technologies such as Cisco Nexus® 5000, Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus 1000V, and virtualization. He presented at Cisco Live in Orlando 2013, Milan 2014, and San Francisco 2014 (BRKCOM-3003, BRKDCT-3444, and LABDCT-2333). He holds a master’s degree from Rutgers University in Electrical and Computer Engineering and has CCIE® certification (number 37139) in Routing/Switching, Service Provider & Data Center.
    Rosalind Lee is customer support engineer specializing in Unified Computing System (UCS) blade servers including B series, C series, and E series. Rosalind holds a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and is currently pursuing her Masters of Information and Data Science at UC Berkeley. 
    Please use the rating system to let the experts know if you have received an adequate response. 
    Remember that you can continue the conversation in Data Center under the sub-community Unified Computing discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through Dec 5th, 2014. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

    Hello Wilson,
    This series is focused to answer any queries related with UCS-Mini deployments
    We are not doing webinar, however below is detailed UCS-Mini session done by Product Manager on Google Hangout+ 
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRVhLGsH8oI
    Thanks,
    Rosalind

  • Ask the Expert: Upgrading Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) to Version 9.1 (Drive to 9)

    Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. Learn from experts Vijay Rao and Amit Singh about simplified upgrade process and focused support from Cisco to migrate to version 9.1. 
    This is a continuation of the live Webcast
    Drive to 9 is a comprehensive and holistic program designed to help you upgrade the current Cisco® Unified Communications Manager installed base to version 9.1 or higher. This upgrade will enable customers to have next-generation collaboration experiences.
    During the live event, Cisco subject matter experts Vijay Rao and Amit Singh focussed on the simplified upgrade process and focused support from Cisco to migrate to version 9.1. They also talked about the changes made to the licensing model of User Connect Licensing and Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing.
    Vijay Rao is a Network Consulting Engineer and is currently a unified communications (UC) consultant for Bank of America. He has been providing consulting assistance to the bank for the past 6 years. He helps design complex UC networks for large enterprise customers. He was previously part of Cisco IT in the Asia Pacific, Japan, and China (APJC) region and was instrumental in designing and implementing the Bangalore campus. He has been working with Cisco for 9 years and has 12 years of UC experience. He has a Cisco CCVP® certification. 
    Amit Singh is a customer support engineer at the Cisco Technical Assistance Center in Bangalore, India. He has 7 years of experience in his areas of expertise: wireless, Cisco Unified Communications Manager, multiservices, Cisco Unity®, and Cisco Unified Contact Center Express. He has been involved in various escalation requests from India, Singapore, and Australia and is currently working as a technical lead for the Voice team in Bangalore, India. He is a computer science graduate.
    Remember to use the rating system to let Vijay and Amit know if you have received an adequate response.  
    Vijay and Amit might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the Collaboration, Voice and Video sub-community   forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through July 19, 2013. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.
    Webcast related links:
    Webcast Video
    FAQ from the live webcast
    Slides from the live webcast

    Hello Robert,
    Apologies for a delayed response, some days get very hectic.
    In CallManager, we only define the SRST reference, and CUCM version and SRST version are independent of each other.
    The only thing, which is related and will change with CUCM upgrade is Phone F/w version.
    http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/compat/ccmcompmatr1.pdf
    You may just want to check your, phone f/w compatibility with the SRST version running on your ISR G1 Gateways:
    http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2169/products_device_support_tables_list.html
    For Example: SRST version 7.1
    http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/voicesw/ps6788/vcallcon/ps2169/data_sheet_c78-520521.html
    You may want to do some lab testing with CUCM 9.1 and an SRST supported f/w on your phones.
    If you decide to run the old Phone/F/w to support the SRST version, you may not be able to take advantage of new features.
    Also, you can try and upgrade your phones(Wih CUCM 9.1) and test them with your SRST version.
    It should work fine, but from a troubleshooting perspective, TAC may request you to come into a Cisco Supported combination.
    Please, let me know if this clarifies your doubt or we can have a quick phone call.
    Regards
    Amit Singh

  • Ask the Expert:Cisco Prime Network Registrar

    With Pete Newcomb & Jim Brown 
    Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. Learn from experts Peter Newcomb and Jim Brown about  Cisco Prime Network Registrar, Cisco's industry leading solution for integrated DNS, DHCP and  IP address management (IPAM) services  for both IPv4 and IPv6. 
    Pete Newcomb is a technical marketing engineer in Cisco's Network Management and Technology Group and has over 30 years of experience in the voice and data communications industry, including sales support and product engineering support with several companies. His design and development background includes wireless services, switching, routing, TCP/IP, Frame Relay, X.25, telephony services, risk management, and network security. 
    Jim Brown is a customer support  engineer in Cisco's Network Management and Technology Group. He has over 35 years of experience in development engineering and customer service, real-time and fault tolerant operating systems, and network management for the telecommunications and software industries. For the last 14 years he has been with the Network Registrar Development Team, interfacing with Customer Service and directly with customers in problem solving.
    Remember to use the rating system to let Pete and Jim know if you have received an adequate response.  
    Pete and Jim might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the Network Infrastructure sub-community   forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through January 18, 2013. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

    Hi Jorge,
       Absolutely, Prime CNR supports IPv6 since CNR 6.x versions...
       For IPv6 configuration instructions on latest versions of CPNR you should start here;
          http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/docs/net_mgmt/prime/network_registrar/8.1/user/guide/UG25_IP6.html
                                                        Best Regards
                                                        Jim Brown

  • Ask the Expert: Cisco UCS Troubleshooting Boot from SAN with FC and iSCSI

    Welcome to this Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about Cisco UCS Troubleshooting Boot from SAN with FC and iSCSI with Vishal Mehta and Manuel Velasco.
    The current industry trend is to use SAN (FC/FCoE/iSCSI) for booting operating systems instead of using local storage.
    Boot from SAN offers many benefits, including:
    Server without local storage can run cooler and use the extra space for other components.
    Redeployment of servers caused by hardware failures becomes easier with boot from SAN servers.
    SAN storage allows the administrator to use storage more efficiently.
    Boot from SAN offers reliability because the user can access the boot disk through multiple paths, which protects the disk from being a single point of failure.
    Cisco UCS takes away much of the complexity with its service profiles and associated boot policies to make boot from SAN deployment an easy task.
    Vishal Mehta is a customer support engineer for Cisco’s Data Center Server Virtualization TAC team based in San Jose, California. He has been working in the TAC for the past three years with a primary focus on data center technologies such as Cisco Nexus 5000, Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus 1000v, and virtualization. He has presented at Cisco Live in Orlando 2013 and will present at Cisco Live Milan 2014 (BRKCOM-3003, BRKDCT-3444, and LABDCT-2333). He holds a master’s degree from Rutgers University in electrical and computer engineering and has CCIE certification (number 37139) in routing and switching and service provider.
    Manuel Velasco is a customer support engineer for Cisco’s Data Center Server Virtualization TAC team based in San Jose, California. He has been working in the TAC for the past three years with a primary focus on data center technologies such as Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus 1000v, and virtualization. Manuel holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and VMware VCP and CCNA certifications.
    Remember to use the rating system to let Vishal and Manuel know if you have received an adequate response. 
    Because of the volume expected during this event, our experts might not be able to answer every question. Remember that you can continue the conversation in the Data Center community, under subcommunity Unified Computing, shortly after the event. This event lasts through April 25, 2014. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other Cisco Support Community members.

    Hello Evan
    Thank you for asking this question. Most common TAC cases that we have seen on Boot-from-SAN failures are due to misconfiguration.
    So our methodology is to verify configuration and troubleshoot from server to storage switches to storage array.
    Before diving into troubleshooting, make sure there is clear understanding of this topology. This is very vital with any troubleshooting scenario. Know what devices you have and how they are connected, how many paths are connected, Switch/NPV mode and so on.
    Always try to troubleshoot one path at a time and verify that the setup is in complaint with the SW/HW interop matrix tested by Cisco.
    Step 1: Check at server
    a. make sure to have uniform firmware version across all components of UCS
    b. Verify if VSAN is created and FC uplinks are configured correctly. VSANs/FCoE-vlan should be unique per fabric
    c. Verify at service profile level for configuration of vHBAs - vHBA per Fabric should have unique VSAN number
    Note down the WWPN of your vhba. This will be needed in step 2 for zoning on the SAN switch and step 3 for LUN masking on the storage array.
    d. verify if Boot Policy of the service profile is configured to Boot From SAN - the Boot Order and its parameters such as Lun ID and WWN are extremely important
    e. finally at UCS CLI - verify the flogi of vHBAs (for NPV mode, command is (from nxos) – show npv flogi-table)
    Step 2: Check at Storage Switch
    a. Verify the mode (by default UCS is in FC end-host mode, so storage switch has to be in NPIV mode; unless UCS is in FC Switch mode)
    b. Verify the switch port connecting to UCS is UP as an F-Port and is configured for correct VSAN
    c. Check if both the initiator (Server) and the target (Storage) are logged into the fabric switch (command for MDS/N5k - show flogi database vsan X)
    d. Once confirmed that initiator and target devices are logged into the fabric, query the name server to see if they have registered themselves correctly. (command - show fcns database vsan X)
    e. Most important configuration to check on Storage Switch is the zoning
    Zoning is basically access control for our initiator to  targets. Most common design is to configure one zone per initiator and target.
    Zoning will require you to configure a zone, put that zone into your current zonset, then ACTIVATE it. (command - show zoneset active vsan X)
    Step 3: Check at Storage Array
    When the Storage array logs into the SAN fabric, it queries the name server to see which devices it can communicate.
    LUN masking is crucial step on Storage Array which gives particular host (server) access to specific LUN
    Assuming that both the storage and initiator have FLOGI’d into the fabric and the zoning is correct (as per Step 1 & 2)
    Following needs to be verified at Storage Array level
    a. Are the wwpn of the initiators (vhba of the hosts) visible on the storage array?
    b. If above is yes then Is LUN Masking applied?
    c. What LUN number is presented to the host - this is the number that we see in Lun ID on the 'Boot Order' of Step 1
    Below document has details and troubleshooting outputs:
    http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/servers-unified-computing/ucs-b-series-blade-servers/115764-ucs-san-tshoot-00.html
    Hope this answers your question.
    Thanks,
    Vishal 

  • Ask the Expert: Scaling Data Center Networks with Cisco FabricPath

    With Hatim Badr and Iqbal Syed
    Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about the Cisco FabricPath with Cisco technical support experts Hatim Badr and Iqbal Syed. Cisco FabricPath is a Cisco NX-OS Software innovation combining the plug-and-play simplicity of Ethernet with the reliability and scalability of Layer 3 routing. Cisco FabricPath uses many of the best characteristics of traditional Layer 2 and Layer 3 technologies, combining them into a new control-plane and data-plane implementation that combines the immediately operational "plug-and-play" deployment model of a bridged spanning-tree environment with the stability, re-convergence characteristics, and ability to use multiple parallel paths typical of a Layer 3 routed environment. The result is a scalable, flexible, and highly available Ethernet fabric suitable for even the most demanding data center environments. Using FabricPath, you can build highly scalable Layer 2 multipath networks without the Spanning Tree Protocol. Such networks are particularly suitable for large virtualization deployments, private clouds, and high-performance computing (HPC) environments.
    This event will focus on technical support questions related to the benefits of Cisco FabricPath over STP or VPC based architectures, design options with FabricPath, migration to FabricPath from STP/VPC based networks and FabricPath design and implementation best practices.
    Hatim Badr is a Solutions Architect for Cisco Advanced Services in Toronto, where he supports Cisco customers across Canada as a specialist in Data Center architecture, design, and optimization projects. He has more than 12 years of experience in the networking industry. He holds CCIE (#14847) in Routing & Switching, CCDP and Cisco Data Center certifications.
    Iqbal Syed is a Technical Marketing Engineer for the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series of switches. He is responsible for product road-mapping and marketing the Nexus 7000 line of products with a focus on L2 technologies such as VPC & Cisco FabricPath and also helps customers with DC design and training. He also focuses on SP customers worldwide and helps promote N7K business within different SP segments. Syed has been with Cisco for more than 10 years, which includes experience in Cisco Advanced Services and the Cisco Technical Assistance Center. His experience ranges from reactive technical support to proactive engineering, design, and optimization. He holds CCIE (#24192) in Routing & Switching, CCDP, Cisco Data Center, and TOGAF (v9) certifications.
    Remember to use the rating system to let Hatim and Iqbal know if you have received an adequate response.  
    They might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the Data Center sub-community Unified Computing discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through Dec 7, 2012.. Visit this support forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other Cisco Support Community members.

    Hi Sarah,
    Thank you for your question.
    Spanning Tree Protocol is used to build a loop-free topology. Although Spanning Tree Protocol serves a critical function in these Layer 2 networks, it is also frequently the cause of a variety of problems, both operational and architectural.
    One important aspect of Spanning Tree Protocol behavior is its inability to use parallel forwarding paths. Spanning Tree Protocol forms a forwarding tree, rooted at a single device, along which all data-plane traffic must flow. The addition of parallel paths serves as a redundancy mechanism, but adding more than one such path has little benefit because Spanning Tree Protocol blocks any additional paths
    In addition, rooting the forwarding path at a single device results in suboptimal forwarding paths, as shown below, Although a direct connection may exist, it cannot be used because only one active forwarding path is allowed.
    Virtual PortChannel (vPC) technology partially mitigates the limitations of Spanning Tree Protocol. vPC allows a single Ethernet device to connect simultaneously to two discrete Cisco Nexus switches while treating these parallel connections as a single logical PortChannel interface. The result is active-active forwarding paths and the removal of Spanning Tree Protocol blocked links, delivering an effective way to use two parallel paths in the typical Layer 2 topologies used with Spanning Tree Protocol.
    vPC provides several benefits over a standard Spanning Tree Protocol such as elimination of blocker ports and both vPC switches can behave as active default gateway for first-hop redundancy protocols such as Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP): that is, traffic can be routed by either vPC peer switch.
    At the same time, however, many of the overall design constraints of a Spanning Tree Protocol network remain even when you deploy vPC such as
    1.     Although vPC provides active-active forwarding, only two active parallel paths are possible.
    2.     vPC offers no means by which VLANs can be extended, a critical limitation of traditional Spanning Tree Protocol designs.
    With Cisco FabricPath, you can create a flexible Ethernet fabric that eliminates many of the constraints of Spanning Tree Protocol. At the control plane, Cisco FabricPath uses a Shortest-Path First (SPF) routing protocol to determine reachability and selects the best path or paths to any given destination in the Cisco FabricPath domain. In addition, the Cisco FabricPath data plane introduces capabilities that help ensure that the network remains stable, and it provides scalable, hardware-based learning and forwarding capabilities not bound by software or CPU capacity.
    Benefits of deploying an Ethernet fabric based on Cisco FabricPath include:
    • Simplicity, reducing operating expenses
    – Cisco FabricPath is extremely simple to configure. In fact, the only necessary configuration consists of distinguishing the core ports, which link the switches, from the edge ports, where end devices are attached. There is no need to tune any parameter to get an optimal configuration, and switch addresses are assigned automatically.
    – A single control protocol is used for unicast forwarding, multicast forwarding, and VLAN pruning. The Cisco FabricPath solution requires less combined configuration than an equivalent Spanning Tree Protocol-based network, further reducing the overall management cost.
    – A device that does not support Cisco FabricPath can be attached redundantly to two separate Cisco FabricPath bridges with enhanced virtual PortChannel (vPC+) technology, providing an easy migration path. Just like vPC, vPC+ relies on PortChannel technology to provide multipathing and redundancy without resorting to Spanning Tree Protocol.
    Scalability based on proven technology
    – Cisco FabricPath uses a control protocol built on top of the powerful Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS) routing protocol, an industry standard that provides fast convergence and that has been proven to scale up to the largest service provider environments. Nevertheless, no specific knowledge of IS-IS is required in order to operate a Cisco FabricPath network.
    – Loop prevention and mitigation is available in the data plane, helping ensure safe forwarding that cannot be matched by any transparent bridging technology. The Cisco FabricPath frames include a time-to-live (TTL) field similar to the one used in IP, and a Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) check is also applied.
    • Efficiency and high performance
    – Because equal-cost multipath (ECMP) can be used the data plane, the network can use all the links available between any two devices. The first-generation hardware supporting Cisco FabricPath can perform 16-way ECMP, which, when combined with 16-port 10-Gbps port channels, represents a potential bandwidth of 2.56 terabits per second (Tbps) between switches.
    – Frames are forwarded along the shortest path to their destination, reducing the latency of the exchanges between end stations compared to a spanning tree-based solution.
        – MAC addresses are learned selectively at the edge, allowing to scale the network beyond the limits of the MAC addr

  • Ask the Expert: One Management with Prime Infrastructure 1.2

    With Tejas Shah
    Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions from Cisco expert Tejas Shah on One Management with Prime Infrastructure 1.2 Combining the wireless functionality of Cisco Prime Network Control System (NCS) with the wired functionality of Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution (LMS),  Cisco Prime Infrastructure simplifies and automates many of the day-to-day tasks associated with maintaining and managing the end-to-end network infrastructure from a single pane of glass. The new converged solution delivers all of the existing wireless capabilities for RF management, user access visibility, reporting, and troubleshooting along with wired lifecycle functions such as discovery, inventory, configuration and image management, automated deployment, compliance reporting, integrated best practices, and reporting.
    Tejas Shah is a senior technical marketing engineer for Cisco Prime Infrastructure and Collaboration products. He has deployed Cisco Prime Collaboration Manager at various customer sites to help customers monitor and troubleshoot their video infrastructure. In addition, he is part of the Network Operations Center team at Cisco Live events for six years. Shah joined Cisco in 1995 and was in the Technical Assistance Center team supporting various network management system products for more than six years.
    Remember to use the rating system to let Tejas know if you have received an adequate response. 
    Tejas might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the Wireless Mobility sub-community discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through Sept 21, 2012. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

    Raun, please see my responses inline:
    Can you go over the licensing method with Prime Infrastructure 1.2 please? 
    Raun, you can check out the following link for ordering guide at
    http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps12239/products_data_sheets_list.html
    I currently have NCS and do NOT currently have LMS.  I know I can move to Prime Infrastructure through Cisco Product Upgrade Tool.  However, what I am confused about is do I still have to buy LMS to have LMS functionality in Prime Infrastructure 1.2? 
    ==> Not at all.  The converged product will give you basic management capability for routers and switches that LMS provided in this release.   Feature/Functionality will keep on growing with upcoming releases.
    If not, do the licenses I transfer into Prime Infrastructure 1.2 from NCS also work for devices to work under LMS? 
    ==> Licensing is different than NCS or LMS.  You don't have to transfer the license.  Each install of Prime Infrastructure will have a unique UID string on which the licenses are based.  A new license will be applied to the product.
    Mean, can my currently 350 licenses be used for AP's as in NCS and routers in the LMS portion of Prime Infrastructure 1.2?
    ==> I would recommend getting a total count of your wired and wireless devices and match the right SKU based on that.
    Hope this helps.. Let me know if you have any further questions,
    Tejas

  • Ask the Expert: Different Flavors and Design with vPC on Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches

    Welcome to the Cisco® Support Community Ask the Expert conversation.  This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about Cisco® NX-OS.
    The biggest limitation to a classic port channel communication is that the port channel operates only between two devices. To overcome this limitation, Cisco NX-OS has a technology called virtual port channel (vPC). A pair of switches acting as a vPC peer endpoint looks like a single logical entity to port channel attached devices. The two devices that act as the logical port channel endpoint are actually two separate devices. This setup has the benefits of hardware redundancy combined with the benefits offered by a port channel, for example, loop management.
    vPC technology is the main factor for success of Cisco Nexus® data center switches such as the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series, Nexus 7000 Series, and Nexus 2000 Series Switches.
    This event is focused on discussing all possible types of vPC along-with best practices, failure scenarios, Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) recommendations and troubleshooting
    Vishal Mehta is a customer support engineer for the Cisco Data Center Server Virtualization Technical Assistance Center (TAC) team based in San Jose, California. He has been working in TAC for the past 3 years with a primary focus on data center technologies, such as the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches, Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS®), Cisco Nexus 1000V Switch, and virtualization. He presented at Cisco Live in Orlando 2013 and will present at Cisco Live Milan 2014 (BRKCOM-3003, BRKDCT-3444, and LABDCT-2333). He holds a master’s degree from Rutgers University in electrical and computer engineering and has CCIE® certification (number 37139) in routing and switching, and service provider.
    Nimit Pathak is a customer support engineer for the Cisco Data Center Server Virtualization TAC team based in San Jose, California, with primary focus on data center technologies, such as Cisco UCS, the Cisco Nexus 1000v Switch, and virtualization. Nimit holds a master's degree in electrical engineering from Bridgeport University, has CCNA® and CCNP® Nimit is also working on a Cisco data center CCIE® certification While also pursuing an MBA degree from Santa Clara University.
    Remember to use the rating system to let Vishal and Nimit know if you have received an adequate response. 
    Because of the volume expected during this event, Vishal and Nimit might not be able to answer every question. Remember that you can continue the conversation in the Network Infrastructure Community, under the subcommunity LAN, Switching & Routing, shortly after the event. This event lasts through August 29, 2014. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other Cisco Support Community members.

    Hello Gustavo
    Please see my responses to your questions:
    Yes almost all routing protocols use Multicast to establish adjacencies. We are dealing with two different type of traffic –Control Plane and Data Plane.
    Control Plane: To establish Routing adjacency, the first packet (hello) is punted to CPU. So in the case of triangle routed VPC topology as specified on the Operations Guide Link, multicast for routing adjacencies will work. The hellos packets will be exchanged across all 3 routers and adjacency will be formed over VPC links
    http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5000/sw/operations/n5k_L3_w_vpc_5500platform.html#wp999181
    Now for Data Plane we have two types of traffic – Unicast and Multicast.
    The Unicast traffic will not have any forwarding issues, but because the Layer 3 ECMP and port channel run independent hash calculations there is a possibility that when the Layer 3 ECMP chooses N5k-1 as the Layer 3 next hop for a destination address while the port channel hashing chooses the physical link toward N5k-2. In this scenario,N5k-2 receives packets from R with the N5k-1 MAC as the destination MAC.
    Sending traffic over the peer-link to the correct gateway is acceptable for data forwarding, but it is suboptimal because it makes traffic cross the peer link when the traffic could be routed directly.
    For that topology, Multicast Traffic might have complete traffic loss due to the fact that when a PIM router is connected to Cisco Nexus 5500 Platform switches in a vPC topology, the PIM join messages are received only by one switch. The multicast data might be received by the other switch.
    The Loop avoidance works little different across Nexus 5000 and Nexus 7000.
    Similarity: For both products, loop avoidance is possible due to VSL bit
    The VSL bit is set in the DBUS header internal to the Nexus.
    It is not something that is set in the ethernet packet that can be identified. The VSL bit is set on the port asic for the port used for the vPC peer link, so if you have Nexus A and Nexus B configured for vPC and a packet leaves Nexus A towards Nexus B, Nexus B will set the VSL bit on the ingress port ASIC. This is not something that would traverse the peer link.
    This mechanism is used for loop prevention within the chassis.
    The idea being that if the port came in the peer link from the vPC peer, the system makes the assumption that the vPC peer would have forwarded this packet out the vPC-enabled port-channels towards the end device, so the egress vpc interface's port-asic will filter the packet on egress.
    Differences:  In Nexus 5000 when it has to do L3-to-L2 lookup for forwarding traffic, the VSL bit is cleared and so the traffic is not dropped as compared to Nexus 7000 and Nexus 3000.
    It still does loop prevention but the L3-to-L2 lookup is different in Nexus 5000 and Nexus 7000.
    For more details please see below presentation:
    https://supportforums.cisco.com/sites/default/files/session_14-_nexus.pdf
    DCI Scenario:  If 2 pairs are of Nexus 5000 then separation of L3/L2 links is not needed.
    But in most scenarios I have seen pair of Nexus 5000 with pair of Nexus 7000 over DCI or 2 pairs of Nexus 7000 over DCI. If Nexus 7000 are used then L3 and L2 links are required for sure as mentioned on above presentation link.
    Let us know if you have further questions.
    Thanks,
    Vishal

  • ASK THE EXPERTS : IPv6

    with Salman Asadullah
    Welcome to the Cisco Networking Professionals Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to get an update on how to enable your network to run IPv6 with Cisco expert Salman Asadullah. Salman is a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco and a Fellow of the IPv6 forum. Salman represents Cisco in industry panel discussions and technical platforms such as APRICOT, IETF, BBF, SCTE, Worldwide IPv6 Technical Forums and Network Operators Groups, and Cisco Live. He influences technology directions and decisions with Cisco business units and customers and Internet community at large and is a coauthor and contributor of RFCs and drafts produced by IETF. Salman has produced three internetworking books: Cisco CCIE Fundamentals: Network Design & Case Study, PDIO of the IPT Networks, and Deploying IPv6 in Broadband Access Networks. He has been working with large-scale IP and multiservice networks and technologies for over 15 years.
    Remember to use the rating system to let Salman know if you have received an adequate response.
    Salman might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the Security discussion forums shortly after the event. This event lasts through February 25, 2011. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

    Hello Roberto,
    Routers and Layer 3 switches are often seen as performing functions at different levels of the OSI model (Layer 2, Layer 3, Layer 4 or Layers 5-7). However, when discussing performance, it is more appropriate to differentiate these functions in the following three categories:
    1. Control plane running routing protocols, network management, etc. This is the more versatile part of the router functions.
    2. Data plane as basic or enhanced (including services) packet forwarding from one physical or logical interface to another. Different switching mechanisms may exist on a given router (e.g. CEF).
    3. Enhanced Services, which are really the Layer 2 thru 7 features that may apply when forwarding data (i.e. Packet filtering, QoS, Encryption, Translation, Accounting).
    Rightly asked; performance caveats are common in # 3 (i.e. advanced services) which could be CPU demanding at times and special hardware assistance may be needed to sustain the same performances as the other services. Couple of example which I have seen first hand (1) IPv6 over IPv4 support in DMVPN on IOS, performances numbers should be similar to IPv4 performances number (minus header overhead) (2) ASA IPv6 performance numbers should be within 5-10% as compared to IPv4.
    Unfortunately no document is currently available which lists the IPv6 performance figures for requested features and multiple products. If you are about to deploy requested features/products, I would recommend you to please follow up with your Account or Services team to get per feature/product IPv6 performance figures and statistics specifics.
    Appreciate your understanding!
    Regards,
    Salman

  • Ask the Expert: Single-Site and Multisite FlexPod Infrastructure

    With Haseeb Niazi and Chris O'Brien 
    Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about Single-Site and Multisite FlexPod Infrastructure with experts Haseeb Niazi and Chris O'Brien.
    This is a continuation of the live webcast.
    FlexPod is a predesigned and prevalidated base data center configuration built on Cisco Unified Computing System, Cisco Nexus data center switches, NetApp FAS storage components, and a number of software infrastructure options supporting a range of IT initiatives. FlexPod is the result of deep technology collaboration between Cisco and NetApp, leading to the creation of an integrated, tested, and validated data center platform that has been thoroughly documented in a best practices design guide. In many cases, the availability of Cisco Validated Design guides has reduced the time to deployment of mission-critical applications by 30 percent.
    The FlexPod portfolio includes a number of validated design options that can be deployed in a single site to support both physical and virtual workloads or across metro sites for supporting high availability and disaster avoidance. This session covers various design options available to customers and partners, including the latest MetroCluster FlexPod design to support a VMware Metro Storage Cluster (vMSC) configuration.
    Haseeb Niazi is a technical marketing engineer in the Data Center Group specializing in security and data center technologies. His areas of expertise also include VPN and security, the Cisco Nexus product line, and FlexPod. Prior to joining the Data Center Group, he worked as a technical leader in the Solution Development Unit and as a solutions architect in Advanced Services. Haseeb holds a master of science degree in computer engineering from the University of Southern California. He’s CCIE certified (number 7848) and has 14 years of industry experience.   
    Chris O'Brien is a technical marketing manager with Cisco’s Computing Systems Product Group.  He is currently focused on developing infrastructure best practices and solutions that are designed, tested, and documented to facilitate and improve customer deployments. Previously, O'Brien was an application developer and has worked in the IT industry for more than 20 years.
    Remember to use the rating system to let Haseeb and Chris know if you have received an adequate response. 
    Because of the volume expected during this event, Haseeb and Chris might not be able to answer every question. Remember that you can continue the conversation in the Data Center community, subcommunity Unified Computing shortly after the event. This event lasts through September 27, 2013. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other Cisco Support Community members.
    Webcast related links:
    Single-Site and Multisite FlexPod Infrastructure - Slides from live webcast
    Single-Site and Multisite FlexPod Infrastructure: FAQ from live webcast
    Single-Site and Multisite FlexPod Infrastructure - Video from live webcast

    I would suggest you read this white paper which details the pros and cons of direct connect storage. 
    http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/prod/collateral/ps10265/ps10276/whitepaper_c11-702584.html   This paper captures all the major design points for Ethernet and FC  protocols.
    I would only add that in FlexPod we are trying to create a highly  available solution and "flexible" solution; Nexus switching helps us  deliver on both with vPC and unified ports.
    NPV equats  to end-host mode which allows the system to present all of the servers  as N ports to the external fabric.  In this mode, the vHBAs are pinned  to the egress interfaces of the fabric interconnects.  This pinning  removes the potential of loops in the SAN fabric.  Host based multipathing of the  vHBAs account for potential uplink failures.  The NPV mode (end-host  mode) simplifies the attachment of UCS into the SAN fabric and that is  why it is in NPV mode by default.
    So for your last question, I will have to put my  Product Manager hat on so bear with me.   First off there is no drawback  to enabling the NPIV feature (none that I am aware of) the Nexus 5000  platform simply offers you a choice to design and support multiple FC  initiators (N-Ports) per F-Port via NPIV.  This allows for the  integration of the FI end-host mode described above.  I  imagine being a  unfied access layer switch, the Nexus team enabled standard Fibre  Channel switching capability and features first.  The implementatin of  NPIV is a customer choice based on their specific access layer  requirements.
    /Chris

  • Ask the Expert: Plan, Design, and Implement Mobile Remote Access, the Cisco Collaboration Edge Architecture

    Welcome to the Cisco® Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about planning, designing, and implementing mobile remote access (Cisco Collaboration Edge Architecture) with Cisco subject matter experts Aashish Jolly and Abhijit Anand.
    Cisco Collaboration Edge Architecture is an architecture that provides VPN-less access of Cisco Unified Communications resources to Cisco Jabber® users. This discussion is dedicated to addressing questions about design best practices while implementing mobile remote access.
    For more information, refer to the Unified Communications Mobile and Remote Access via Cisco VCS deployment guide. 
    Aashish Jolly is a network consulting engineer who is currently serving as the Cisco Unified Communications consultant for the ExxonMobil Global account. Earlier at Cisco, he was part of the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC), where he helped Cisco partners with installation, configuring, and troubleshooting Cisco Unified Communications products such as Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Manager Express, Cisco Unity® solutions, Cisco Unified Border Element, voice gateways and gatekeepers, and more. He has been associated with Cisco Unified Communications for more than seven years. He holds a bachelor of technology degree as well as Cisco CCIE® Voice (#18500), CCNP® Voice, and CCNA® certifications and VMware VCP5 and Red Hat RHCE certifications.
    Abhijit Singh Anand is a network consulting engineer with the Cisco Advanced Services field delivery team in New Delhi. His current role involves designing, implementing, and optimizing large-scale collaboration solutions for enterprise and defense customers. He has also been an engineer at the Cisco TAC. Having worked on multiple technologies including wireless and LAN switching, he has been associated with Cisco Unified Communications technologies since 2006. He holds a master’s degree in computer applications and multiple certifications, including CCIE Voice (#19590), RHCE, and CWSP and CWNP.
    Remember to use the rating system to let Aashish and Abhijit know if you have received an adequate response. 
    Because of the volume expected during this event, our experts might not be able to answer every question. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the Cisco Support Community Collaboration, Voice and Video page, in the Jabber Clients subcommunity, shortly after the event. This event lasts through June 20, 2014. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other Cisco Support Community members.

    Hi Marcelo,
       Yes, there are some requirements for certificates in Expressway.
    Expressway Core (Exp-C)
    - Can be signed by either External or Internal CA
    - Better to use a cluster name even if you start with 1 peer in Exp-C cluster. In the future, if more peers are added, changes would be minimal.
    - Better to use FQDN of cluster as CN of certificate, this way the traversal zone configuration on Expressway-E won't require any change even if new peers are added to Exp-C cluster.
    - If CUCM is mixed mode, include security profile names (in FQDN format) as Subject Alternate Names
    - The Chat Node Aliases that are configured on the IM and Presence servers. They will be required only for Unified Communications XMPP federation deployments that intend to use both TLS and group chat. (Note that Unified Communications XMPP federation will be supported in a future Expressway release). The Expressway-C automatically includes the chat node aliases in the CSR, providing it has discovered a set of IM&P servers.
    - For TLS b/w CUCM, IM-P & Exp-C
      + If using self-signed certificates on CUCM, IM/P. Load Cisco Tomcat, cup, cup-xmpp certificates from IM-P on Exp-C. Load callmanager, Cisco Tomcat certificates from CUCM on Exp-C.
      + If using Internal CA signed certificates on CUCM, IM/P. Load Root CA certificates on Exp-C.
      + Load CA certificate under tomcat-trust, cup-trust, cup-xmpp-trust on IM-P.
      + Load CA certificate under tomcat-trust, callmanager-trust on CUCM.
    Expressway Edge (Exp-E)
    - Signed by External CA
    - Configured Unified Communications domain as Subject Alternate Name
    - If using a cluster, select FQDN of this peer as CN and FQDN of Cluster + this peer as Subject Alternate Name.
    - If XMPP federation is being deployed, enter the same Chat Node Aliases as entered in Exp-C.
    For more details, please refer to the Certificate Creation Guide for Cisco Expressway x8.1.1
    http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/config_guide/X8-1/Cisco-Expressway-Certificate-Creation-and-Use-Deployment-Guide-X8-1.pdf
    - Aashish

  • Ask the Expert: Overview of Cisco Prime Service Catalog and Process Orchestrator Solutions

    Welcome to this Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about the Cisco Prime Service Catalog and Process Orchestrator solutions.
    Cisco expert Jason Davis will discuss Cisco’s network management products offered under the Cisco Prime framework. If you have questions about Cisco Prime infrastructure or data center automation with our Cisco Prime Service Catalog and Process Orchestrator solutions, join us on the Cisco Support Community.
    Jason Davis is a distinguished services engineer in the Intelligent Infrastructure Practice team of Cisco Advanced Services. His role is to provide strategic and tactical consulting for hundreds of Advanced Services customers, lead service innovation, and assess new services and technologies. Jason's primary expertise areas are in network management systems, intelligent automation, virtualization, data center operations, software-defined networking, and network programmability.
    Based out of the Research Triangle Park (RTP) campus, Jason is also responsible for administering the Research Triangle Park Network Management Lab, Cisco's largest network management lab.
    Since joining Cisco in 1998, Jason has been a frequent speaker at Cisco's Networkers and CiscoLive conferences in the United States and Europe. In the past five years he has also been involved in the conference network setup and monitoring. He is a much sought-after resource by the field sales teams to assist with presales solutions and executive briefings. He has provided strategic and tactical network management consulting for several hundred customers.
    Jason is a subject matter expert with the following products and features:
    Cisco Prime LAN management solution
    Cisco Prime infrastructure
    CiscoSecure ACS
    Cisco Prime Network Registrar
    Cisco Process Orchestrator
    Cisco Prime Service Catalog
    Cisco IP SLA
    Embedded Event Manager
    SNMPv3
    onePK and OpenFlow
    Cisco UCS
    Device instrumentation
    VMware ESX, ESXi, and vCenter
    ITIL
    Jason received his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Miami (FL). He has been married for 20 years and has 4 children. His interests include providing audiovisual technical support for churches and conference venues, camping and biking with his family, remote-control helicopter piloting, paintball, and recreational shooting.
    Remember to use the rating system to let Jason know if you have received an adequate response.
    Because of the volume expected during this event, Jason might not be able to answer every question. Remember that you can continue the conversation in Data Center > Intelligent Automation under the subcommunity Cisco Prime Service Catalog shortly after the event. This event lasts through September 12, 2014. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other Cisco Support Community members.

    Hello Jason,
    Thank you very much for welcoming me to your expert discussion :) I feel to be in the right place, at the right time. Thank you also for answering question beyond your scope here, much appreciated. The information received will help me to go further as such I have submitted a 5 start rating for your first reply.
    That sounds promising about the LMS part so yes, I stay tuned and wait patiently.
    Ok, now let’s revert to the actual topic discussed here. Cisco Prime Service Catalog and Process Orchestrator solutions I have briefly read up on this on CCO (where elseJ) and picked out the following quote
    ---- Quote from the Cisco Prime Service Catalog Data Sheet
     Today’s end users want self-service and easy access to IT tools and services.
    Simultaneously, organizations are seeking ways to extend their cloud management
    platforms beyond self-service delivery of virtual machines and infrastructure resources
    while increasing their use of cloud-based solutions to enhance business agility and effectiveness.
    Cisco Prime™ Service Catalog offers tremendous benefits to organizations that want to unify the ways in
    which all types of IT services are ordered and fulfilled, not just infrastructure requests
    ---- un quote ---
    I try to understand what (at high level of course) happens in the back ground when an order is raised and which vendor solution your product can interact with.
    As mentioned in the quoted text, this service catalogue goes beyond the standard infrastructure.
    Let’s say, a user wants to deploy a new email services, or in your example,  extends or create a new web-portal (i.e. for HR to view and manage holiday, staff absence and benefits).
    Your solution will need to interact somehow with the 3rd party vendor application that is capable building such portal I believe.
    Without disclosing to many information, I assume the portal is linked to backend VM,s that spin up requested resources (and more magic of course). Perhaps I am mixing this up with another cisco product where a user can go on the portal and spin up virtual Firewalls, virtual Routers can be provisioned in now time.
    Out if interest; Is this product also known as Mozart? (project code within Cisco?)
    I hope query is ok.
    Best wishes
    Markus

  • Ask the Experts :LAN Switching

    With Matt Blanshard and Jane Gao
    Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to ask your toughest layer 2 questions to two of the technical leaders of the San Jose LAN Switching team, Matt Blanshard and Jane Gao. Learn more about Spanning Tree, VTP, Trunking, Resilient Ethernet Protocol, IGMP Snooping, Private VLANS, Q-in-Q Tunneling, QoS, various switching platforms including all desktop switches, Metro Ethernet switches, 4500 and 6500 switches, Blade Center switches, and Nexus 7000 switches. 
    Matt Blanshard began his Cisco career as an intern in 2007.  He is now a technical leader at the Cisco Technical Assistance Center on the LAN Switching team. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Phoenix in computer science, and has CCNA certification.
    Jane Gao is a technical leader in the Lan Switching Technical Assistance Center (TAC) team in San Jose. She has been working with LAN switching technologies and supporting Cisco switching platforms Jane's Bio since 2009. Ms. Gao was previously a technical leader in the Wireless TAC team in San Jose. Prior to joining Cisco Ms. Gao was working in software development. She has a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from DePaul University in Chicago.
    Remember to use the rating system to let Matt and Jane know if you have received an adequate response.  
    They might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the Lan Switching and Routing discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through August 12, 2011. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

    you can load you IOS from the tftpd32 , first donload tftpd32 from google its free, run it but make it sure that you have you IOS image bin file in you PC, then , follow these steps ,
    STEP 1.
                    Store the IOS image on the computer in any drive with its original name .
    STEP2.
               Connect the Switch to the Computer through straight cable.
    STEP 3.
                 Come to the Switch , come in the enable or privilege mode by entering   enable
                 Then come to the configuration mode , type  config terminal push enter
               Now type interface fast Ethernet or giga Ethernet port what ever the port is connected to the PC , example interface fast Ethernet 0/1 then push enter
    Now give ip address, like
    Ip address 1.1.1.1 255.0.0.0   enter
    No shut   enter
    STEP 3 .
                     Come to the PC GO TO THE NETWORk CARD and give the ip address 1.1.1.2 subnet mask 255.0.0.0 gateway 1.1.1.0 nothing else.
    STEP 4.
                 Now download    tftpd32  you can get it on google download it  AND RUN IT . AFTER THAT OPEN THE TFTP WHICH WILL BE ON DESKTOP , DOUBLE CLICK IT AND COME TO current directory and brows the IOS IMAGE FILE where you save that and select that it will then comes to the current directory , now below current directory you will see server interface , in front of that you will have to click show dir and see that the IOS file can be seen .
    STEP 5. COME TO THE SWITCH AGAIN , GO in enable mode.
    Type this.
                       Copy tftp flash. Push enter
                     It will ask you the name and address of remote host ?
    Give the IP ADDRESS of the system , 1.1.1.2 and push enter .
    Now it will ask you about the source file name ?
    Copy the file name from pc where the IOS IMAGE which is saved on the PC and past on the switch and type.bin in the end and push enter.
    Now the SWITCH will ask you about the destination file name , you can create your own name or use the same default name that is saved on the PC which you copy past on switch , after entering the name push enter. NOW WAIT FOR 10 MINUTES IF IT WILL ASK YOU SOMETHING PUSH ENTER AND WAIT FOR THE IMAGE TO UPLOAD.
    AFTER THAT COME TO THE enable mode and type wr  and the type reload and wait for the reboot process, in case you are using same destination file name as kept on the pc otherwise. Look below
    If you have create your own choice name then,
    Come to configuration mode , by typing config terminal push enter.
    Type this command
       Boot system switch all flash:/new name that you have created and type.bin in the end push enter.
    Now type exit come to the enable mode .
    Type WR push enter.
    Now run these commands for verification.
    Show boot. ( after running this command check if the file name of the IOS is there then its ok )
    Dir flash. ( after running this command check if the file name of the IOS is there then its ok )
    Now TYPE THE LAST COMMAND
    Reload and allow the switch to reboot and wait .

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