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.
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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

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Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation.This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions of Cisco expert Vignesh R. P. about the Cisco® Nexus 7000 Series Switches and support for the Cisco NX-OS Software platform .
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Vignesh 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 discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through through January 18, 2013. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

Hi Vignesh
Is there is any limitation to connect a N2K directly to the N7K?
if i have a an F2 card 10G and another F2 card 1G and i want to creat 3 VDC'S
VDC1=DC-Core
VDC2=Aggregation
VDC3=Campus core
do we need to add a link between the different VDC's
thanks

Ask the Expert: Architecting your Collaboration Solution with Social and Video

With Gebran Chahrouri
Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about ways that Enterprise Social and Video are woven into traditional Voice solutions and Architectures with Cisco expert Gebran Chahrouri. Extend your Cisco collaboration architecture to reach into Cloud and/or on premise Cisco WebEx Social and TelePresence offerings. Gebran will be answering any questions about architecting a current solution or devising a roadmap to take your collaboration deployment to the next level.
Gebran Chahrouri is a principal engineer and architect for the WebEx Social product with a focus on scalability. Since joining Cisco in 1998 he has held engineering leadership and software management positions on products including Customer Contact, Cisco IPICS, and the Cisco TelePresence Exchange service. Chahrouri has nearly 30 years of experience in architecting, managing, and developing software products at Cisco, ROLM, IBM, Siemens, and Aspect. He holds a master's degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Michigan and has over 20 patents filed by the U.S. Patent Office.
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Hi Jason,
Thanks for your question.
WebEx Social combines the power of social networking, content creation, and real-time communications. Employees can quickly connect with people, communities and information they need to get work done.
The product tour video (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps10680/vds_cQuad_prodTour.html) featured at http://www.cisco.com/web/products/quad/index.html gives a really good overview of the product.
If you prefer a document to read I recommend http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/voicesw/ps6788/vcallcon/ps556/case_study_c36-706800_ps10668_Products_Case_Study.html
I would be happy to answer any further questions.
- Gebran

Ask the Expert: Scaling Data Center Networks with Cisco FabricPath

With Hatim Badr and Iqbal Syed
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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.
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2.     vPC offers no means by which VLANs can be extended, a critical limitation of traditional Spanning Tree Protocol designs.
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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.
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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 EXPERTS - Update on 802.11n with Fred Niehaus

Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to get an update on 802.11n with Cisco expert Fred Niehaus. Fred is a Technical Marketing Engineer for the Wireless Networking Business Unit at Cisco, where he is responsible for developing and marketing enterprise wireless solutions using Cisco Aironet and Airespace wireless LAN products. In addition to his participation in major deployments, Fred has served as technical editor for several Cisco Press books including the "Cisco 802.11 Wireless Networking Reference Guide" and "The Business Case for Enterprise-Class Wireless LANs." Prior to joining Cisco with the acquisition of Aironet, Fred was a support engineer for Telxon Corporation, supporting some of the very first wireless implementations for major corporate customers. Fred has been in the data communications and networking industry for more than 20 years and holds a Radio Amateur (Ham) License "N8CPI."
Remember to use the rating system to let Fred know if you have received an adequate response.
Fred 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 Other Mobility Subjects discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through March 25, 2011. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

So there are two parts of this question, the latter part I cannot address as it is a future question. Cisco does not comment on products that have not been released or on the strategy of next generation products.
That said, Cisco was first to market with an 802.11n Access Point and well (we didn't all go on vacation after we did that)
So let's talk a little about spatial streams in general and how it relates to what customers are doing today.
The Cisco 1040, 1140, 1250, 1260 and 3500 Series Access Points are all two spatial streams (2SS).
As of the time of this writing, a critical mass of 3SS and 4SS compatible clients have yet to be deployed, and the vast majority of WiFi clients that will be deployed over the next 18 months will be 1SS and 2SS clients.
The higher SS clients are likely only show up in some higher end notebooks -- Why? well it is a given that smartphones and tablets are likely to continue to be 1SS and in some rare cases 2SS.
This is because additional radios used in this technology consume battery life, add to the physical size of the device and increase the cost. Also many devices leverage the same single antenna for cellular as well as WiFi. Therefore, it is my opinion that 3SS Access Points provide little if any performance benefit for smartphones or tablets in the enterprise today, and any real throughput gain is likely to occur with high end notebooks in close proximity to the Access Point and those are rolling out very slowly and we are monitoring this.
Now we get to my favorite part of this.. I get to ask myself a question and then answer it..
So Fred are you saying that there is no value in 3SS and 4SS?
Of course not, 3SS performs similar to 2SS beyond a short distance, and with any multi-SS product RF interference must be addressed to capture the performance benefits of higher SS Access Points. Actual throughput in any WiFi environment is highly dependent on the presence of interferers and obstacles.
Without the ability to mitigate the impact of interference, 3SS solutions will "downshift" to 2SS of 1SS and lose all the performance benefits anyway IMHO.
I don't want to sound like a commercial, but you really do need Cisco cleanair technology in the AP and Cisco innovations deliver more and will go beyond the simple 3SS aspects of the 802.11n standard.
IMHO it's more about CleanAir, good RF system design, and what we put into the AP with regard to performance "in the environment" and not what is on some spec sheet today.
For more on Cisco CleanAir see the following URL http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns1070/index.html
Fred

Ask the Expert: Installing, Configuring, and Troubleshooting Cisco Unified MeetingPlace

With Dejan Petrovic
Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about different MeetingPlace deployment types, what they include and require, and what they are capable of with Cisco expert Dejan Petrovic. Cisco Unified MeetingPlace is a conferencing solution providing audio and video conferencing, and data sharing experience. It can be fully on premise solution or a hybrid solution integrated with WebEx for data sharing capability. Dejan will be answering any questions about installation, upgrade, migration and troubleshooting processes.
Dejan Petrovic is a Cisco customer support engineer and team lead in the Conferencing Technical Assistance Center team based in Boxborough. He has been providing support to customers and partners for Cisco Unified MeetingPlace solutions since 2009. He has more than eight years of experience working in the IT industry as system administrator, business manager, and networking consultant. Petrovic holds a bachelor’s degree in computer network and information systems as well as several Cisco certifications, including CCNA, Cisco IPCC Express Specialist, and MeetingPlace Support Specialist.
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Dejan 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 discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through February 8, 2013. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

Hello Nick,
I appreciate your questions, and will try to answer them below.
When you are installing a fresh new MeetingPlace 8.5 that you plan to integrate with WebEx, the only available option is WebEx Managed user profiles. With this option, you can either create profiles manually on WebEx side, and then sync them to MeetingPlace, or you can use Federated SSO for import of profiles from LDAP server in your network to WebEx, and then sync the profiles from WebEx to MeetingPlace (you choose one of these two options when provisioning WebEx site).
These are the only two available options for a NEW install of MP8.5 for WebEx integration, and as you can see both options are WebEx Managed profiles, the only difference is if you are going to use Federated SSO, or create profiles on WebEx manually.
During the install, you can select to install MeetingPlace managed users option, but you would choose this option only if you plan to do a migration from an earlier MP release (7.x/8.0) with WebEx integration and Directory Integration.
For example, MeetingPlace managed profiles option is available if you had MeetingPlace 8.0 integrated with WebEx Type II (WebEx scheduling) with Directory Integration, where you had your MP8.0 integrated with CUCM via AXL for user profile management (CUCM integrated with LDAP), and your WebEx Site provisioned for Directory Integration, and then migrate from that system to MeetingPlace 8.5 that you installed selecting MeetingPlace managed user profiles.
The same goes for MeetingPlace Scheduling (Type I) integration with WebEx. Possible only with migration, and not with a fresh new installation.
Now, to focus on your questions.
1. As you can see, you don't have many options. If you have MS Active Directory that you would like to use for SSO in MP8.5 WebEx Scheduling, you will have to go with Federated SSO. So far, I haven't heard of any issues with that as it seems to be pretty straight forward to configure, and also WebEx Support team provides direct support for that setup as it is a direct integration between WebEx Site and the LDAP server (nothing to do with MeetingPlace side of the equation).
2. In general, if you have Federated SSO enabled, you would go to WebEx site home page, click on Host Log In button which will then ask you to enter your network/windows credentials and place you to WebEx scheduling interface.
If you have Directory Integration (like on MP8.0 WebEx Type II with CUCM/AXL integration), when you go to WebEx site home page and click Host Log In button, you are being redirected to the MeetingPlace log-in page where you would enter your Windows credentials (assuming your CUCM is integrated with LDAP), and then if log in is successful, you get redirected back to WebEx scheduling interface. With this type of deployment, you can log in to WebEx scheduling interface ONLY if you are connecting from your company network or have a VPN connection to your company network. This is a major limitation that most customers complained about, but the reason for this was that we didn't want to make MP Application server hostname/IP publicly available and hence cause a security issue.
I am sure I answered your questions, but opened some new questions. So, please, let me know if I need to clarify anything.
Thank you.
-Dejan

ASK THE EXPERTS - WAAS MONITORING AND REPORTING

Welcome to the Cisco Networking Professionals Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn about Cisco Wide Area Application Services monitoring and reporting with Michael Holloway and Joe Merrill. Michael is an escalation support engineer in the Application Delivery Business Unit focusing on escalations to engineering related to the Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) product. He has worked with Cisco WAAS since its initial development, and with the first product beta.
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Joe Merrill is an escalation support engineer in the Application Delivery Business Unit focusing on escalations to engineering related to the Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) product. He has worked with Cisco WAAS since its initial development, and with the first product beta.
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Very good questions. Let me try and take them one at a time. Some of the answers you will likely find in the CM GUI help (upper-left corner is the Help button), or in the online documentation. But let's add a little more color and detail.
1)When we pull bandwidth Optimization report, on Y-Axis the graphs says Effective Capacity .What is Effective Capacity?
Basically, the "effective increased bandwidth capacity" is telling you how much additional WAN bandwidth you've gained because of the optimization. It will chart somewhere between 1 times and 100 times. Typically it charts all traffic, though you can configure it to chart traffic for specific Applications.
The CDM online help gives the formulas used to chart the graph:
Effective WAN Capacity = 1 / (1-% Reduction Excluding Pass-Through)
% Reduction Excluding Pass-Through = (Original Excluding Pass-Through - Optimized) / (Original Excluding Pass-Through)
2)what is reduction % excluding and including passthrough
Looking at the formulas given above might help you understand. The one is a reduction ratio compared to only the original traffic that is optimized. The other is a reduction ratio compared to all original traffic, whether it is optimized or not. So, if you want to know what kind of optimization you are getting for the traffic that you configured to have optimized, look at the "excluding pass-through" numbers. If you want to know the positive effect that optimization is having on your full traffic load, take a look at the "including pass-through" numbers.
3)What is effectivity capacity including and excluding passthrough ?
The effective capacity is what kind of throughput you can potentially realize on the WAN -- assuming you would fill it to 100% capacity -- because of the level of optimization you are seeing. The "including" numbers show you the effect of optimization compared to all the traffic passing through the WAE whether it is optimized or not. The "excluding" numbers show the effect of optimization compared only to the traffic that is receiving optimizations.
4)With the help of which report, we can show the customer that the file download which took 10 mins in first attempt, is downloaded in 10secons in next attempt?
This one is a little trickier. The reports are much broader than a single connection. They are for all traffic, or for traffic that matches specific defined Applications. You could create a separate Application and matching classifiers for the client and/or server IP addresses and/or ports, run the test, then configure the charts to only show you the data for that Application. By default, statistics for an Application aren’t charted unless you check the "Enable Statistics" box when defining/editing the Application.
5)How to show that the bandwidth utilization has decreased by which %.
You want to look at the % reduction numbers you asked about in #2 above.
6)Which report says that the applications have become this much time faster?
These questions are normally put forwarded by many customers ? Can you please help me with your expertise answer ?
This is probably the hardest question to answer.
"Faster" isn't always easy to define. You are probably talking about user experience rather than statistics found in a network device. What determines that experience? A web page fully populating with all the pictures? A CIFS-based application that saves a file? A custom application that collects data from different servers over different protocols to perform some operation? Much of that is subjective and based on multiple individual requests, sometimes over different protocols.
What we can provide are statistics to show the effect of WAN optimization and application acceleration for specific types of traffic. We can't show you that displaying a web page is N times faster with WAAS, because we don't know which of all the many HTTP requests that are made are specific to the user experience. But we can show that each of the requests received so much overall optimization, so much optimization from DRE, so much optimization from LZ, so much added benefit from HTTP acceleration.
What you would probably do is collect some base-line timings for performing certain user activities, then perform the same operations both cold (first pass) and warm (subsequent passes). Back up those timing numbers with reports from the CM GUI, and perhaps even the "show statistics connection connection-id ". Which reports to use? Start with those Optimization and Acceleration reports. Those are the reports we expect will give the most complete/accurate pictures of the benefit of WAAS. You can also create and even schedule custom reports as needed.

Ask-The-Expert (ATE) Questions and Demos

You can quickly access many of the answers and demos held during our Support Model for the Channel and Their Customers Ask the Expert (ATE) session for the Business ByDesign version of FP2.6
You can access the demo recording here; https://sap.na.pgiconnect.com/p10867840/
Below is a time stamp (MM:SS) of the start of a question or key topic during the session.
05:15 u2013 what are the different ways to request support and creating incidents in the system during an implementation project ?
8:45 u2013 How to create a support incident when the Business ByDesign system is down?
11:20 - What is the role of a key user in ByD and to get to get access as a Key User in Business ByDesign?
13:50 u2013 Demonstration u2013 How to log a new incident in ByD?
15:43 u2013 who dies the user gets notified if there is any issue in the system with automatic job runs ex: if the Invoice run fails?
21:40 u2013 How to take over an incident and forward it to support in ByD?
33:50 u2013 what is the system provisioning process for partners and how partners can request a test, prod or data migration system?
Edited by: Imtiyaz Mohammed on Sep 19, 2011 4:09 PM

I want to Identify the Creator of RFQ in MM Module, Please Suggest.
Thanks

Ask the Expert: Installation, Operation, and Troubleshooting of RF Gateway 1 (RFGW1)

With Ron Hanson
Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions from Cisco expert Ron Hanson about the RF Gateway 1 (RFGW1) including installation, operation, configuration, and troubleshooting.
Ron Hanson is a customer support engineer in the Technical Assistance Center, where he supports major RF Gateway 1 customers as part of the Service Providers Video team. He started working with the RF Gateway before its general release in 2008, and worked in the field on large Gateway deployments before joining product support. Hanson has been in the cable TV industry for 38 years. He previously spent 22 years at Scientific-Atlanta, which was acquired by Cisco in 2007. He holds two joint patents and is certified as a Cisco Optical Specialist.
Remember to use the rating system to let Ron know if you have received an adequate response.
Ron 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 Service Provider sub-community discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through Sept 7, 2012. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

Hi John,
Thanks for your reply. The process of moving a license to another gateway can be done by the customer on the web site named HESULE https://online.sciatl.com/license-it/. You will need the HOST ID which can be found on the SYSTEM/License management tab. The HOST ID is essentially the 7 digit serial number with all leading zeros removed.
Be sure to use Firefox when logging in. Entering your email is important because the new license will be sent back to this address.
In the License management tab, on the gateway you wish to remove the license from, record the 32 digit validation key number to the right of the license you wish to transfer.
Go to HESULE and start the transfer process. Hesule is very secure - therfore you must "prove" to Hesule the license has been removed from the first chassis. Hesule will issue you a new license with the license you wish to transfer removed. When you load this new license and new validation key will come up on the screen. Go back to Hesule and enter this key to prove the license has been removed. Hesule will then email you another new license containing the license you are transfering. Load this license on the new RFGW1 and the process is complete.
Yes I understand I said a lot. However, the process is described step by step on the Hesule site.
If you have any problems do not hesitate to contact me.
Thank you RON HANSON

Ask the Expert: FSPF Concepts and Troubleshooting in Cisco SAN Environments

            With Upinder Sujlana
Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about FSPF, VSAN interaction, load balancing, and troubleshooting with Upinder Sujlana.
According to the FC-SW-2 standard, Fabric Shortest Path First (FSPF) is a link state path selection protocol. FSPF keeps track of the links on all switches in the fabric and associates a cost with each link. FSPF tracks the state of links on all switches in the fabric, associates a cost with each link in its database, and then chooses the path with a minimal cost. The cost associated with an interface can be administratively changed to implement the FSPF route selection. Upinder will discuss Cisco's implementation of FSPF.
Upinder Sujlana is a customer support engineer for Cisco's SAN TAC team based in San Jose, CA. He has worked in the TAC for the past five years with a focus on WAN technologies (L2TP, T1, T3, SCE 2K, 8K) and data center technologies such as MDS; Cisco Nexus 7000, 5000, and 2000; FCoE; and FC. Prior to joining the TAC, Upinder was a Java client-side programmer for an NMS startup company and then transitioned to network testing for a cloud company. He holds a master's degree in electrical engineering from Santa Clara University and has CCIE certification (no. 37318) in routing and switching. These days he is enthusiastic about Python programming.
Remember to use the rating system to let Upinder know if you have received an adequate response.
Upinder might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation in Data Center community, sub-community, Storage Networking discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through March 14, 2014. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

Hi Evan,
You can use my favorite command as below to find out the cost and check what path traffic will take. Here is a example :
switch1# show fspf internal route vsan 2
FSPF Unicast Routes
VSAN     Number          Dest Domain          Route Cost          Next hops
1                   0x01(1)                    1000                  fc1/2
1                   0xEF(239)                  1000                  fc1/1
1                   0xED(238)                  2000                  fc1/1
                                                                     fc1/2
This shows the total cost of all links.
The next hop (238) has two interfaces. This indicates that both paths will be used during load sharing. Up to sixteen paths can be used by FSPF with a Cisco MDS 9000 Family switch.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5989/prod_troubleshooting_guide_chapter09186a008067a306.html#wp126591
HTH,
~upinder

Ask the Expert:Concepts, Configuration and Troubleshooting Layer 2 MPLS VPN – Any Transport over MPLS (AToM)

With Vignesh R. P.
Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation.This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about concept, configuration and troubleshooting Layer 2 MPLS VPN - Any Transport over MPLS (AToM) with Vignesh R. P.
Cisco Any Transport over MPLS (AToM) is a solution for transporting Layer 2 packets over an MPLS backbone. It enables Service Providers to supply connectivity between customer sites with existing data link layer (Layer 2) networks via a single, integrated, packet-based network infrastructure: a Cisco MPLS network. Instead of using separate networks with network management environments, service providers can deliver Layer 2 connections over an MPLS backbone. AToM provides a common framework to encapsulate and transport supported Layer 2 traffic types over an MPLS network core.
Vignesh R. P. is a customer support engineer in the Cisco High Touch Technical Support center in Bangalore, India, supporting Cisco's major service provider customers in routing and MPLS technologies. His areas of expertise include routing, switching, and MPLS. Previously at Cisco he worked as a network consulting engineer for enterprise customers. He has been in the networking industry for 8 years and holds CCIE certification in the Routing & Switching and Service Provider tracks.
Remember to use the rating system to let Vignesh know if you have received an adequate response.
Vignesh 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 Service Provider sub-community discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through through September 21, 2012. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

Hi Tenaro,
AToM stands for Any Transport over MPLS and it is Cisco's terminology used for Layer 2 MPLS VPN or Virtual Private Wire Service. It is basically a Layer 2 Point-to-Point Service. AToM basically supports various Layer 2 protocols like Ethernet, HDLC, PPP, ATM and Frame Relay.
The customer routers interconnect with the service provider routers at Layer 2. AToM eliminates the need for the legacy network from the service provider carrying these kinds of traffic and integrates this service into the MPLS network that already transports the MPLS VPN traffic.
AToM is an open standards-based architecture that uses the label switching architecture of MPLS and can be integrated into any network that is running MPLS. The advantage to the customer is that they do not need to change anything. Their routers that are connecting to the service provider routers can still use the same Layer 2 encapsulation type as before and do not need to run an IP routing protocol to the provider edge routers as in the MPLS VPN solution.
The service provider does not need to change anything on the provider (P) routers in the core of the MPLS network. The intelligence to support AToM sits entirely on the PE routers. The core label switching routers (LSRs) only switch labeled packets, whereas the edge LSRs impose and dispose of labels on the Layer 2 frames.
Whereas pseudowire is a connection between the PE routers and emulates a wire that is carrying Layer 2 frames. Pseudowires use tunneling. The Layer 2 frames are encapsulated into a labeled (MPLS) packet. The result is that the specific Layer 2 service—its operation and characteristics—is emulated across a Packet Switched Network.
Another technology that more or less achieves the result of AToM is L2TPV3. In the case of L2TPV3 Layer 2 frames are encapsulated into an IP packet instead of a labelled MPLS packet.
Hope the above explanation helps you. Kindly revert incase of further clarification required.
Thanks & Regards,
Vignesh R P

Ask The Expert: Understanding, Implementing, and Troubleshooting Cisco Prime Network

Ask questions and learn about Cisco Prime Network with Cisco experts Vignesh Rajendran Praveen and Jaminder Singh Bali.
Cisco Prime Network is and Cisco Prime Network provides cost-effective device operation, administration and network fault management for today’s complex and evolved programmable networks (EPNs). It is a single solution to support both the traditional physical network components, as well as compute infrastructure, and the virtual elements found in data centers. Automated configuration and change management combined with advanced troubleshooting and diagnostics greatly help service providers enable proactive service assurance. Additionally, the flexible and extensible architecture is designed to support the multivendor environment, helping to lower operational costs.
This event runs January 5 through January 16, 2015.
Vignesh Rajendran Praveen is a High Touch Engineer with the Focused Technical Services team supporting Cisco's major Service Provider customers in Routing, Switching, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) technologies and Cisco Prime Network related issues. Previously at Cisco he has worked as a Network Consulting Engineer for Enterprise Customers and as a Customer Support Engineer for Service Provider customers. He has been in the networking industry for ten years and holds CCIE certification (#34503) in the Routing and Switching as well as Service Provider tracks.
Jaminder Singh Bali is a Customer Support Engineer working in SP-NMS TAC team, supporting Cisco's major service provider customers in Cisco Prime Network, Performance and Prime Central related issues. His areas of expertise include Oracle, Linux and NMS applications. He has been in the industry for past six years.
Remember to use the rating system to let the experts know if you have received an adequate response.
The Experts might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation in Network Infrastructure community, sub-community, LAN, Switching and Routing discussion forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through January 16, 2015. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

Hello Jerome,
A variety of Cisco devices are supported by the the Cisco Prime Network. I would encourage you to go through the below links on the user guide depending the version of Cisco Prime Network being used.
"Cisco Prime Network Supported Cisco Virtual Network Elements (VNEs)"
"Cisco Prime Network Supported Cisco VNEs - Addendum"
Below is the link for the user guide.
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/cloud-systems-management/prime-network/products-user-guide-list.html
Hope this would help in providing you more clarity.
***********Plz do rate this post if you found it helpful*************************
Thanks & Regards,
Vignesh R P

Ask the Expert: Configuration, Design, and Troubleshooting of Cisco Nexus 1000

With Louis Watta
Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about design, configuration, and troubleshooting of Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches operating inside VMware ESXi and Hyper-V with Cisco expert Louis Watta. Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches deliver highly secure, multitenant services by adding virtualization intelligence to the data center network. With Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches, you can have a consistent networking feature set and provisioning process all the way from the virtual machine access layer to the core of the data center network infrastructure.
This is a continuation of the live Webcast.
Louis Watta is a technical leader in the services organization for Cisco. Watta's primary background is in data center technologies: servers (UNIX, Windows, Linux), switches (MDS, Brocade), storage arrays (EMC, NetApp, HP), network switches (Cisco Catalyst and Cisco Nexus), and enterprise service hypervisors (VMware ESX, Hyper-V, KVM, XEN). As a Technical Leader in Technical Services, Louis currently supports beta and early field trials (EFTs) on new Cisco software and hardware. He has more than 15 years of experience in a wide variety of data center applications and is interested in data center technologies oriented toward data center virtualization and orchestration. Prior to Cisco, Louis was a system administrator for GTE Government Systems. He has a bachelor of science degree in computer science from North Carolina State University. .
Remember to use the rating system to let Louis know if you have received an adequate response.
Louis might not be able to answer each question because of the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the Data Center community Unified Computing shortly after the event.
This event lasts through Friday, JUne 14, 2013. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other Cisco Support Community members.
Webcast related links:
Slides
FAQ
Webcast Video Recording

Right now there is only a few features that are not supported on N1Kv on Hyper-V
They are VXLAN and QOS Fair Weighted Queuing. We are currently demoing VXLAN functionality at Microsoft TechEd Conference this week in New Orleans. So VXLAN support should be coming soon. I can't give you a specific timeline.
For Fair Weighted Queuing I'm not sure. In the VMware world we take advantage of NETIOC infrastructure. In the MS world they do not have a NETIOC infrastructure that we can use to create a similar feature.
Code base parity (as in VMware and Hyper-V VSMs running NXOS 5.x) will happen with the next major N1KV release for ESX.
Let me know if that doesn't answer your question.
thanks
louis

Synchronizing Ask the expert index

I asked myself a question in Ask the expert , answered it and then tried to Search for it. I couldn't find my own question (and answer). (not an expert maybe?)
The only way I found to make it work was to manually rebuild the index on the answer-column in ATE_SUBMITTED_QUESTIONS. But I'm sure there's another way, because these are not the kind of things you'd like a customer (or myself) to do on a regular basis.
Can anyone give me another way to synchronize this index preferably managed from inside the database?

Hello,
I haven't tested this, but have a look if the index (I'm assuming it's an Oracle Text index?), is using the sync parameter,
something like -
create index foo on bar(woof)
indextype is ctxsys.context
parameters ('SYNC (ON COMMIT)');Note I'm not saying replace the existing index with this (obviously you'd need to modify it to suit anyway!), I'm saying you should be able to include the SYNC(ON COMMIT) into the parameters if it doesn't already use it.
I'm doing this from memory and I believe that the sync on commit was introduced in 10g, so if you're using 9i then this method probably isn't going to work for you and you'll need to run the external sync process (I think it's documented on AskTom if you do a search for syncing text indexes).
Like I say, I'm doing this 'blind', I haven't looked at the index you mean, so I might be barking up the wrong tree here.
Hope this helps,
John.
http://jes.blogs.shellprompt.net
http://apex-evangelists.com

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

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