StaticNAT

So tonight as I was getting into bed I did my normal scan twitter to see who I have pissed off or what might be going on that should rob me of sleep.  Well tonight @david_Strebel asked the following questions;

“Who thinks FCoE will win over iSCSI?”  and I responded “Not I” and then David asked the next logical question which was why not and here is what I had to say in the incredible detail that Twitter allows;  ”l2 boundaries, specialized hardware other than nics, hate relationship from most network people.”

The problem with this answer is pretty clear though.  It does not really answer the question just gives a few power point bullets to appease the crowd.  I don’t feel like this is enough though.  So I am going to attempt to lay out my overall view on this issue of who will win iSCSI or FCoE and why.  For those of you who don’t want to read the whole article which might get a a tad windy I don’t think either will win.  But I don’t think FCoE will emerge as the leader until something better come along.  For those masochists who like this kind of crap read on.

Read the rest of this entry »

So last night while working on a Scalable Compute and storage design for a client, this post popped up in my twitter stream from @ErinatHP;

“New HP blog post “In the light of day – the Cisco UCS hype doesn’t match the promise” ; UCS not all its marketed to be http://bit.ly/dKj88W”

So in my normal do not let a stupid dig by a lame duck player go unmatched I responded “Oh I can’t wait to read this FUD” (you can check me out on twitter @joshobrien77)

All the twitter marketing and pissing matches aside I meant what I said and I did look forward to reading the HP Spin on where their market is vanishing to.  And here are my responses, while they might not be the most technical they are not un-informed from the basis of the Cisco UCS platform or the HP C7000 with FLEX-10 Platform.  And remember at the end of the day I represent me not Cisco not my employer, just little old me.

Also just so if this gets nasty I want to make sure that I am crediting this correctly:

All of the HP Writes: Are direct Quotes from Duncan Campbel with HP on his blog which you can find here:  http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Converged-Infrastructure/In-the-light-of-day-the-Cisco-UCS-hype-doesn-t-match-the-promise/ba-p/83537

PLEASE READ ALL of Duncan’s Post BEFORE you READ Mine.  I DO NOT PRETEND to REPRESENT HIS SIDE WELL AT ALL!

Read the rest of this entry »

ACS 1113 Appliance Password and IP Change Process:

1.  Insert ACS Recover CD into DVD-Drive
2.  Connect Console Cable (DB9 to DB9) to Laptop and Appliance
3.  Start Terminal Session with Following  (115200, 8, None, 1, NONE)
4.  Connect Monitor and Keyboard to ACS Appliance
5.  Power Cycle ACS Appliance
6.  Use Keyboard and mouse to Select Option 1 for Administrator Password Reset
7.  Remove Recovery CD from Appliance
8.  Press Enter on Keyboard to reboot appliance
9.  Disconnect Keyboard and mouse from Appliance
10. Wait approx 5 minutes for Console session to return.  (Don’t rush it, get a coffee or a snake then come back)
11. At login prompt user the Default = Administrator with no password.
12. You will be prompted to enter a new username.
13. You will be prompted to enter a new password, you will be prompted to enter this twice
14. Login with new Username and Password
15. Connect Ethernet Port 1 (Top Port) on Appliance to laptops ethernet port wait for green link light  (Without this step the appliance will not accept interface changes.)
16. Type “Set IP”  Follow the prompts to enter new IP information and select YES at the end
17. Type “Set domain” Follow the prompts to enter the new DNS prefix select YES at the end
18. Type reboot
19. Wait approx 5 minutes for Console session to return.  (Don’t rush it, get a coffee or a snake then come back)
20. Login with new Username and Password
21. Type Show to validate your config changes
22. Disconnect from laptop
23. Connect to production network
24. Done

Recently we got an order of Cisco 1142 Access Points in. What we discovered was that if you order a 5 pack you end up with Autonomous Access Points.  If you order the 10 pack you can choose Autonomous or LWAPP.  Anyway we needed the ones we ordered to be LWAPP for the environment they were destined for.  So we did what we normally do and we fired up the AP conversion tool…wait for it…but it does not support conversion of the 1142.  Yeah that’s right the conversion tool wont convert the 1142N APs.  So after about 3 seconds of digging I found this Convert 1142 to LWAPP.

That link gives you 99% of what you need to pull this off.  The rest is a valid CCO account and the hardware.  To do mine quickly I setup a spare 3750-PoE switch we had on our bench.  Keeping it quick and dirty I just set it up as follows using my console cable for the the CLI input:

Read the rest of this entry »

Well the picture to the right shows exactly where they are.  In the past we have dealt with 1Gbps interfaces on supervisors that had both RJ-45 and SFP slots and it was an either/or decision if you wanted to use them.  In those cases you had a config entry that required you to state SFP or RJ-45 in the interface configuration.  No matter what you chose it was always shown Interface GigabitEthernet Mod#/Port#.  So when I dove  into the Sup720 I was configuring I decided it was supposed to be the same way because why would Cisco ever let me use all the ports on the front of my hardware?  Being the all knowing geek that I am I also ignored the config file that I have seen at least 30 times in the last hour and I just started typing Interface TenGigabitEthernet 5/1, and I kept getting this; Read the rest of this entry »