The Cisco install guide for the Nexus 1000v is a great reference, and I’ll help clarify and fill in the gaps the best I can. I won’t regurgitate too much of the steps in the install guide, so you will want to use the install guide for sure.

First let’s talk about the prerequisites ::

vCenter Server — In most cases, we have a data center of some sort with multiple ESX hosts running. Each ESX host has its own Virtual Machines running. So within our data center, it’s a good idea to define a cluster –or grouping of ESX hosts. It’s beneficial to group our ESX servers in a cluster because we can take advantage of some of the bells and whistles with VMware such as vMotion and high availability. vMotion is cool because if we need to take a server down for maintenance, we can drag and drop the VM to another ESX host. vMotion can also be a dynamic process if there is a unforeseen ESX server failure. So we define our data center, put our ESX servers in one or more clusters and have our VM’s running on each ESX server. The hierarchical structure is one of the benefits of vCenter because we now can centrally manage all of our ESX hosts from a single view. Instead of using the vSphere client to connect to each ESX server separately, we connect our vSphere client to the vCenter server which allows us to manage a whole data center of ESX hosts and their associated VM’s. Most importantly, we must be running vCenter server because that’s what the Nexus VSM communicates with directly.

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While the things I learned were really helping me to grow, I was still finding myself in the “daily grind”. I simply wanted more exposure, I wanted to work with new technology all the time. Once I implemented all this new stuff, I was sitting back telling myself, “ok, what’s next”. In this kind of job, I wouldn’t be doing new installations and implementations like that on a reoccurring basis. I won’t get into the minutiae for all my reasons for wanting to move on.

I had a conversation with my sister a few months back who works for NASA. I was asking her how her job was going and her response really jolted me. Her response was simply, “Amazing”. I was thinking to myself, “Hmm, I wish I felt the same way about my job”. I started putting things into perspective and realized it may be time for me to start searching for that “Amazing” job.

I needed something that’s going to keep me on the cutting edge all the time. I need to really be challenged. I’ve also realized I really want to branch out and learn something other than just Cisco all the time. It’s in my best interest to make sure I can speak multiple languages in a sense. A daily grind job just isn’t going to work for me anymore. I’m never going to feel amazed with what I’m doing unless I do something totally new and unfamiliar in some ways.

Mid-July I started working for a company based out of Houston called Accudata Systems. My role is a consultant and I also assist with technical pre-sales when I have free cycles. I also deal with post-sales projects (installs) and customer incidents. My primary territory is Austin and San Antonio, but I could end up in Dallas or Houston on occasion. The company has less than 200 employees and a really great culture. The exposure in my role with Accudata is huge. It’s going to allow me to work with all sorts of different technologies from partners such as :: Cisco, Juniper, Aruba, Riverbed, Citrix, F5, and EMC. Those are the major ones on the infrastructure side, but the list continues to grow within the other areas like security. They won Cisco partner of the year for 2009 as well (in our region)!

This is definitely a change for me. I’m enjoying getting out there and meeting with the customers and partners on a daily basis. New faces and challenges every day. The great thing is that we sell new technologies, so I have to make sure I’m staying up with all the latest stuff. I’m really enjoying working with all of our partners and learning their products. It’s a little stressful at first, since there’s so much I need to learn, but it’s good for me. I think it’s a really good fit for me. I feel like when I look back at where I’m at today 6 months from now, I’ll be astonished as to how far I’ve come. I’ve met with a majority of the partners in my area and the training opportunities and their support is really incredible. Being a consultant is a definite change of direction, but I think it’s a necessary one to keep me focused on my strengths.

I definitely feel like I’m on track to earning that “Amazing” feeling about what I do for a living.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say when I’m fully awake…

Deuces,

Ted Romer
CCIE No. 21785

http://www.cisco.com/go/1000v

I decided I would give it a go and share my experiences and thoughts. Now I’m by no means an ESX expert, but I have recently started playing more and more with it. I have always been partial to regular VMware Workstation myself.

Background

I’m not going to go into too much detail here, but I wanted to give some background to add some context to the Nexus 1000v.

VMware has come out with this new Distributed Virtual Switching (DVS) term and Cisco has basically latched on with the introduction of the 1000v (as can other 3rd parties). Historically, we are used to using the integrated VMware virtual switch (vswitch) within the hypervisor in our ESX servers. You can basically think of the Nexus 1000v as a way of doing-away with the VMware vswitch and putting a Cisco virtual switch in its place.

So why replace a VMware switch with a Cisco switch? Let’s think about where we typically draw the imaginary line in ownership between our Server and Network teams. If I have an ESX hypervisor hosting 5 different virtual machines, they get connected internally with the vmware soft switch (vswitch). As a server admin, I have to create my port groups (or profiles) and assign them manually to each VM. I could use this to put each VM in its own VLAN for example. So the server guy is definitely forced to know a little bit about networking because he now has to manage the vswitch. As a network guy, I handle the port connecting to the physical ESX host. That’s going to be the “demarc” for me, as that’s pretty standard for how far my responsibility traditionally goes. If the server guy thinks there’s a problem with connectivity, I’ll verify all the way up to the port that connects to the server. At that point, I’ve verified everything on my end. Things are starting to change with virtualization…

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Summary

Now that the CCIE version 3 blueprint is being tested on, I have started working on my second CCIE in Voice. While the new blueprint is focused on CUCM version 7, it turns out this book adds value even if it’s based on version 6.

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Turns out there is a field notice and I need the latest hardware version of the cards.

Open a TAC SR and get an RMA going. I figured it would be an EPLD upgrade issue, but I guess not.

Notice the version in the output from “show mod”

nexus7000# sho mod
Mod Ports Module-Type Model Status
— —– ——————————– —————— ————
1 32 10 Gbps Ethernet Module N7K-M132XP-12 ok
2 32 10 Gbps Ethernet Module N7K-M132XP-12 ok
3 32 10 Gbps Ethernet Module N7K-M132XP-12 ok
4 48 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Module N7K-M148GT-11 ok
5 0 Supervisor module-1X N7K-SUP1 active *

Mod Sw Hw
— ————– ——
1 4.1(5) 1.3
2 4.1(5) 1.3
3 4.1(5) 1.3
4 4.1(5) 1.0
5 4.1(5) 1.1