Cisco Nexus 7000: Next Generation Data Center Switiching

While doing some work this morning, I stumbled across a product announcement from Cisco that is pretty exciting. Cisco has introduced a new line of data center-class switching known as the Nexus 7000 Series Switch. That name is about as catchy as it gets! Reviewing some of the information Cisco has about this next generation platform, there's a slew of innovations that include security and availability. Here's what the new behemoth looks like:
There's a lot of details about this new platform on cisco.com. Make sure to check it out and read about the features included in it's OS known as the NX-OS. The link-layer AES encryption looks particularly interesting for those wondering about the security benefits of the platform. When I get a chance I'll browse the available info and share anything interesting I find.

-Mike

User Question: Difference Between Gen 1 & Gen 2

Blogger user axiom posted this question in response to my recent post about the EOL/EOS announcement from Cisco about the MARS Generation 1 platform:

How do you find out if your product is a Gen 1 or Gen 2 product?

This is a great question. The easiest way is to visually look at the appliance and the difference will be apparent (click the images for larger versions).

Cisco MARS Generation 1 Appliance


Cisco MARS Generation 2 Appliance


As you can see, the gen 2 appliance has the common Cisco logo and color scheme. The 2nd generation represents the migration of the MARS platform to a standard hardware configuration governed by Cisco. The gen 1 appliances has had known hardware issues that were the result of poort components used by Protego (acquired by Cisco for the MARS product line) within the MARS appliance. The gen 2 models now use all Cisco certified components and show significant performance and reliability increases versus the gen 1 platform.

You can also SSH into the appliance and run the command show version. Any version 4.x is a gen 1 appliance, while version 5.x is a gen 2 appliance. I hope this brief post answered your question axiom and can help others discern between the MARS generations.

-Mike

CMPC v1.4 Released!

As promised, the latest version of CMPC is now available. You can download v1.4 from here.

Please read the readme for information about important updates in this release. Take special note about the inclusion of encryption to your CCO password information in your config.xml file. Here's the info from the readme:

CONFIGURING CCO PASSWORD ENCRYPTION AND CMPC
============================================
A long standing issue I've had with CMPC has been the fact that users were leaving their passwords as clear-text in the config.xml. Users will now be required to place encrypted passwords in the config.xml. Encryption is handled by running CMPC like so:

Example: "C:\>cmpc.exe --ccoencryptpass SomePassword"

Upon running this you'll receive a dialog box with the new CCO password line for use in your config.xml file. Unencrypted passwords are NOT supported in the config.xml file beginning with release 1.4.