Hardware

One of my projects at work is to replace a couple switches with newer (and larger) 4507R+E with Sup7e. I love projects like this because they're relatively straight forward, but mainly because they are fun! Who doesn't like unboxing a $60,000USD switch and firing it up? It's like a Cisco birthday or something.

Anyway, while configuring this thing, I've noticed a few quirks... idiosyncrasies? "Features"? Whatever you call them, they're new to me and I felt like blogging about it.

SD Memory in a Supervisor

First, just an observation: Cisco now has Secure Digital (SD) memory in a Supervisor. You might be thinking "yeah, I read about that when the Sup7e came out..." However for those who were in the dark, now you know. Here's a picture to share: 

If you bought a Macbook Pro in the last couple years, like me, you may be pushing the limits of the factory installed 250Gb hard drive. So far, the factory installed Toshiba hard drive has been rock solid, no complaints. I just need more space than 250Gb.

As of right now, the current Macbook Pros come with 500Gb or 750Gb hard drives (with an option to upgrade to 1Tb).  Back when I bought, they had 250Gb and 500Gb options. If you want more storage in your Macbook Pro, read on!

Select a Hard Drive

The first decision you have to make when buying a hard drive is how much space do you want?

I figure storage is relatively cheap, so why not go as big as possible? After a bit of research, the disk I chose to go with is the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1 TB Hard Drive. The decision was mainly based on the size of the disk, but several reviews I read all stated the disk is quiet and reasonably fast for it's size. The price is right as well (right around $100US).

If you have built a home lab (or are running really ancient hardware in production), you may find yourself in need of resetting the password configured on a 2500 series router. Depending on the router platform, the syntax is different. Here's how to do it on a 2500:

1. Reboot the router and send a break sequence to enter ROMMON mode. Break sequences can be sent using a Ctrl+Break key combination, or if you are on a system that doesn't have a break sequence, try using your terminal software to send a break sequence.

2. (optional) Type the letter O and hit enter. Record the existing setting, it's most likely 0x2102.

3. To reset the configuration register and have the router bypass the startup-config, type the following:

o/r 0x2142

To boot the router, type the letter i and hit enter.

The latest and greatest 6500 supervisor has hit the streets. Boasting speeds of up to 2 terabits per second, the Sup 2T appears to bring a much needed refresh to the flagship cat switch.

A 6500-E with the Sup 2T can now push 80Gbps per slot. New 6900 series and 6800 series modules provide support for the 80Gbps speeds. Port densities come in a variety of options including 16-port 10-gig and 48-port 1-gig.

If you have already invested in the 6500-E chassis and are looking to expand your 10G footprint, this might be something worth reviewing.

Specifics on the Sup 2T can be found in this Cisco PDF.
For full specs, check out the product page here.

Sorry for the lack of posting as of late. All my time has been consumed in finishing up the CIPT (CallManager) series for CBTNuggets. While CallManager 4.X currently owns the market (and probably will for years to come), it looks as though Cisco is producing a pretty killer solution in Callmanager 6.X versions. So...I bought the software off Ebay and found this link detailing instructions on getting 6.X versions of CallManager running in VMware. What surprised me is that these instructions are from Cisco TAC!!! Hurrah for Cisco finally realizing that people will be running CCM in lab environments! No more registry hacks (not that you could with Linux anyhow). Cisco even provides the VMWare environment file that sets up VMWare exactly like you need it for CCM 6.X.

A Cisco tech support email I received last week mentioned the ol' Cisco Output Interpreter utility on their website. This utility analyzes the output of various show / debug commands to decrypt their meaning and point out configuration or hardware errors on your router. I remember trying out the Output Interpreter a few years back and not being very impressed, but thought I'd give it a shot today.
I ran a "show tech-support" command on one of my routers and pasted it into the Cisco Output Interpreter...WOW! Has this utility improved. Not only did it mention that I was getting many buffer drops, but also had multiple security improvement recommendations (which I'll be implementing later today). The best part about it was this: