When it comes to power supplies, same power supplies can be used in both the Nexus 7010 and 7018 switches.

Currently there are three power supplies for the Nexus 7000 switches, two that are AC powered and one that is DC powered.   There is a 6000 kW AC (N7K-AC-6.0KW), a 7500 kW AC (N7k-AC-7.5KW), and finally a 6000 kW DC (N7K-DC-6.0KW) power supply.

The Nexus 7000 Series Switches can be configured in four power redundancy modes as follows

1)      Combined

2)      Power Supply redundancy (N+1)

3)      Input Source redundancy ( grid redundancy)

4)      Power Supply and input source redundancy (full redundancy)

The Nexus 7000 Series Switches are sensitive to variations in voltage supplied by the AC power source. Over voltage, under voltage and spikes can erase data from the memory or cause components to fail. To protect against these kind problems it’s highly recommended to ground power cables.

Pictures of the power supplies are below with the 6000 kW on the left, the 7.5KW on the right and the DC powered one below.

The Nexus 7018 Switch applies side to side airflow , the Nexus 7018 fan module  (N7K-C7018-FAN) is larger and contains more fans compared to Nexus 7010 fan module.  The Nexus 7018 chassis houses dual fan modules in a fully redundant architecture and provides efficient cooling using variable speed fans.

The advantage of side to side airflow in Nexus 7018 increases the system density within a 25-rack unit footprint, optimizing the use of rack space.

The Nexus 7018 Switch dissipates up to 51,195 BTUs per hour

Whereas the Nexus 7010 Switch applies front to back airflow, and the 7010 fan module (N7K-C7010-FAN) is a smaller due to the chassis airflow is front to back.

The Nexus 7010 Switch dissipates up to 35,162 BTUs per hour.

When it comes to the Nexus 7018 Switch airflow, Panduit has an excellent solution and special rack to accommodate the airflow in a cold aisle/hot aisle data center.

The next difference between a Cisco Nexus 7010 and a Nexus 7018 Switch is the slot capacity and performance.

The Nexus 7010 Series Switch is a modular 10-slot chassis with slots 5 and 6 are reserved for Supervisor Engines (SUP 1) and can accommodate up to eight line cards.  Whereas the Nexus 7018 Series Switch is an 18 slot chassis and slots 9 and 10 are reserved for supervisor engines, with 16 slots available for the line cards.

The Nexus 7010 and Nexus 7018 Series Switches can accommodate up to 5 fabric modules, you cannot use the same fabric cards for Nexus 7010 and 7018 switches, as the Nexus 7010 Switch is designed to mount line cards or fabric cards vertically whereas the Nexus 7018 Switches are designed for horizontal mount. Whereas all other line cards and Supervisor Engines, are interchangeable between Nexus 7010 and 7018 Switches. The Fabric Card slots are designed at the back side of the Nexus switches.

The Nexus 7018 Switch fabric module (N7k-C7018-FAB-1)

The Nexus 7010 Switch Fabric module (N7K-C7010-FAB-1)

Currently the Nexus 7000 Series Switches performance specs are as follows

• Up to 1.2 Tb/s system bandwidth.
• Up to 480 mpps system switching.
• Up to 80 Gb/s and 60 mpps per slot.

Some of my friends asked me what are the differences between a Nexus 7010 and 7018 Switches, thought of covering their questions over this post.

The first difference is the size and weight.   The Nexus 7010 is 36.5″ (92.7 cm) tall and can weigh up to 235 kg (516 lb) whereas the Nexus 7018 is 43.5″ tall (110.5 cm) and can weigh up to 316 kg (696 lb) fully loaded.  The Nexus 7010 Switch is a 21 RU switch whereas the Nexus 7018 is 25 RU Switch. Never ever think of installing two Nexus 7010 Switch in a single rack as two fully loaded Nexus 7010 can constitutes up to half a ton of weight which any Data Center raise floor or rack cannot withstand. So you need to be quite careful and aware when the designing the space layout for Nexus 7000 Series Switches. I would recommend Panduit Net-Access 7018 Cabinets which are specially designed for Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches.

Perhaps it’s better for the time being to disable the flash. According to the Adobe Security Advisory (APSA11-01) post  there is a critical vulnerability exists in Adobe Flash Player 10.2.152.33 and earlier versions (Adobe Flash Player 10.2.154.18 and earlier for Chrome users) for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris operating systems, Adobe Flash Player 101.106.16 and earlier versions for Android, and the authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat X (10.0.1) and earlier 10.x and 9.x versions for Windows and Macintosh operating systems. There are reports that this vulnerability is being exploited in the wild in targeted attacks via a Flash (.swf) file embedded in a Microsoft Excel (.xls) file delivered as an email attachment. At this time, Adobe is not aware of attacks targeting Adobe Reader and Acrobat

Adobe is in the process of finalizing a fix for the issue and expect to make available an update for Flash Player 10.x and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris and Android, and an update for Adobe Acrobat X (10.0.1) and earlier 10.x and 9.x versions for Windows and Macintosh, Adobe Reader X (10.0.1) for Macintosh, and Adobe Reader 9.4.2 and earlier 9.x versions during the week of March 21, 2011

Cisco simply based their Cisco NX-OS Ethanalyzer on the command-line (cli) version of Wireshark, also known as T-shark. The syntax is very similar to tcpdump in linux, as demonstrated below with the following command

VDC-Admin# ethanalyzer local interface inband capture-filter test

In upcoming posts I will try to provide some tips and some useful commonly used commands  in Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches.

In my last post I talked about how to enable and disable the Tool command Language (TCL) in a Cisco router or a Cisco Catalyst Switch, suppose if you want to use a ping command for more than 50 hosts,you don’t need to ping each and every single host from the Cisco router or a Cisco Catalyst Switch, in this scenario you can make use of TCL scripts, I will provide you a sample script to ping 10 hosts at a time from a Cisco Catalyst 6506 E Switch, same script is applicable to Cisco routers as well.

Step 1

Enable TCL in your Cisco router or a Cisco Switch by using a “tclsh” command

ITKE-SW01#tclsh

Step 2

Write to script to ping hosts starting from 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.10 using the following script, start the script by using “foreach VAR {” followed by the IP Address of the hosts you want to ping and close the script by using following stings “} { puts [exec "ping $VAR"] }” as demonstrated below ( you can use notepad to prepare the script and then execute in your Cisco device)

foreach VAR {

10.0.0.1

10.0.0.2

10.0.0.3

10.0.0.4

10.0.0.5

10.0.0.6

10.0.0.7

10.0.0.8

10.0.0.9

10.0.0.10

} { puts [exec "ping $VAR"] }

Once you enter the script you will the following

TCL scripts are very helpful and really it automates some of our tasks.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/PcF8EdmfdoM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

ITKE-SW01#tclsh

If the Cisco Router or a Cisco Ctalyst Switch supports the TCL feature you will see the following prompt in your device

ITKE-SW01(tcl)#

In the above example I just demonstrated how to enable the feature in a Cisco Router or a Cisco Catalyst Switch. In order to quit from the tcl mode you can use the “tclq” command as shown below.

ITKE-SW01(tcl)#tclq

ITKE-SW01#

In my next post I will try to post few examples for usage of TCL scripts.

In today’s World we have many written scripts to automate our common tasks at work, we quite often use scripts in programming language, Linux, UNIX or even windows. But when it comes to networking to be more specific on Cisco devices there was no scripting language. However Cisco Systems realized the importance of automating the things and they come adding the “Tool Command Language in short TCL in Cisco IOS. This feature is enabled in the IOS starting from 12.3(2) T. I know most of us are not aware of this powerful scripting language.

TCL is a very powerful dynamic scripting language and it is based on open programming language developed by John Ousterhout.

Infact Cisco Press come out with a title named TCL Script for Cisco IOS which was released on June 9, 2010.

In upcoming articles I will try to address TCL commands how it can enabled and some sample scripts which can be used in day to day networking activities on Cisco Routers and Cisco Catalyst Switches.

Ubuntu was always an Interesting OS I was looking at, when I got an opportunity to get a book on Ubuntu from our community Manager Michael Morisy I readily accepted to get one copy of the title “Ubuntu Unleashed” published by SAMS. Thanks a lot Michael Morisy for your continued support.

Finally after a long wait I got the chance to review some parts of this book. I am not much into Linux platforms but I did tried Red hat, Fedora, Ubuntu, Ubuntu flavors of Linux.

Since I am not an expert in this area Networking I figured out the title “Ubuntu Unleashed”more useful especially I liked Installation, System Administration and Ubuntu housekeeping part of this book.

Pic Courtesy:Informit
Since I am newbie to Linux I was comfortable in Understanding the title “Ubuntu Unleashed” as found the language was simple and easy. The author did a marvelous job as the organization of the title is great I really liked it in particular. There are 32 chapters which are not only focused on Ubuntu but it does cover Linux distribution as well. Someone who is interested in Linux and Ubuntu should grab this title as it might be a great asset for them. I figured out this title goes well either with beginners or with the persons who are fairly new to Ubuntu. Experienced and seasoned Linux gurus have a different opinion on this title.

The title is divided into five parts

Part I, Installation and Configuration is about 260 pages.
Part II, System Administration, is about 170 pages.
Part III, Ubuntu as a server, is about 175 pages. It introduces Apache, Postfix, and other services.
Part IV, Programming, introduces Perl, Python, PHP, and some tools to use with C/C++ (but nothing on those languages themselves)
Part V, Housekeeping revists and amplifies Part II.