Tag Archives: cisco

FYI: Cisco UCS doesn’t work with VVOLs oob

FYI, ran into an issue tonight working with VVOLs.

I had just upgraded my PureStorage array to Purity 5 GA release and wanted to jump into VVOLs on my lab.

Customers will not be able to use vvols unless they manually install FNIC driver 1.6.0.33 or higher.

VVOLs are not supported on any VICs with the drivers installed from the current Cisco-branded v6.5 and 6.5U1 ESXi ISOs.

This is Cisco bug CSCux64473 Specific cause is because included driver did not support “Secondary LUN IDs”.

If a customer tries, their Protocol Endpoint will just never show up.

https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCux64473/?referring_site=bugquickviewredir

Symptom: UCS server with VIC adapter does not support VMware Virtual Volume feature
Conditions: When attempting to access Virtual Volume from UCS servers installed with VIC card.
Workaround: Virtual volume is not supported on any the VIC cards / FNIC drv ( Their but report isn’t totally true, I tested 1.6.0.36 driver and it worked great!)

  1. Latest driver release does work:
    https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESX60-CISCO-FNIC-16036&productId=491

 

Now, after updating the driver and rebooting my servers, VVOLs is working awesome!

PureStorage does VVOLS right!

 

Leave a comment Continue Reading →

#STBY Cisco Clock Issue – 18month life failure

Cisco announced that a clock module in certain products may have a failure after 18months. This one is big, and this one is bad!
Partial list of systems with issues (ordered by my own priority of which I think will hit my customers the worst)

ASA 5506, ASA 5506W, ASA 5506H, ASA 5508, and ASA 5516 <---- ahh crap! Meraki MS350, MB84 Nexus 9000 Series N9K-C9504-FM-E/N9K-C9508-FM-E/N9K-X9732C-EX NCS1K-CNTLR Cisco ISA3000 SR4331, ISR4321, ISR4351 and UCS-E120

Click to continue reading “#STBY Cisco Clock Issue – 18month life failure”

Leave a comment Continue Reading →

Migrating From a UCS FI6248 to Mini 6324

I have the luxury of working for the most awesomest storage and Cisco VAR in the world, as their Principal Technologist. We have a few different groups of engineers. Our networking team staked claim on the existing UCS and FI6248 Fabric Interconnects that we have in our lab for break/fix testing.

This meant that our demo and test VMware environment needed a new home. We really didn’t NEED another full set of big daddy FI’s in the lab, and the big boss didn’t want to buy another full set of FI6248s. We simply need a test environment for me to give classes with, that’ll support up to 600 VMs. A UCS Mini was perfect. This is how I got passed the hurdle of migrating the configuration from a FI6248 to FI6324.

Click to continue reading “Migrating From a UCS FI6248 to Mini 6324”

8 Comments Continue Reading →

Thoughts on Certifications (aka I passed my CCNP DataCenter)

CCNP Datacenter

6 required exams. 21 days.

I didn’t make a large hoopla when I passed my CCNP Datacenter and CCNA Datacenter last week. I’ve always wanted to be Cisco certified. Though, I always felt anything but CCIE was sort of bunk. (still do, though I have met MANY incapable CCIE) I’m no smarter today. I’m no better of an engineer today. The only thing I know better today, is where a few documents are. I’ve been using the Nexus product line since the 5010’s first came out a few years ago. I play with 5548s in customer environments from time to time, same with 6248 FIs.

Click to continue reading “Thoughts on Certifications (aka I passed my CCNP DataCenter)”

1 Comment Continue Reading →

Tip #3: Adding additional networks to VMware Fusion 4/5

So, you are studying for a networking certification. Maybe CCNA or CCNP, maybe F5 or Juniper. You need multiple interfaces to run GNS3/Dynamips or your favorite networking tool. Alas, the default configuration of VMWare Fusion just has the basic VMnet1 and VMnet8. Here is how to fix that!

Click to continue reading “Tip #3: Adding additional networks to VMware Fusion 4/5”

Leave a comment Continue Reading →