Monday, 25 November 2013

Catalyst 6500 for beginners

These switches are usually used in Core and/or Distribution of Enterprise network. High speed backplane, feature rich service modules, support for various data center interconnect technologies makes 6500  ideal  choice for multiple roles in data center.


Three types of cards/modules may be installed in the chassis, Ethernet modules , Supervisor Modules and Service Module. Some modules supports capacity enhancement through upgrade/addition of daughter card. Some documents refer modules other than Sup as Line Cards

Each chassis can have two redundant power supply units which can be configured to either for Redundant mode (each uses less than 50% of capacity) or Combined mode. In combined mode power will not be supplier to some module if one power supply fails.
Detachable fan trays can be removed from chassis.
Supervisor module(s) acts as brain of the chassis. Modules with CFC (Centralized forwarding card) uses Supervisor for lookup. However some modules may have DFC which may perform some/many control and data place operations without using Supervisor module.
Communications between various modules happens over backplane. Three backplanes exist in 6500 switches
1) EOBC: Ethernet out of band channel for chassis control
2) Classic BUS: 32GB shared bus for legacy line cards. It comprises DBUS(Data Bus) and RBUS(Result bus)
3) Switch Fabric: for Fabric Line cards
 Forwarding can happen between legacy modules supporting bus and newer modules supporting crossbar switch fabric. Classic Bus supports up to 32Gb and crossbar supports up to 720GB or 2TB (depending on Sup)
Crossbar is a matrix of ‘N’ channels to provide a data path between line cards. All chassis except 6513 supports dual fabric channel. Sup 720 supports 18 channels at 8G/20G per channel and Sup 2T supports26 channel at 20G/40G per channel. show platform hardware capacity fabric can be used to check fabric and bus utilization
Exception:
1) In order to take advantage of the dual fabric channels in slots 1 – 8 of the 6513-E chassis, the Supervisor 2T is required.
2) With any version of the Supervisor 720, the 6513-E fabric channel distribution Is the same as the 6513.
Supervisors cant be installed in slots other than the ones dedicated. Supervisor slot numbers vary from chassis to chassis.
Supervisor slot: 1st and 2nd in 3 and 4 slot chassis, 5th and 6th in 6 and 9 slot chassis, 7th and 8th in 13 slot chassis
All chassis have two slots for Supervisor. If only one supervisor is used the other supervisor slot can be used for a line card except in 6513-E where line card is not supported in sup slots if Sup 2T is used.

MSFC=Performs Control Plane activities, stays in Sup Module
PFC=Performs Data Plane activities, stays in Sup Module
DFC= works like PFC in SUP, does distributed forwarding(offload  PFC workload for that LC), used in LC
CFC=Centralized lookup is performed, uses SUP, used in LC

 

 

 
More information.......

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

New to CCNP?



You need to know following to confidently take each exam.
                1) Know the syllabus
                2) Booklist
                3) Notes for review before exam
                4) Practice with GNS3 (ROUTE) and Cisco Packet Tracer (SWITCH)
                5) Exam preparation blogs
                6) Locate nearby Pearson view exam center and take exam. :-) 

642-902 ROUTE Exam

·         Know the syllabus
·         Booklist : Refer Cisco Press Book
·         Notes for review : Cisco quick reference guide and Packet life cheat sheet
·         Practice with GNS3 and Cisco Packet Tracer
·         Exam preparation blogs

642-813 SWITCH Exam

·         Know the syllabus
·         Booklist : Refer Cisco Press Book
·         Notes for review : Cisco quick reference guide and Packet life cheat sheet
·         Practice with GNS3 and Cisco Packet Tracer
·         Exam preparation blogs

642-832 TSHOOT Exam

·         Know the syllabus
·         Booklist : Refer Cisco Press Book
·         Notes for review : Cisco quick reference guide and Packet lifecheat sheet
·         Practice with GNS3 and Cisco Packet Tracer
·         Exam preparation blogs

CCNA: (640-602) + ?? = (200-120)


Coming soon the details of Main additions in the CCNA syllabus
1) IPv6: Why should we migrate and easy migration options suggested by Cisco?
2) IPv6 routing: What are the improvements and How different from IPv4 routing?
3) FHRP (HSRP, VRRP and GLBP)
 
CCNA (200-120) vs 640-802

Last day to appear 640-802 was 30Sept'13. Now 200-120 is the only option left.
I appeared new CCNA this September based on new syllabus. Sharing my view for the aspirants.

Main changes: addition of IPv6, FHRP and Multi area OSPF.

Exam Strategy: Better to take ICND1 and ICND2 instead of one exam. Sooner you take the exam better it is. Cisco normally make things harder with increasing success rates. When Cisco try to control success rate its may not be the difficulty of the question. If your concepts are clear and you are well prepared for the exam you may face different kind of challenge like if number of questions you face is made less you will be left with less room to make mistakes.

Books to refer: You must have the first one. Second one is for exam preparation only.
1)Cisco CCNA Routing and Switching 200-120 official Cert Guide Library by Wendell Odom
2)Cisco Routing and Switching by Eric Rivard


 Those who were preparing based on old syllabus may find the blueprints published by Cisco for comparison below.

CCNA(200-102) Syllabus
CCNA(640-802) Syllabus

Best of luck!