I know that many of my readers are inside of the Cisco partner community. Every day we are not only faced with engineering complex interconnected solutions, but we are also tasked with navigating the uncharted waters of our vendor ordering systems. One good example that I will go over today is how properly order the Nexus 5000 along with Fibre Channel cards and storage licensing.
Most engineers in the channel utilize a tool called the Dynamic Configuration Tool. This allows you to take a product, configure it with all of its software, hardware and licensing options, give it a sanity check and then output a spreadsheet. You then take spreadsheet and combine it with the other hardware in your design to create what is called a Bill of Materials (commonly referred to as a BOM). The challenge here is if you only use the Dynamic Configuration Tool, you will not see the storage specific options for the Nexus family of Data Center switches.
The solution is to use a tool called the Multi-line Configurator. In the video below, I will show you how to use this tool to create a working Nexus 5000 BOM for your customers. (for fullscreen hover your mouse over the video and click on the “X” next to the vimeo link.)
Normally I don’t discuss channel specific topics on this blog, but my fear is that other engineers in the channel may fumble when creating BOM’s around Nexus, and otherwise tarnish a really good product. Since channel specific topics is new to this blog, it would help me out if you could ping me if you found this useful. Depending on the response I receive I will start sprinkling in more of channel partner specific content in the future.
Cisco just released a little brother to the Nexus 5020, the 5010. The 5010 provides the same features as the 5020, but in a 20 port x 10 gig 1ru form factor with one expansion slot.
The coolest thing about this chassis is its price. You can get 20 ports of line rate lossless frabric 10 Gig cheap (about 850 a port list price). At that price point, putting one of these top of rack starts to look very enticing to many people.
The speculation is over, Jayshree Ullal former Senior Vice President in charge of Data Center, Switching, and Security groups for Cisco Systems is now the CEO of Arista Networks. Why she made that change is best by her on her blog -
It is truly my pleasure and honor to join Arista Networks as the President and CEO of the company. I have known founders, Andy Bechtolsheim and David Cheriton for a decade and worked with them closely during their Granite/Cisco days. To me, Arista is a symbol of an exciting, innovative silicon valley start-up company at the brink of pioneering new models for cloud networking.
After corporate life and managing multibillion dollars of business at Cisco Systems, you might ask why I chose Arista Networks? Three things really drew me here:
A top-notch and talented team, with focus on best of breed products and innovative EOS™ (Extensible Operating System) technology.
Working with Andy Bechtolsheim, and our long-standing 20+ year professional kinship.
A truly unique opportunity in our industry to build and grow into a great company!
Inside of Cisco Jayshree proved herself as a leader that could get results. There was even speculation that she was tagged to be John Chambers eventual replacement. I have a feeling the same qualities that drove her success inside of Cisco will follow her as she explores this new opportunity.
