Keeping Current as a Network Engineer & Working your way to becoming a Network Architect

Keeping Current:
It’s crucial to always stay current in any industry that you work in. You want to be the one bringing new ideas to the table and possibly have new solutions to common problems that companies face. Some of the following websites I follow to keep myself current in the Network Industry along with the Data Center Industry are below.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/
 
http://www.networkworld.com/topics/lan-wan.html

Certifications are also a great way to keep current and enhance your skill sets.

Working your way to becoming a Network Architect:
My long term goal is to become a Network Architect and I have found that reading a ton of White Papers along with test results from third party vendors is going to greatly help me achieve this goal. Cisco puts out some great white papers on proven design guides that I highly recommend for anyone to read. The following link is a perfect example and yes I read the entire white paper along with others.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Campus/HA_campus_DG/hacampusdg.html

This has helped me tremendously in being able to design a better network and with my CCNP studies. Cisco also has another great resource, it’s called Cisco Validated Design Program. Check out the following link, its design guides for pretty much every type of network. These are proven and tried design guides from true industry experts.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns741/networking_solutions_program_home.html

Reading benchmark or test results is another great way to get a key understanding on how to evaluate a product before you buy it and what to look for in new hardware.  I follow this website and a majority of Vendors put third party evaluation results on their own website.

http://www.networktest.com/

Cisco Nexus 2000 and 5000: Configuration and Troubleshooting

Great Video on Cisco Nexus 2000 and 5000 switches. The video is geared towards configuration and troubleshooting. Please note that the video is two years old and config sync along with the L3 daughter cards have been release by Cisco.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6ty_38bJpc

Nexus - Config Sync

When you have two Nexus devices connected to each other via a VPC lpeer link, I have found it useful to have Config Sync enabled.  If you don't have config sync enabled, you will need to update each 5k separately and that is a pain at times. Additionally, if you make a change to one 5k and not the other, it will drop the connection. For example, you update the vlan associated with a switchport on Nexus5596_01, and not Nexus5596_02, it will down the port until Nexus5596_02 is updated. For this lab we are going to use Figure 1. Unfortunatley you cant simulate a switch in GNS3 so you will need to get your hands on some Nexus gear. 

Figure 1 - Nexus Lab

We will use the VPC Keep alive interface for this which is really cat6 cable connected between the switches on the mgmt interface on the back side.

Configurations:

Nexus5596_02# config t

Nexus5596_02(config)# configure sync
Nexus5596_02(config-sync)# switch-profile 5596 (This is what name you want to assigned to the profile)
Nexus5596_02(config-sync-sp)# sync-peers destination 192.168.1.1 (Peer device IP address)

Nexus5596_01# config t
Nexus5596_01(config)# configure sync
Nexus5596_01(config-sync)# switch-profile 5596
Nexus5596_01(config-sync-sp)# sync-peers destination 192.168.1.2

 Verifications:

 Nexus5596_02# show cfs peers

Physical Fabric
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Switch WWN              IP Address
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 20:00:54:7f:ee:28:c3:00 192.168.1.2                             [Local]
                         Nexus5596_02
 20:00:54:7f:ee:25:08:80 192.168.1.1

Total number of entries = 2

Nexus5596_02#

Using the new feature: 

Nexus5596_02# config t

Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Nexus5596_02(config)# configure sync
Nexus5596_02(config-sync)# switch-profile 5596
Switch-Profile started, Profile ID is 1
Nexus5596_02(config-sync-sp)# interface eth 101/1/12
Nexus5596_02(config-sync-sp-if)# switchport access vlan 100
Nexus5596_02(config-sync-sp-if)# verify (Optional)
Verification Successful
Nexus5596_02(config-sync-sp)# commit (Committing your changes to this device and the peer device)
Verification successful...
Proceeding to apply configuration. This might take a while depending on amount of configuration in buffer.
Please avoid other configuration changes during this time.
Commit Successful
Nexus5596_02(config-sync)# end
Nexus5596_02#

Nexus5596_01# show run int eth 101/1/12

!Command: show running-config interface Ethernet101/1/12
!Time: Fri Oct 19 04:30:13 2012

version 5.1(3)N1(1a)

interface Ethernet101/1/12
  switchport access vlan 100

Nexus5596_01#

Additional views:

If you don't want to commit your changes, they are stored on the switch untill you commit and you can view them.

Nexus5596_02(config)# config t

Nexus5596_02(config)# configure sync
Nexus5596_02(config-sync)# switch-profile 5596
Switch-Profile started, Profile ID is 1
Nexus5596_02(config-sync-sp)# interface ethernet 101/1/13
Nexus5596_02(config-sync-sp-if)# description example_of_not_commiting
Nexus5596_02(config-sync-sp-if)# end

Nexus5596_02# show switch-profile buffer

switch-profile  : 5596
----------------------------------------------------------
Seq-no  Command
----------------------------------------------------------
1       interface Ethernet101/1/13
1.1       description example_of_not_commiting

Further Reading:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5000/sw/system_management/502_n1_1/Cisco_n5k_system_mgmt_cg_rel_502_n1_1_chapter3.html

FCOE vs. iSCSI

Good Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z14G-hc45Qw&feature=related