Well the picture to the right shows exactly where they are. In the past we have dealt with 1Gbps interfaces on supervisors that had both RJ-45 and SFP slots and it was an either/or decision if you wanted to use them. In those cases you had a config entry that required you to state SFP or RJ-45 in the interface configuration. No matter what you chose it was always shown Interface GigabitEthernet Mod#/Port#. So when I dove into the Sup720 I was configuring I decided it was supposed to be the same way because why would Cisco ever let me use all the ports on the front of my hardware? Being the all knowing geek that I am I also ignored the config file that I have seen at least 30 times in the last hour and I just started typing Interface TenGigabitEthernet 5/1, and I kept getting this; Read more
Category: Switches
Open wide I need to see all your packets!
I have been doing alot of reading lately about network monitoring, IDS, network problem diagnosis and other such topics. Out of that reading I have been picking up on something that was totally left out of my education in the finer arts of networking. That something is the necessary use of network TAPS for full visibility of of traffic in a structured switched Ethernet network. I plan on discussing that issue more in the near future. But on the front end I have discovered the need to use the existing SPAN and port mirroring options to get a better view on a highly VLAN’d environment. This article from NetworkIntrusion was just what the doctor ordered. So until I can get my hands on some TAPS and get some articles out about how they have revolutionized my troubleshooting methodology I hope this use of tried and true tools for monitoring switches helps.
Upon us all a little rain must fall.
Led Zeppelin said it best I guess. This past week Ohio along with lots of other states got hit with the remains of hurricane Dean. So far it has been the most damaging storm for my clients in my short consulting career. The first call came on Tuesday morning August 21st. That call was from one of our account managers who indicated a client had sustained catastrophic damage to their 6509 when water rushed into their core network closet. My first two thoughts were how quickly can we get replacement hardware and how long should it take for me to get them back up and going? Read more