Any Data Center Engineers on here

Just wanted to ask a few questions about the technology and the day to day life. I'm in a nexus class and I'm finding this very interesting, and thinking this maybe the next big thing.

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okplaya

It's definitely got some maturing to do, but I like it too. I have very limited troubleshooting with them so far, but I can say there is a bunch of minor annoyances with the revamped commands (e.g. Ctrl + c instead of esc, explicitly adding "int" for alot of commands, no dash vs dash, etc). Really minor, but when you're so used to IOS it gets frustrating. I'd like to hear some feedback from folks who've maybe deployed these or have more experience as well.

Turgon

shodown wrote: »

Just wanted to ask a few questions about the technology and the day to day life. I'm in a nexus class and I'm finding this very interesting, and thinking this maybe the next big thing.

We wont be investing in Nexus at this time. It came out too quickly. What questions do you have about data centre engineering? While Im not in operations anymore I have the T-Shirt on installation, support and DC design work. As an architect I continue to work closely with senior network engineers to deploy infrastructure improvements Im designing.

shodown

Are the environments dynamic(as in constantly changing) or are they set and forget until the next customer comes in. How much T/S is done on a day to day basis and so on. Also do you have fun in your job duties.

Turgon

shodown wrote: »

Are the environments dynamic(as in constantly changing) or are they set and forget until the next customer comes in. How much T/S is done on a day to day basis and so on. Also do you have fun in your job duties.

Constantly changing as there are hundreds of customers with all kinds of differing and competing requirements to deal with on infrastructure, and going through a major design transition which Im actively engaged in. If pressure = fun then there's lots of it about!

shodown

Turgon wrote: »

Constantly changing as there are hundreds of customers with all kinds of differing and competing requirements to deal with on infrastructure, and going through a major design transition which Im actively engaged in. If pressure = fun then there's lots of it about!

I'm very intrested in what I saw in the class and we are rolling them out soon. I'm wondering am I going to take a serious look at this. This seems like this is where to be at for the next few years.

AlanJames

I'm doing a lot of DC design/engineering at the moment

nexus 7000/2000 UCS/MDS etc etc

All very fun technology, cisco are putting a lot of push in this sector and a lot of change is happening.

Let me know if you have any questions

tim100

shodown wrote: »

Just wanted to ask a few questions about the technology and the day to day life. I'm in a nexus class and I'm finding this very interesting, and thinking this maybe the next big thing.

I've been doing a ton of migrations and new rollouts lately with the nexus 7000/5000 along with fabric extenders. Pretty interesting stuff especially with vPC. Double sided vPC is pretty cool. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

shodown

What book referecnes would be good to start learning the technology. I have access to a 7K lab. My job will only be rolling out the smaller platforms, but with a bunch of lab time and some certs I may look to see what else is out here. Also we did some BGP/OSPF in class how much of that is needed to be really good at this. I'm a VOIP engineer by trade. I do have a NP, but I only use that knowledge in T/S

zerglings

You may want to read this blog. He was the one who gave us an introduction to Nexus during our Cisco Lunch & Learn and he seems like he knows a whole lot about Nexus. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to read his blog so I can't comment if his blog is any good.

ccie15672

We are taking a deep breath and letting all this data center stuff pan out. The dam broke, the river is flowing... lets see where the tributaries take us.

Nexus can do some interesting things, but its built on the same model the 6500 was: There are sup blades and fabric modules and so on that run in different "modes" on the backplane and if stop and think about it... that means 2 or 3 years from now when you buy that super-duper card it will be running at half-capacity because of the older cards. Or you'll have to upgrade the sups and/or the fabric modules... or upgrade NX-OS and whatever licensing for additional features you need.

its a complex/intricate system. Both "C" and "J" (our chosen vendors) have had some quality-control issues in the past 5 years. Same reason we didn't dive headfirst into SRX.

So we are breathing. letting it play out. Using MPLS in the meantime.