Routers World

Cisco this week is spreading its branches routers and LAN switches in an effort to improve collaboration capabilities of enterprise customers.

Cisco is expanding its integrated services routers (ISR) and Catalyst 4500 and 6500 changes with the new models, line cards and communications software to cope with mobility, sustainability and (UC) requirements.

For the ISR, Cisco is introducing two low-end models: the 880 and 890 VDSL2. Both are aimed at small businesses and offering options for faster broadband and higher performance, integrated security and wireless connectivity.

Another novelty is the ISR 1861W, which is aimed at small businesses with voice and integration requirements cabling / wireless. Compatible with IEEE 802.11g WLAN.

Cisco is supporting high-speed packet access (HSPA) in module 3G Wireless Wide Area Network ISR. HSPA increases the bandwidth and performance for the applications module backup or disaster recovery.

Cisco also says Singlewire software applications now run on the platform of income tax extension request (AXP) service module. InformaCast Singlewire package is simultaneously sent a stream of audio or text message to multiple IP phones IP speakers, desktop systems and reporting systems for paging.

The ISR is also compatible with the following characteristics of UC collaboration and mobility:

* Cisco Unified SIP Proxy to reduce the costs of deployment of UC.

* Firms voice in the security module of the IP network to make voice calls more secure.

* Mobility and video capabilities of Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express.

* Timecard management capabilities of Cisco Unity Express to improve employee productivity in the branch.

ISR EtherSwitch the computer’s Ethernet switching modules are now also compatible with Cisco EnergyWise power technology to help improve the efficiency of energy use on the LAN.

For LAN Catalyst switches, Cisco unveiled a supervisor module for the Catalyst 4500 series. The 6L-E is designed for media collaboration and energy efficiency of wiring closet switches through support for Power over Ethernet (PoE) Plus 30 watts.

PoE Plus is an extension of PoE standard for video and wireless support access point.

Cisco also released a 48-card ports 10/100/1000 Mbps line that allows 30 watts PoE for devices such as video phones, dual-band wireless access points, devices, service and construction of camcorders surveillance. Cisco says it also extended its home support intelligent call notification functions and capabilities to the Catalyst 4500 EnergyWise.

The Catalyst 4500 and Cisco switches every wiring closet, now also have a limited lifetime warranty, according to Cisco.

For the Catalyst 6500, Cisco has enhanced its use in the campus backbone by integrating virtual switching system (VSS) and service capabilities of the switch module. This allows customers to deploy firewall, network analysis module (NAM), and modules of wireless services in its main campus VSS, for the scale of spine and reliability, according to Cisco.

The new capabilities of NAM provides visibility into voice applications, analysis of targeted traffic and MPLS networks, according to Cisco.

Meanhwhile, Cisco says there is plenty of life left in the Catalyst 6500 even though the company launched the next generation switch for data center Nexus unified fabric. The Nexus is optimized for environments, while the Catalyst 6500 which will probably not reach FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) unified I / S and without loss of Data Center Ethernet capabilities, said Srikant Kumar, vice president of product management for Cisco Campus Switching Systems Technology Group.

That does not mean that the Catalyst 6500 600000 chassis should be implemented for retirement, says Srikant. For example, the current VSS Supervisor 720 with 40 Gbps per slot only units in the system despite the Catalyst 6500 is capable of 80Gbps per slot, said.

Therefore, one might expect other supervisor engine before driving out the Catalyst 6500 to 80Gbps per slot or higher. And since most of the supervisor engines have a cycle of 10 to 12 years, according to Srikant, and Sup 720 was released in 2003, a new supervisor may extend the life of the Catalyst 6500 for another 10 to 12 years.

“It’s the B-52 switching,” says Srikant the Catalyst 6500, referring to the venerable U.S. military aircraft.

The Catalyst 6500 should reach EnergyWise energy efficiency capabilities in the first half of 2010, Srikant said.

Cisco has released a new single-slot 16-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet card for online ASR9000 edge routers which are released typically used by service providers such as Deutsche Telekom, and Verizon Wireless.

According to Cisco, a port 10 Gbps per line card for the new total of more than 100 Gbps, 10GE, the user can now install up to 320 Ethernet ports, 10 Gb per system. Cisco says the new card is a first in the industry, the “faster than any transmission module available” and is “designed to deliver large scale, without stopping the video experience and a smaller carbon footprint.”

The company said the new card means that the “leads the industry in density, and scalability,” ASR9000, because other producers “are limited to 50 Gbps per slot today.”

Cisco ASR 9000 said his line cards “are synce-ready, which means that routers work with the cell site as a provider of mobile transfers.” The company said that the need for additional synchronization card eliminated.

A decisive factor for the capacity of the card application is the growth of video traffic, iPhone, especially for Apple to consider mobile operators, vendors and analysts, the demand for the release of Mobile Video, much more traffic, according to a market research company, has USB and portable devices.

As a result, service providers, their fixed and mobile networks scale to meet the demands of traffic video, voice and IPTV have said Cisco.

The company said that “in 2013, the sum of all video formats such as television, video on demand, Internet video and peer-to-peer does not exceed 90 percent of global consumption of traffic data. .. Combined fixed and mobile networks is expected to grow 66 times more than the same period. ”

If you do, you must be prepared in memory of important information to know why the router to router crashed and save it to prevent future accidents. To do this, you must configure the router to the core dump information in the case of an accident to save.

Let’s see what a hole, as it can help and how to configure the router to store these important files for analysis.

What is a memory dump?

A dump is simply a full copy of the image memory of the router. If the router has a system error or error can not be prosecuted, so it supports all of its memory and writes the contents of memory on a server before it is recharged.

It is very important to keep a copy of the discharge to avoid possible causes of the accident. During the discharge can not be read by you, is readable and useful to the Technical Assistance Center for Cisco (TAC). When an accident occurs on the router, open a TAC case with people who are trained to have to read this issue.

Note that the dump from the router at the time of the accident must be saved. A dump can only be taken after the accident happened and the router is restarted.

Orders big problems when a router crashes
Before showing how to configure core dumps, look at some commands that are important to troubleshooting router crashes:

show version: This command displays such things as the hardware configuration of the router, the version of IOS software image, memory and interfaces are available. Perhaps only a piece of faulty hardware. This information could also help to see what version of code running on the router and the amount of flash memory is available.

Show stacks: This is another very useful command that monitors the use of cellular processes and interrupt routines. This command displays information such as a bus error or a software forced crash.

show the context: This command stores information like the reason for the restart and monitoring of information in the stack.

Besides a core dump, the Cisco TAC may ask you to stop the script technology to support the program. This command displays all parameters, statistics and connect to the router.

For more information about these commands, see the Cisco documentation “Troubleshooting Router accidents.”

How can I configure the Cisco IOS software to save core dumps?
The Cisco IOS save or transfer a core dump file using four different methods. They are:
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
Remote Copy Protocol (RCP)
Trivial Transfer Protocol (TFTP)
Flash Disk (stored in the router, are not transmitted over the network)

The recommended method is through File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is what I want to give the context. Mentioned in the act, if CPR is used FTP, or one of the forms, ensure that each protocol is working properly before discharge. In other words, the test of a transfer of a species with this method.

For example, you could FTP by copying the router configuration in the same FTP server, configuring the kernel is used to test:
Router # copy running-config ftp
To manually create a backup without having to reload, enter the following command in privileged mode:
Router # write core
This is useful if the router is just malfunctioning but not crashing. Note that all memory is dumped, not just what is in use, so make sure you have enough memory to accept it. In addition, it is not recommended in a production environment, a router, in use.

These are the commands to use for a memory dump using FTP:
ip ftp username username: Configures the username for FTP connections.
ip ftp password: Configures the password for the FTP connection.
except ftp:Configures protocol, FTP core dump.
Except for the region size of 65536: Sets the size of the region.
Exception dump IP address: Set the IP address of the router sends the core dump in case of accident.

Cisco recommends that you connect to FTP server router directly, without intermediate hops.

Health debug command is also a good control of errors in debugging memory usage, including memory I / O This is likely to work with the representative of Cisco technology. Here is an excerpt from the output of the show version command is for a core dump. Please note the error in the bottom of the descent.
Router # show version Cisco Internetwork Operating System IOS ™ RSP Software (RSP-PV-M), Version 12.0 (10.6) ST, beginning MAINTENANCE INTERIM SOFTWARE INSTALLATION Copyright (c) 1986-2000 Cisco Systems, Inc. Compiled Fri 23 4:02 p.m.-Jun-00 imaging richv text-base: 0×60010908, data base: 0x60D96000 ROM: System startup, Version 12.0 (19990806:174725) SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT bootflash: RSP Software (RSP-BOOT-M), Version 12.0 (9), the availability of early deployment software router (FC1) is 20 hours, 56 minutes System returned to ROM error – a Software forced crash 0x60287EE8 PC file system image “Slot0: rsp-PV-120- MZ .. 10.6 ST ”
Another issue that could be useful in case of accident is the crash info file. It is stored in bootflash or flash memory. For more details on crash information, see the Cisco documentation “Retrieving File Information accident.”

Completion
It is important that the type of configuration a core dump on each router, so you can capture the memory dump if your router ever crashes. Once the router is restarted, if was not recorded, the core dump crash can not be recovered. In this way, I hope you are able to use the dump using the Cisco TAC to resolve the problem of the crash reaches the first router address.

For more information on accidents, creating core dumps and troubleshooting router “, router blocks interference.” You see the Cisco articles “Creating Core Dumps”

Several years ago, launched by the design engineers of Cisco equipment his own vision of convergence, integrated services router (ISR) family. Mixture of know-how Cisco security, wireless, VoIP, switches and routers in the network, the range of the company’s products have already enjoyed several years of review and development.

For this review, please send us the product Cisco ISR 891, which is designed for small offices and branch offices from 80 to 50 users. As our test and evaluation shows seems to have good characteristics of balance and is perfectly suited to your target audience.

Design and features

The Cisco 891 is a device of small form factor in the ubiquitous Cisco dark gray. Despite its physical size is very small, is the number of features that Cisco engineers have packed up to his nickname of “integrated services”. SRI is supported primarily focused on the side of the coin converged network, integration of a switch with eight ports to VLAN 14. Four of the ports of the network can be used for Power over Ethernet (PoE) injection for VoIP phones or wireless access points.

As a Cisco product, which is also a multi-functional router has two WAN ports with dial version V90-891, and ISDN (BRI) in the model 892 for the backup connection. A disappointment is that the 890-series offers a choice of 3G does not love his brother 880th We were informed that the 3G is in the cards for 890 years in the near future. There are many VPN support, including dynamic VPN GETVPN.

Security systems are intrinsically because it will be a device for transferring data between stores and corporate headquarters. Cisco usual consistency and simplicity is evident in this unit. For example, the Internetwork Operating System (IOS) is still there, with a conventional serial port (for hard-core warriors Cisco love the text mode interface).

Cisco also offers an intuitive graphical user interface and easy to use, including a number of participants. A highlight is the security audit function, which runs through a list of best practices for security checks and make a simple list. The administrator can check this list and go to the potential sensitivity to changes in the configuration. For large installations, the administration also remotely from a control, central monitoring and policies are carried out.

The 891 / 2 SIR-series offers an optional integrated wireless access point 802.1n by 891-892 WW-features and codes. This may be sufficient for most small offices, to provide the network end connection panel and WAN connectivity is a convenient place (preferably in the distribution of head office), separate wireless access points, otherwise the access may be considered. Cisco also provides granular control over the wireless configuration. The 891 supports wireless management unified, allowing the policy in wireless and urged a global basis the company WLAN.

How we tested

A regional office or the office with 10 to 15 employees – We have created a replica of the environment in which one of these devices are generally used. We connected the drive and ran through the entire process of their creation, the connection to the WAN, wireless security and basic guidelines to create a VPN connection to the user. The entire process is completed in less than an hour, and it’s someone not very familiar with the graphical user interface of Cisco. As already mentioned, the security audit function is excellent, and a number of common mistakes, could not focus on security administrators easy to fix.

With the test network performance Enex eMetrics, are the components of wireless products from radio to double through a series of performance tests. Test the target server was connected directly test eMetrics a network port RJ-45 ports on the switch router and two laptops are used by the client (was equipped with 802.11n, while the other had 802.11g). There was no load on the network interfaces when the traffic separation eMetrics because we were looking for testing of raw performance. The results were recorded in kbps.

Then simulate a real environment in the world and through hoops 891 at different distances and obstacles such as walls, corridors, corners, floors, elevators and stairs between the client and the access point ( PA) for up to 55 meters.

Wireless Performance Cisco ISR 891 is good, with a maximum in the 802.11n 70Mbps 802.11g network around closely, and just under 20 Mbps. Up to 40 meters, the 802.11n standard is a very healthy performance advantage over 40Mbps 11g 802nd, up to 20 Mbps, respectively, and at that distance. About 40 meters, the performance decreases drastically to practically put online with up to 55m 802.11b and 802.11g. The performance bottleneck in many networks is the WAN / Internet – especially if the branch is connected via ADSL, and the range of 1 Mbps to 4 Mbps