Recently I had a chance to try using Cisco’s Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) software in anger. I must confess that sometimes anger
was the right word, but at other times it definitely made me smile. Based on the state of the documentation it’s clear that there are a couple of areas where very few people have spent time digging in (if they had, the same errors wouldn’t be in the documentation for at least 5 releases of DCNM), so on that basis I’m using this post—and more to follow—to document some of the fun things I have discovered along the way. For reference, I am running DCNM version 10, so there have been nine previous versions of DCNM in which the behavior can be perfected, and I gather that version 10 is a big step up from version 9.
To put my testing in context, I have a specific FabricPath Leaf-Spine topology already designed, and I am only using the aspects of DCNM pertinent to my particular needs for an Ethernet LAN fabric. I say this up front because I know that I am not using all of DCNM’s functionality, and perhaps I’m missing out on some of the fabric automation Continue reading
Here are six technologies paving the way to more fully autonomous data center operations.