Switch Profiles

Configuration synchronization allows administrators to make configuration changes on one switch and have the system automatically synchronize the configuration to a peer switch. This feature eliminates misconfigurations and reduces the administrative overhead.

The configuration synchronization mode (config-sync) allows users to create switch profiles to synchronize local and peer switch.

Module Pre-Provisioning

Module pre-provisioning feature allows users to pre-configure interfaces before inserting or attaching a module to a Cisco Nexus Series switch. If a module goes offline, users can also use pre-provisioning to make changes to the interface configurations for the offline module. In some vPC topologies, pre-provisioning is required for the configuration synchronization feature. Pre-provisioning allows users to synchronize the configuration for an interface that is online with one peer but offline with another peer.

Cisco Fabric Services

The Cisco MDS NX-OS software uses the Cisco Fabric Services (CFS) infrastructure to enable efficient database distribution and to promote device flexibility. CFS simplifies SAN provisioning by automatically distributing configuration information to all switches in a fabric.

Precision Time Protocol

The Precision Time Protocol (PTP) is a time synchronization protocol for nodes distributed across a network. Its hardware timestamp feature provides greater accuracy than other time synchronization protocols such as Network Time Protocol (NTP).

User Accounts and RBAC

User accounts and role-based access control (RBAC) allow you to define the rules for an assigned role. Roles restrict the authorization that the user has to access management operations. Each user role can contain multiple rules and each user can have multiple roles.

Session Manager

Session Manager allows you to create a configuration and apply it in batch mode after the configuration is reviewed and verified for accuracy and completeness.

Online Diagnostics

Cisco Generic Online Diagnostics (GOLD) define a common framework for diagnostic operations across Cisco platforms. The online diagnostic framework specifies the platform-independent fault-detection architecture for centralized and distributed systems, including the common diagnostics CLI and the platform-independent fault-detection procedures for boot-up and run-time diagnostics.

The platform-specific diagnostics provide hardware-specific fault-detection tests and allow you to take appropriate corrective action in response to diagnostic test results.

System Message Logging

You can use system message logging to control the destination and to filter the severity level of messages that system processes generate. You can configure logging to a terminal session, a log file, and syslog servers on remote systems.

System message logging is based on RFC 3164. For more information about the system message format and the messages that the device generates, see the Cisco NX-OS System Messages Reference.

Smart Call Home

Call Home provides an e-mail-based notification of critical system policies. Cisco NX-OS provides a range of message formats for optimal compatibility with pager services, standard e-mail, or XML-based automated parsing applications. You can use this feature to page a network support engineer, e-mail a Network Operations Center, or use Cisco Smart Call Home services to automatically generate a case with the Technical Assistance Center.

Configuration Rollback

The configuration rollback feature allows users to take a snapshot, or user checkpoint, of the Cisco NX-OS configuration and then reapply that configuration to a switch at any point without having to reload the switch. A rollback allows any authorized administrator to apply this checkpoint configuration without requiring expert knowledge of the features configured in the checkpoint.

SNMP

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an application-layer protocol that provides a message format for communication between SNMP managers and agents. SNMP provides a standardized framework and a common language used for the monitoring and management of devices in a network.

RMON

RMON is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard monitoring specification that allows various network agents and console systems to exchange network monitoring data. Cisco NX-OS supports RMON alarms, events, and logs to monitor Cisco NX-OS devices.

SPAN

The Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) feature (sometimes called port mirroring or port monitoring) selects network traffic for analysis by a network analyzer. The network analyzer can be a Cisco SwitchProbe, a Fibre Channel Analyzer, or other Remote Monitoring (RMON) probes.

ERSPAN

Encapsulated remote switched port analyzer (ERSPAN) is used to transport mirrored traffic in an IP network. ERSPAN supports source ports, source VLANs, and destinations on different switches, which provide remote monitoring of multiple switches across your network. ERSPAN uses a generic routing encapsulation (GRE) tunnel to carry traffic between switches.

ERSPAN consists of an ERSPAN source session, routable ERSPAN GRE-encapsulated traffic, and an ERSPAN destination session. You separately configure ERSPAN source sessions and destination sessions on different switches.

To configure an ERSPAN source session on one switch, you associate a set of source ports or VLANs with a destination IP address, ERSPAN ID number, and virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) name. To configure an ERSPAN destination session on another switch, you associate the destinations with the source IP address, the ERSPAN ID number, and a VRF name.

The ERSPAN source session copies traffic from the source ports or source VLANs and forwards the traffic using routable GRE-encapsulated packets to the ERSPAN destination session. The ERSPAN destination session switches the traffic to the destinations.