You might be considering whether to purchase (UCS) gear but want to test it out first. Or, perhaps you have UCS, but you'd like to test some things out with the (UCSM) that you don't want to mess with in production.
If so, the Cisco UCS emulator might be the thing for you. Although it doesn't do everything a physical UCS implementation will do, it's a really nice tool for getting familiar with it or even developing on top of it. In this blog I'll take you through downloading and installing the Cisco UCS emulator and then give you a tour of some of the features. The first thing you need to do is get a Cisco.com ID. You'll go to the Cisco.com website and register for a free ID. Then point your URL to and download the OVA file.
This is a virtual appliance that will be deployed on some sort of hypervisor. (I'm using VMware Workstation, so this blog will reflect that.) Once the OVA file is downloaded, you can open VMware Workstation, and then double click the OVA file in your file browser, and it will automatically open the Import Virtual Machine wizard. Specify a name for the new virtual machine and click Import. When it completes the import, you will see it in your list of VMs. If you highlight it to show the console, it should tell you the IP addresses you can use to access the UCS Manager. You can also log in at the console to do some network configuration ( Figure A).
Figure A Click the image to enlarge. Now we want to log in to the UCSM via a browser. Open a Java-enabled browser and go to the IP address shown at the top of the console or one you specified in the network configuration on the console. Enter the default username and password (admin/admin), and you'll see a page that looks like Figure B. Figure B Click the image to enlarge.
On the left side you'll see some options. Normally you'll go to UCS Manager and click the Launch UCS Manager button, but you are able to change Emulator and Hardware settings from here. For instance, you can also change your management IP if you click Emulator Settings. If you click Hardware Inventory and then Start-Up Inventory, you'll see that there is one chassis set up by default.
However, you are able to change the hardware in that chassis or even add more chassis if necessary. You simply click the Add New Chassis button and then choose from the hardware items below ( Figure C). The really neat thing about this is you can actually import a current physical configuration that you might have in your environment. This makes testing a lot easier and less tedious.
![Cisco Nexus Emulator Cisco Nexus Emulator](/uploads/1/2/3/9/123936839/567254526.jpg)
Figure C Click the image to enlarge. Let's go back to the UCS Manager.
As I said above, click the UCS Manager tab on the left panel and then select UCS Home. Click the Launch UCS Manager button to launch UCSM. You may get some sort of Java notification and then a login screen. Log in with username admin and password admin. Dell hid keyboard driver download.
After a couple of seconds, you will see the UCSM as shown in Figure D. This will look exactly like the UCSM that comes along with Cisco Blades.
There is a tree structure on the left that defaults to Equipment, but you're able to click on LAN, SAN, VM, Admin, Equipment, and Servers depending on which kind of equipment you would like to see. On the right, it will show you different tabs and graphics depending on what you're looking. Click the image to enlarge. Let's take a second and check out the blades themselves as an example. Click the Equipment tab if it's not already selected.
Then drill down to Chassis Chassis 1 Servers and highlight Server 1. If you look on the right side and select the General tab, you can see any alerts under Fault Summary. It will also highlight where this server is physically in your chassis by showing a picture. You can see status details, create a service profile, restart it, and several other things ( Figure E).
Figure E Click the image to enlarge. Cisco's UCS emulator is such a great tool and concept — it would be nice if all vendors followed suit! Do you know of other tools like this? Have you had any issues or experienced any benefits from using the Cisco UCS emulator? If so, we'd love to hear about it in the comments section. Lauren Malhoit has been in the IT field for over 10 years and has acquired several data center certifications. She's currently a Technology Evangelist for Cisco focusing on ACI and Nexus 9000.
She has been writing for a few years for TechRepublic, Tech Pro Research, and VirtualizationAdmin.com. As a Cisco Champion, EMC Elect, VMware vExpert, and PernixPro, Lauren stays involved in the IT community. Lauren has been a delegate for Tech Field Day and has also authored a book called VMware vCenter Operations Manager Essentials.
This free tech tip was brought to you by SpeakGeekToMe.com Some time in the recent past the Cisco Nexus Titanium Emulator was leaked to the internet and as you can imagine it popped up all over the internet. It is as easy as doing a simple Google search to find and download your very own copy to this software. The Cisco Nexus Titanium Emulator is just that it is an emulator of a Nexus 7000 series switch, and will allow you to get your fingers wet on using the Nexus Operating System (NX-OS).
File compression extension 3.0. The emulator does not have every function that a real Cisco Nexus switch will have, but it is functioning and is good at getting you started in learning the NX-OS system. I have just begun to play with the emulator and in my first few min of playing I have found that it does not allow the creation of VDCs or vCPs. I’m assuming that since the emulator is a virtual version of the real thing, and trying to create a virtual 7K (VDC) inside an already virtual device is not supported. Would be cool to do VDCs and have nested virtual devices. I do not see the LACP protocol on the emulator so that would mean I can’t create vCPs. But as I said I just started playing with the Cisco Nexus Emulator so there might be a way to perform the function and I have not found them yet.
This video will step you through 1. Uploading Cisco Nexus Titanium to your VMware ESXi host Datastore 2. Configuring the VMware ESXi host internal switch to allow different VLANs for different ports on the Cisco Nexus Emulator 3. Adding the Cisco Nexus Emulator to the VMWare ESXi host inventory 4. Editing the Cisco Nexus Emulator virtual machine settings 5. Powering on the Cisco Nexus Emulator virtual machines 6. Configuring the VMWare ESXi host service.xml file via SSH and VI to allow access through the ESXi firewall with telnet to a unused port on the system 7.
Using putty to access the console port of the Cisco Nexus emulator via telnet 8. Configuring the mgnt0 port for the local management network addressing 9. Using putty to access the management port of the Cisco Nexus emulator via telnet 10. Configuring trunk ports between two Cisco Nexus emulators on e2/1-2 ports 11. Confirming the trunk ports are up via Show Interface Brief 12. Confirm Spanning Tree Protocol calculated root ports and blocked and forwarded the correct ports 13.
Confirm what VRF context the management port is in 14. Confirm connectivity via the ping command by pinging across the trunks using the correct VRF context. This free tech tip video was brought to you by SpeakGeekToMe.com.
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Internally means that only Cisco personnel within a specific business unit have access to it. As you stated in your original post, leaked means that it's not intentional. I'm guessing someone was able to obtain a copy and posted it somewhere. But it is not legitimate. Kind of like downloading a pirated copy of a movie. Furthermore, it's not very useful.
Cisco Nexus Features
It's a control plane emulator. No data plane. Which means that you'll be able to configure OSPF, but it won't actually route traffic. In BGP, the neighbor adjacencies won't form.
The list goes on.