During this course, students will integrate Cisco® Catalyst® 6500 Series, MDS9000 Series, and ONS 15454 devices in a distributed data center environment. Using Cisco IOS® Software, Cisco® Fabric Manager, Cisco® Device Manager, and Cisco® Transport Controller (CTC) GUIs, students will build an end-to-end network across Switching, Storage Area Networking (SAN) and Optical technologies. Hands-on lab exercises provide opportunities to provision many features including: Rapid Per VLAN Spanning-Tree Protocol Plus (Rapid PVST+), Hot Standby-Redundancy Protocol (HSRP), Layer 2 and Layer 3 security, Virtual Storage Area Networks (VSANs), Zoning, Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP), BLSR, and FCIP over SONET.

You will learn to:

• Configure, verify and troubleshoot Layer 2 features across Cisco® Catalyst® 3750 and 6500 Series switches to provide dynamic and robust connectivity to server farms
• Configure, verify and troubleshoot Layer 2 and Layer 3 security features to provide a minimal level of defense against network attacks
• Configure, verify and troubleshoot SAN features including VSANs, zoning, FCIP and iSCSI in practical operation scenarios using Cisco® MDS 9000 series devices
• Configure, verify and troubleshoot a SONET BLSR ring using Cisco ONS 15454 SONET Multiservice Provisioning Platform (MSPP) to provide Business Continuance in a distributed data center environment
• Configure, verify and troubleshoot the integration of Cisco® Catalyst® 6500 Series, MDS9000 Series, and ONS 15454 devices to build a distributed data center lab topology

Recommended for:

• Individuals tasked with supporting the design, deployment, operation, or maintenance of a Business Ready Data Center environment
• Individuals seeking hands-on experience integrating Cisco® Catalyst® 6500 Series, MDS9000 Series, and ONS 15454 devices
• Individuals supporting medium or large Enterprise data centers
• Individuals functioning in named job roles including: network architect, network designer, implementation personnel

Prerequisites:

This is an advanced hands-on course that requires students to efficiently configure and verify network functionality. Students are expected to possess the following prerequisite skills and knowledge:

• Knowledge in IP routing protocols and switching features including OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS, STP, RSTP, and PVST+ as taught in Advanced Services Building Core Networks with OSPF, BGP, and MPLS Bootcamp and Metro Ethernet Switching Deployment Bootcamp courses
• Knowledge of server and mainframe operations including TCP processing, FICON, and ESCON as covered in the Cisco Press® publication Data Center Fundamentals by Mauricio Arregoces and Maurizio Portolani
• Knowledge of SAN principles and protocols including Fiber Channel and iSCSI as covered in the Cisco Press® publication Storage Area Networking Fundamentals by Meeta Gupta
• Knowledge of optical transport operations and protocols including Fiber Optics, SONET, and DWDM as taught in Advanced Services ONS 15454 and 15327 Test and Turn Up Boot Camp
• Familiarity with Cisco® GUI-based network management applications such as CiscoWorks, Cisco® Craft Controller, Fabric Manager, and Device Manager
• Ability to efficiently use a command-line interface to perform Cisco IOS® Software configurations