20 posts
Cisco shipped Nexus Dashboard 4.2.1 in March 2026 with config drift reconciliation, a virtual Fabric Designer, Nexus One ACI/NX-OS interoperability, Live Protect, and deep AI fabric tooling. Here's a practitioner's breakdown of what changes day-to-day operations — and what's just nice to have.
Step-by-step deployment of the Cisco Workflows Automation Remote OVA in VMware vSphere — what it does, what gets installed, the gotchas to watch for, and how to verify it's relaying traffic correctly.
Step-by-step: how to build a no-code Cisco Workflow that connects to an IOS-XE Catalyst device, runs show or configuration commands, captures the output, and acts on it — using the SSH adapter.
A comprehensive guide to prefix-lists and route-maps in Cisco BGP — what they do, how they differ from ACLs, when to use each, and practical configurations for inbound/outbound BGP policy.
A deep dive into Bidirectional Forwarding Detection — why BGP's default failure detection is dangerously slow, how BFD provides sub-second link failure detection, and how to configure it on Cisco IOS-XE, IOS-XR, and NX-OS.
Practical Meraki Workflows use cases — from branch provisioning and device replacement to ISE integration, webhook-triggered remediation, and AI LLM actions for intelligent network operations.
A complete introduction to Cisco Agentic Workflows — the no-code automation platform built into the Meraki Dashboard. What problems it solves, what makes it different from scripting, and how to get started today.
How to use the Claude API with the Cisco Meraki Dashboard API to manage networks, generate configurations, audit security policies, troubleshoot clients, and build intelligent Meraki management tools.
Practical Claude API patterns for Cisco routers — generating complex routing policies, parsing BGP and OSPF state, building WAN automation tools, and creating intelligent diagnostic assistants for IOS-XR and IOS-XE routers.
How to use the Claude API with Cisco ACI's APIC REST API to generate tenant policies, audit configurations, troubleshoot endpoint connectivity, and build intelligent ACI management tools.
Practical patterns for using the Claude API with Cisco NX-OS — generating VXLAN EVPN configs, parsing NX-OS output, automating fabric operations, and building intelligent network tools with Python and NX-API.
How to use the Claude API to generate IOS-XE configurations, parse show command output, build network audit tools, and create intelligent troubleshooting assistants for Cisco IOS-XE devices.
A complete breakdown of all five BGP EVPN route types defined in RFC 7432 and RFC 8365 — what information each carries, when each is generated, and how they work together to build a VXLAN fabric.
A deep technical breakdown of VXLAN EVPN — what the underlay and overlay are, how VTEPs encapsulate traffic, why BGP replaced flood-and-learn, and how symmetric IRB enables Layer 3 routing across the fabric.
A look at why organizations are moving away from Cisco ACI toward NX-OS VXLAN EVPN managed by Nexus Dashboard — the operational, strategic, and market forces driving this shift in 2025 and 2026.
A breakdown of every Cisco-supported physical hardware option for Nexus Dashboard 4.2 — from the legacy SE-NODE-G2 to the current-generation G5L and G5S — with specs, NICs, and cabling guidance.
The DNS and NTP requirements for Nexus Dashboard 4.2 are strict. Get them wrong and your cluster won't deploy — or worse, it'll deploy and fail unpredictably later.
Everything you need to know before deploying Nexus Dashboard 4.2 in VMware ESX — node profiles, hardware requirements, storage specs, and critical restrictions.
BGP was built for trust, not security. RPKI fixes that by cryptographically validating route origins — here's how to deploy it on Cisco IOS-XE, IOS-XR, and NX-OS.
A practical guide to Nexus Dashboard — what it is, how it replaces DCNM, and how to get the most out of its multi-site visibility features.
