There’s also a new Trade-in site on Amazon, where you can quickly find trade-in values on electronics, books, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and video games. My old HTC Incredible should fetch about $50 for trade-in, leaving my Net pricing on the Nexus around $180.

Will share first impressions once I’ve had a chance to get my mitts around the Galaxy Nexus. 4G here I come…

Happy New Year!

I will be upgrading from my current HTC Droid Incredible on Verizon Wireless, which has exhibited remarkable reliability and burrowed into a comfortable spot in my front pocket. The Droid Incredible, which arguably helped launch the most recent Android wave along with the Motorola Droid, , has been showing its age lately. Looking at my wife and stepdaughter’s new HTC Thunderbolt, I marvel at the rapid response and 4G LTE speeds, and envy their shiny 4.3 inch super AMOLED displays.

The two current Android smartphones which I’m evaluating are the recently-announced Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Motorola Droid Razr. It’s ironic that the Samsung Galaxy device is named “Nexus” since last year I was originally planning to purchase the Google Nexus One, which eventually only saw limited release. (Too much Nexus – have been working with lots of Cisco Nexus switches this year too)

(Pictures not to scale)

The Motorola Droid Razr is currently available, and lists for $299 at Verizon. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus will be available first from Verizon Wireless, but pricing and availability has not yet been announced.

The devices match up very closely to each other, with Samsung Galaxy Nexus distinguished as the first smartphone installed with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and the Droid Razr coming in lighter and thinner though with a smaller screen. Having handled the Razr, I can attest that it’s very comfortable in your hand, however for me the tie-breaker will likely be Ice Cream Sandwich.

Here’s a chart comparing the primary features:

• Antec P183 Black enclosure (Quiet performance)
• Nexus 430W compact P/S
• Intel i5 2400 CPU, 3.10 ghz Quad core , 6 MB cache LGA1155
• Intel 320 series SSD, 120 GB SATA
• ASUS P8Z68-V PRO Motherboard
• Corsair 16 GB DDR3-1600 RAM
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, SP1

The performance is incredible, web pages jump off the screen and wakes from Sleep in less than 2 seconds. Importantly, the entire workstation is whisper quiet, I can barely tell when it’s powered on, and apparently is rated at < 20 dBA . The Intel 320 is my first SSD drive, and I’ve been suitably impressed with its speed.

The Nexus switches support vPC (Virtual Port Channels), which “allows links that are physically connected to two different Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switches or Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders to appear as a single port channel by a third device.” (Cisco)

Here is a diagram of the planned configuration of vPC uplinks between the Nexus 5596UP and Catalyst 6509 (core) switches:

To setup vPC on the Nexus switches, first you need to create a vPC peer-link between the pair of Nexus switches. The peer-link must include at least 2 interfaces.

feature vpc
vpc domain 1
  role priority 4096
  system-priority 2000
  peer-keepalive destination 192.168.100.20
  auto-recovery

interface port-channel20
  switchport mode trunk
  vpc peer-link
  switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,100,103-104,901
  spanning-tree port type network

interface Ethernet1/23
  description Link 1 to 5596-sw2
  switchport mode trunk
  switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,100,103-104,901
  channel-group 20 mode active

interface Ethernet1/24
  description Link 2 to 5596-sw2
  switchport mode trunk
  switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,100,103-104,901
  channel-group 20 mode active

Repeat on the 2nd Nexus switch.

Next you need to create the virtual port-channels on the Nexus side. We will create one port-channel per uplink interface.

interface port-channel1
  switchport mode trunk
  vpc 1
  switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,100,103-104,901

interface port-channel2
  switchport mode trunk
  vpc 2
  switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,100,103-104,901

interface Ethernet1/1
  description uplink to Core1-7/8
  switchport mode trunk
  switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,100,103-104,901
  spanning-tree guard loop
  channel-group 1 mode active

interface Ethernet1/2
  description uplink to Core2-6/7
  switchport mode trunk
  switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,100,103-104,901
  spanning-tree guard loop
  channel-group 2 mode active

Again, repeat for the 2nd Nexus switch.

Notice that spanning-tree Loop Guard has been enabled on the uplinks to prevent STP looping issues. Also, the Allowed VLAN’s should match the VLAN ID’s allowed in the peer-link.

Finally, create the port channels on the Catalyst side. Here we will create ONE port channel per Catalyst, consisting of the uplinks from each Nexus switch, so that the Catalyst will see the Nexus pair as a single switch. Until this step is complete, the vPC status will show as down.

interface Port-channel200
 description “Connection to Nexus”
 switchport
 switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
 switchport mode trunk
 no ip address
 spanning-tree guard root

interface TenGigabitEthernet7/6
 description NEXUS SW2 PORT1
 switchport
 switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
 switchport mode trunk
 no ip address
 spanning-tree guard root
 channel-group 200 mode active

interface TenGigabitEthernet7/8
 description NEXUS SW1 PORT1
 switchport
 switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
 switchport mode trunk
 no ip address
 spanning-tree guard root
 channel-group 200 mode active

Repeat this process for the 2nd Catalyst switch.

Now the vPC status should show as up-

5596-sw1(config-if)# sh vpc
Legend:
                (*) – local vPC is down, forwarding via vPC peer-link

vPC domain id                   : 1   
Peer status                     : peer adjacency formed ok      
vPC keep-alive status           : peer is alive                 
Configuration consistency status: success
Per-vlan consistency status     : success                       
Type-2 consistency status       : success
vPC role                        : primary                       
Number of vPCs configured       : 2   
Peer Gateway                    : Disabled
Dual-active excluded VLANs      : -
Graceful Consistency Check      : Enabled

vPC Peer-link status
———————————————————————
id   Port   Status Active vlans    
–   —-   —— ————————————————–
1    Po20   up     1,100,103-104                                            

vPC status
—————————————————————————-
id     Port        Status Consistency Reason           Active vlans
—— ———– —— ———– ————————– ———–
1      Po1         up     success     success                   1,100,103-104         
2      Po2         up     success     success                  1,100,103-104    

Here is a useful Cisco reference document on vPC for the Nexus 5000 series.

Notes:

• This configuration only applies if there is NOT VSS established between the Catalyst 6509 core’s.
• You can rely on Spanning Tree for establishing redundant links from a Nexus pair to dual Core’s, with only one uplink marked as active by STP. This customer insisted on getting the aggregated bandwidth from both 10Gb uplinks, as they planned to converge additional applications onto the Nexus in the future.
•  If at all possible, you should test this configuration in a lab before production deployment. At a minimum, deploy these changes during a maintenance window as there is a risk of network outage mainly due to looping behavior – spanning-tree root guard, loop guard are strongly recommended!

Happy vPC’ing!

Have to say that I was impressed at how simple setup was, just connect one adapter w/LAN cable into my core switch, install the other adapter into outlet in the garage and was online in no time. There is an encryption feature too, though I probably won’t be using it. The marketed speed is 200 Mbps which I have not yet tested, however speed tests through my ISP (Verizon FiOS) to the Internet were comparable to wired connections.

I’ve been generally impressed with Windows 7 stability through heavy usage on daily workstations, primarily Dell laptops, and have come to appreciate little improvements like the multi-windowing taskbar.

Am waiting for my Windows 7 Home 3-pack upgrade  from Amazon, which should come also in handy for upgrading my music workstations. I need maximum compatibility for devices like USB digital audio and MIDI controller, plus I already have ProTools M-Powered for PC. In the meantime, need to finish researching sound-proofed PC cases like this one from Antec, and then will be ready to build an ultra-quiet machine possibly with SSD. But more on that in the future-

On a recent onsite engagement, a colleague suggested that I check out Fluke Networks’ ClearSight Analyzer for application analysis. I was really impressed with its ease-of-use, and ability to quickly highlight application layer traffic. It provides real-time monitoring through an intuitive, appealing display.
ClearSight Analyzer also supports Wireshark format captures, though it appeared to provide reduced detail for analysis compared to native ClearSight capture files. It also highlights errors or issues detected with a particular network flow. I’m finding that more projects are requiring network assessment and analysis to extend up to layer 7, so this tool from Fluke definitely deserves a closer look.

As well, I plan to dive deeper into Opnet’s Application Performance management Suite, in particular AppResponse Expert.

In the meantime, I always like to plug open-source projects, and Wireshark is absolutely a must-have tool for network analysis. It does demand some investment to uncover more advanced functionality, but the effort is well worth it simply for the exposure to application-specific protocols and data traffic.

The Breakdown

• Performance – With a 1 ghz Snapdragon CPU and 288 MB RAM, response time is quite snappy. Verizon’s 3G network is reasonably reliable, averaging 1 mbps downloads when tested at home.
• Camera – Since I upgraded from a humble Blackberry Pearl, have taken many more snapshots using the excellent 8 megapixel camera on the Incredible. It’s easy to use and the flash works well, though have read reports that IPhone camera is still better…so what.
• Usability – Android interface is really well-designed. Took me less than a day to feel comfortable. Having five screens allows you to set up lots of apps for quick navigation.
• Form factor – Very light and easy to hold. Occasionally gets a little warm stuck in my pocket, a reboot helps.
• Video and sound – Very bright and large 3.2 inch display easy on the eyes. But sometimes hard to view in direct sunlight. Sound quality beat out my Ipod Touch, Blackberry Pearl and CD Player in testing, it’s become my primary playing device in the car.
• Apps – Pretty good selection, including techie and music-related apps. Google Sky Maps is an Android-only special, and caused my sister to literally snatch my Droid away to gaze at the night sky!

Gripes

• Seems like Yahoo Mail isn’t supported through a Wifi connection, which is annoying since I still haven’t made the full leap to GMail.
• Accessories are still not widely available. Not a lot of protection until custom cases finally hit the market.
• Android App Market is pretty good, but still playing catch-up to the IPhone App Store. We’re getting there, last quarter Android devices collectively outsold the IPhone globally.

Here is a useful first look at the Droid Incredible courtesy of ZDNet-

But the final straw in favor of DI over Nexus One was the somewhat surprising recent news that Google will not be releasing Nexus One on Verizon at all, after much teasing about a Spring release date.

Will need to get to the store soon after reports that the smartphone is already sold out at Bay Area Verizon Wireless retailers!

The Google Nexus One from the Android family has caught my attention, and continues to garner generally glowing reviews. In addition to the appealing form factor, packed feature-set and Snapdragon 1 Ghz CPU, I’m impressed with the new approach Google is taking with the Android devices, not only with open source code (observed by none other than Linus Torvalds) but also carrier independence. The Nexus One is currently only available through T-Mobile, but the latest rumors appear to confirm an upcoming release date of March 23 through Verizon. Strangely, it’s been difficult to see a Nexus One in person, as a T-Mobile store employee here in LA recently informed me that “no stores” were carrying demo versions. Have to wonder if the same policy will apply with Verizon, or is this another case of software-centricity overwhelming marketing good sense?

In any event, anticipation is building and still have to decide whether to purchase through Google online or Verizon.