rity appliances, you'll be constantly annoyed by the fact that Cisco decided to use the switchto command on Nexus, while using the changeto command on the ASA. Chapter 18: Cisco Nexus Once I'm connected to the VDC, it appears as if I'm in a newly initialized Nexus switch, which is exactly what this is. The command prompt, by default, is the system-context hostname concatenated with the VDC name, separated by a hyphen. This behavior is configurable with the vdc combined-hostname command: NX-7K-2-Annie# Once within a VDC, if I want to get back to the system context, I can use the switch back command: NX-7K-2-Annie# switchback After I've configured some of the interfaces within the contexts on both chassis, the show CDP neighbors command executed from within the Annie VDC shows that it sees other contexts as devices, but only because I have physical Ethernet cables connecting them. There is no intraswitch communication between VDCs. The contexts have no idea that they are contexts, and no idea that other contexts are virtual: NX-7K-2-Annie(config-if-range)# sho cdp neighbors Capability Codes: R - Router, T - Trans-Bridge, B - Source-Route-Bridge S - Switch, H - Host, I - IGMP, r - Repeater, V - VoIP-Phone, D - Remotely-Managed-Device, S - Supports-STP Dispute Device-ID Local Intrfce Hldtme Capability Platform Port ID NX-7K-1-Cozy(JAF1408BERL) Eth3/1 R S I S N7K-C7010 Eth3/1 NX-7K-1-Cozy(JAF1408BERL) Eth3/2 N7K-C7010 Eth3/2 NX-7K-1-Daisy(JAF1408BERL) Eth3/23 N7K-C7010 Eth3/47 NX-7K-1-Cozy(JAF1408BERL) Eth7/1 N7K-C7010 Eth7/1 NX-7K-1-Cozy(JAF1408BERL) Eth7/2 N7K-C7010 Eth7/2 NX-7K-1-Cozy(JAF1408BERL) Eth8/2 N7K-C7010 Eth8/2 Shared and Dedicated Rate-Mode Some Nexus 10 Gb modules support something called dedicated port mode. In this mode, I can configure the switch to allow the maximum throughput on a port at the expense of three other ports. The way this works has to do with the way the modules are built. Ethernet ports are controlled by chips called Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). These ASICs are re