Hi, everyone. I’m a bit of an oddball here I’m afraid. I am a sound engineer and run several audio post pro studios here in Paris France.
With the progress of IP mutichannel audio virtually all the analog and digital cabling is dissapearing and my self taught basic knowledge of networking is no longer sufficient. I have purchased a couple of Cisco Nexus 3048 switches and I don’t have much of a clue how to get the most out of them.
My requirements are pretty basic. I would like to use VLANS to seperate the audio from the data and QoS to prioritise tasks and shape traffic , trunk both switches that are in separate buildings and implement basic safety rules. Since I don’t have a clue would someone be kind enough to guide me to the courses I would require to solidify my general networking knowledge and get started with NX OS. I also wanted to point out that I don’t want to get a certification , just be a little less clueless.
Thanks
Bonjour Bruce,
Welcome on board! I always feel like an oddball when I’m trying to do anything with Adobe Audition / Izotope FX so I know the feeling 
Running IP Audio over your LAN is similar to running Voice over IP. Switches treat everything as best effort so when there is congestion, you might want to prioritize your traffic. How much traffic do you have? Those 3048 switches are pretty capable so you might get away without QoS.
Here’s what I would do:
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Go through Unit 2.0 in the ICND1 course. This helps to get a better understanding of the different layers of networking.
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Go through the first 5 lessons in Unit 3.0 of the ICND1 course. This explains the basics of Ethernet, switching, and what collision/broadcast domains are. This helps to understand VLANs better.
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In Unit 3.0, go through all VLANs and Trunking lessons. This will teach you what VLANs are and how to configure them.
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In Unit 6.0, go through the first 4 lessons in the access-list section. You’ll need to understand access-lists if you want to configure QoS policies.
To learn QoS, take a look at these lessons:
Most of the configuration examples I have are for Cisco IOS, not NX-OS but the configuration is pretty similar. It’s not too difficult to configure some VLANs and a simple QoS policy so if you get stuck with that, I can give you an example here.
Your IP Audio, is this an application that you run on your computers or are these separate devices?
If you use separate devices, you can use VLANs to separate the IP audio traffic from all other traffic. If it’s an application, you can still prioritize it but you’ll need to do it using port numbers/protocol.
Hope this helps to get you started, if not let us know ok?
Good luck!
Rene