What's New?

What in CMS will be new to you? It depends. If you have not used CMS on a Catalyst 3550 switch, you have not seen these enhancements:

If you have used CMS on a Catalyst 3550 switch, you know about the foregoing enhancements. However, these enhancements are new to all CMS users:

One Applet in Place of Three

Formerly, CMS consisted of three applets: Cluster Builder, Cluster Manager, and Switch Manager. Cluster Builder displayed a topology view of the network and performed tasks related to links. Cluster Manager displayed a front-panel view of the network and performed tasks related to ports. There was no overlap of tasks between Cluster Builder and Cluster Manager. Switch Manager was much like Cluster Manager, but it performed configuration tasks for standalone devices rather than clusters.

CMS is now a single applet with a single menu bar, and all the tasks you want to perform have corresponding options there. The two views of the network now have their own windows, the Front Panel view and the Topology view. You can open them individually, keep both open at the same time, and close both. You can still configure clusters, devices, ports, and VLANs with both views closed because all the configuration functions are available through the menu-bar options and the windows they open.

Switch Manager is now called the device manager. You can launch it from the Device menu or from a popup menu in the Front Panel view and the Topology view. It displays the front panel of any cluster member, or any nonmember with an IP address, in a separate browser window.

New User-Interaction Option

As in earlier versions of CMS, you still use the the menu bar and popup menus to open windows with configuration options. This mode of interacting with the user interface is called expert mode. Now, for many of the Layer 3 configuration options, you have an alternative mode -- guide mode. In guide mode, when you make a menu choice, you are prompted for entries one step at a time, until you have specified enough for CMS to perform the task you want.

To choose a mode, you click the Guide or Expert button below the menu bar, or you click the Guide or Expert radio button on the CMS menu.

Changed Look and Feel of Menus

Menu items used to be sensitive to the selections you made in the network views. For example, if you selected ports in Cluster Manager, only port-related menu items were enabled. This could be confusing if you scrolled the selected ports out of view; you might wonder why so many menu items were disabled. You might also be confused by seeing that some menu items varied the windows they launched according to your selection in the view.

The menus now follow rules that make the look and feel simpler and more consistent:

Changed Menu-Item Names and Locations

These tables show the names and locations of menu items in Cluster Builder and Cluster Manager and give the corresponding names and locations of the items in the merged menu bar.

Name/Location of Item in Cluster BuilderName/Location of Item in Merged Menu Bar
Cluster > Add To ClusterCluster > Add To Cluster
Cluster > Remove From ClusterCluster > Remove From Cluster
Cluster > User SettingsCMS > Preferences
Cluster > Goto Cluster Manger Not needed -- there is only one applet
Views > Toggle Views View > Topology Options
Views > Toggle Labels View > Topology Options
Device > Launch Switch ManagerDevice > Device Manager
Device > Bandwidth GraphReports > Bandwidth Graphs
Device > Show/Hide CandidatesNot supported
Device > Host Name ConfigurationDevice > Host Name
Link > Link GraphReports > Link Graphs
Link > Link ReportReports > Link Reports
Options > Save LayoutView > Save Topology Layout
Options > Save ConfigurationAdministration > Save Configuration
Help > ContentsHelp > Contents
Help > LegendHelp > Legend
Help > About Cluster Builder/ViewHelp > About (there is only one applet)

 

Name/Location of Item in Cluster ManagerName/Location of Item in Merged Menu Bar
Cluster > Management VLANVLAN > Management VLAN
Cluster > System Time ManagementAdministration > System Time
Cluster > VMPS ConfigurationVLAN > VMPS
Cluster > Standby Command Configuration Cluster > Standby Command Switches
Cluster > Device PositionView > Arrange Front Panel
Cluster > User SettingsCMS > Preferences
Cluster > Cluster BuilderNot needed -- there is only one applet
System > InventoryReports > Inventory
System > IP ManagementAdministration > IP Addresses
System > Software UpgradeAdministration > Software Upgrade
System > SNMP ManagementAdministration > SNMP
System > Console Baud RateAdministration > Console Baud Rate
System > ARP TableAdministration > ARP
System > Save ConfigurationAdministration > Save Configuration
System > System ReloadAdministration > System Reload
Device > Cisco Group Management Protocol (CGMP)Device > CGMP
Device > Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)Device > STP
Port > Port ConfigurationPort > Port Settings
Port > Grouping (EC)Port > EtherChannels
Port > Switch Port Analyzer (SPAN)Port > SPAN
Port > Flooding ControlPort > Flooding Control
VLAN > VLAN MembershipVLAN > VLAN
VLAN > VTP ManagementVLAN > VLAN
Security > Address ManagementAdministration > MAC Addresses
Security > Port SecurityPort > Port Security
Help > ContentsHelp > Contents
Help > LegendHelp > Legend
Help > About Cluster ManagerHelp > About (there is only one applet)

Wizards

Wizards perform a configuration task for you. All they require are the answers to a small number of prompts.

The kinds of wizards available with CMS varies with each CMS version. Click here for a description of the wizards in this version of CMS.

Printing

You can now print all the charts and graphs that CMS displays. Two commands on the CMS menu, Print Setup and Print Preview, help you prepare the format and check the appearance of the printout. Then you click Print to send the print file to a printer.

You can also use the Print command to print help topics. To select one topic for printing, click it on the Contents tab in the Help window. To select multiple topics for printing, hold down the Ctrl key and select the topics. Then click Print on the CMS menu. The Printing Help window opens and asks you whether you want to print the selected topics, related topics as well, or all the topics in the help system. Make a selection and click OK.

Linking to Cisco.com from Online Help

In many help topics, you see the icon. It identifies a link to Cisco.com where more information is available. In many topics, you have a choice of links, each to a site for a specific type of Catalyst switch.

Access Modes

The network administrator can assign an access mode to each CMS user. The access mode determines whether the CMS user can modify the composition of the cluster, upgrade software, save configuration changes, use wizards, and change CMS preferences. Users who can do all these things have an access mode of read-write; users who cannot do these things have an access mode of read-only. Read-only users can see reports, graphs, messages, and the Front Panel and Topology views.

Topology Options

In earlier versions of CMS, you used the View menu to show or hide neighbor switches in the Topology view and to toggle labels in the view. In this version of CMS, you control the contents of the Topology view through the Topology Options window. This window lets you show or hide a greater variety of device types: IP phones, CPEs, access points, neighbor switches, and candidate switches. It also lets you choose the link and node information that is shown in the view.

Note: Read-only users can use the Topology Options window to manipulate the Topology view, but they cannot save changes to it.