Blog Archives %%page%% - 2008 July

Monthly Archive for July, 2008

BSCI IP Foundation – IP Addressing

Published

on July 29, 2008

in Addressing, BSCI, BSCI Notes, CIDR, Certification, Cisco Systems and Concepts and Constructs

. 0 Comments

IPv4 uses 32-bit numbers that combine a network and a host address. IP addresses are written in four dotted decimal fields. Each number represents a byte (meaning 192 would be a byte cause in decimal its actually made up of 8 bits). The far left bits are the network address because all hosts on this network have addresses that start with that pattern, the right bits are host addresses and each host has a different value.

Resources for IP address Internetworking Technology Handbook: Internet Protocol

Binary Review

IP Addresses are composed of four bytes (8 bits) and in networking binary works one bit at a time from 0000 0000 to 1111 1111 (0 to 2555) IRL networking that’s what you need to know (test are different cause they ask more than just 255). This is a CCNA topic and I filled note pads with examples just to be able to get it as natural as quick as possible, after a while you start remembering 1010 1100 (172) and 1100 0000 (192). The old CCNA Prep Centre (now Cisco Learning Network) had a Java based game to get this into your head where you had to convert Binary to Decimal against the clock. Helped me because its repetition, repetition, repetition.

Classfull Network Ranges

The above network address (192.168.16.2) at the top of the post starts with 192.xxx.xxx.xxx if you didnt have this table to the right here are the steps to find out which network it belongs to.

Step 1: Converting the first byte to binary 1100 0000 (192).

Step 2: You take the first 4 bits and compare them to what you know:

Class A starts with 0,
Class B starts with 10, and
Class C starts with 110.

This means that the address is a Class C address.

This is something that you must just know, get to know the first column and associate that column with the Class on the table above and then the you can figure out the range easily enough (if you are good with memorizing tables just memorize the bits, range and class).

Network Range by Subnet Masks

Subnetting is when you take the assigned network and break it into smaller pieces this can be useful to conserve IP address space (or when I was doing the CCNA I did this to practice on my office network). The book I am using (Brent D. Stewart, CCNP BSCI Official Exam Certification Guide; Fourth Ed.) uses a Truth Table for AND that is really easy to use and master.

Another method would be to use a table, its also not rocket science but means that you don’t actually know how to do this on the fly.

Moving along lets use the AND method and an example. What network does PC 3 belong to with the IP 192.168.5.100 and the subnet mask 255.255.255.224 and what are the usable addresses on this network.

STEP 1: If the mask is given in decimal notation, convert it to CIDR notation (maybe a long way but you going to need the binary in a second anyway).

STEP 2: To determine the network address of the IP address, copy the network bits from the address as shown by the CIDR notation. Fill in the remaining bits with zeros.

STEP 3: The last Address in the range is the broadcast address. To find this out do the following:

STEP 4: The usable network addresses fall between STEP 2 and STEP 3.

STEP 5:To check this subtract the CIDR notation from 32 that’s 32 – 27 (not the other way around cause you going to get a negative number). To determine the “amount” of addresses then plug it into this formula 2n-2 (n = number of host bits).

Resources for Subnet Mask and Classes: Internetworking Technology Handbook IP Address Classes

Summarization

Summarization (route summarization) is a technique used to group IP networks together to minimize IP advertisements. Doing this allows one to hide unimportant details (flapping links) and to simplify the routing process (make better use of router CPU and memory than to process and store routing information). One of the keys to scalable routing is to take large complicated sets of advertisements and reduce them as much as possible (think internet).

Step 1: Write each network in binary

Step 2: Determine the number of bits that match. This gives a single summary that includes all the routes, but may include a range of addresses that is too large (over-summarization)

Step 3: If step 2 unacceptably over-summarizes, start from the first address and add bits to the prefix until a portion of the range is summarizes. Take the remaining addresses and start this process again.

Step 4: Write each network in binary

Step 5: Determine the number of bits that match.

Step 6: Because step 2 did not over-summarize, the process is complete. Answer is 192.168.0.0/21 and 192.168.0.0/23

Address Planning

Summarization is not possible if network numbers are randomly assigned within an organization. When designing a network it is important to keep in mind the requirements for summarization.

Notes and Notices:

This is a part of my personal BSCI notes and research to assist myself in learning and understanding the concepts and theory for the BSCI exam. I learn by making notes reading and writing things down and wish to file them where I can’t lose them. These notes are not to be seen, judged or mistaken for replacements to Cisco recognized and authorized training which I personally support and attend and suggest you undertake if you are going for the BSCI Certification.

BSCI Design Foundation – Routing Protocols

Published

Deon Botha

on July 25, 2008

in BGP, BSCI, BSCI Notes, CIDR, Certification, Cisco Systems, Concepts and Constructs, EIGRP, IGRP, IS-IS, OSPF, RIP, RIPv2 and VLSM

. 2 Comments

Routing protocols employ one of two basic strategies to communicate/propagate routing information:

Distance vector routing protocols work by passing copies of their routing tables to their neighbours (a.k.a routing by rumour).
Link State routing protocols work by advertising a list of neighbours and the network attachment state to their neighbours until all routers have a copy of all the lists, routers then run the Shortest Path First Algorithm to analyse all paths and determine the best paths available.

Distance vector routing are less processor and memory intensive than link state routing, but can have loops because routing decisions are made on incomplete information.

Link state routing is loop-proof because routers know all possible routes, but link state routing requires more CPU time and memory.

Classless and Classful Routing

An important characteristic of routing protocols is how they advertise their routes. Older routing protocols (RIP and IGRP) assumed the subnet mask the same as the one the receiving on the interface or that it is the default one (Class A is /8, Class B is /16 and Class C is /24). This is called classful because the assumption is based on the Class of the IP address.

Modern routing protocols (OSPF, IS-IS, and EIGRP) explicitly advertise the mask. There is no assumption made with regard to the mask, it is clearly indicated. This is called classless because no assumption is made and an address alone is not a good indicator subnet mask.

Variable Length Subnet Masks (VLSM) refers to the property of a network that allows different subnet masks to be mixed throughout the network.

Classless Interdomain Routing (CIDR) is a property of a network that allows classful networks to be aggregated.

Classless routing protocols support both VLSM and CIDR.

Interior and Exterior Gateway Protocols

Most protocols are “Interior Gateway”, meaning that they are designed to be run inside a network (inside the trusted boundaries of the company).

BGP on the other hand is an exterior gateway protocol (EGP) and is used for routing between autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet (outside the trusted boundaries of the company). As BGP is the only EGP you will have to consider using it if you connect your network to the Internet.

Convergence Times

A distinguishing characteristic of routing protocols is the speed of convergence times. To explain convergence, when a routing protocol is forwarding data, it is converged. In this state the routing protocol has shared routing table information and each router in the topology knows the best paths available. If there was a change (a router going down, another router being added, etc) this would require all routers to share information again because there are routes they do not have information on. The time between network change and forwarding would be “convergence”. This is generally classed as either slow or fast.

Fast convergence would mean that the routing protocol is able to recognize a problem on the network and fix that problem faster than a user can call to report a given problem.

Slow protocols, such as RIP and IGRP, can take up to minutes to converge when a problem occurs.

Fast protocols (OSPF, IS-IS, EIGRP) generally take less than 10 seconds to converge.

Proprietary and Open Standard Protocols

The important aspects to look for in routing protocols is speed of convergence and whether the protocol is classless (OSPF, IS-IS, and EIGRP). While OSPF and IS-IS are open standards (plays well with other vendors kit), EIGRP is Cisco proprietary (Cisco Only). Of the three protocols EIGRP is the easiest to configure and maintain but requires a pure Cisco environment to run.

Routing Protocol and the ECNM

The ECNM mentioned in previous posts can assist in showing where a particular routing protocol will run in the enterprise. Using information discussed above and using the ECNM the above diagram shows what the advanced routing protocols (EIGRP, OSPF, IS-IS) are best suited for when considering size of network, speed of convergence, VLSM, open or proprietary, and support staff knowledge needs.

The object (ideal) is to have a single routing protocol running throughout the enterprise (reality however is another story) where the enterprise edge will require BGP as the only EGP and at least one if not more of the IGPs within the enterprise boundaries depending on needs/requirements of end-points or design specifications.

In Summation

Older routing protocols (RIP, RIPv2 and IGRP) are slow because they send a full copy of their information periodically, these periodic transmissions act as both routing advertisement and keepalive message. In addition to being slow they consume a lot of bandwidth relative to their function (RIP every 30 seconds).

More modern routing protocols are faster because they separate the routing advertisements and the keepalive messages. Updates are only sent out when new networks need to be advertised or old networks need to be withdrawn; otherwise routers just need to verify that neighbours are still alive (EIGRP every 5 seconds).

RIP and IGRP

These are older distance vector routing protocols that are slow and classful. Some legacy systems (UNIX) expect to learn their default gateway by eavesdropping on RIP advertisements. If you deploy RIP use RIPv2 which is classless.

EIGRP

A modern distance vector routing protocol. It is classless and fast as well as being easy to configure and maintain. Some organizations refuse to implement proprietary standards though (EIGRP provides equivalent performance to OSPF but is easier to implement and maintain).

OSPF

OSPF is a modern classless and fast link-state routing protocol. OSPF has a steep learning curve and uses more processor time and memory than EIGRP. This is the open standard if an organization supports a heterogeneous mixture of routers or has a philosophical problem with proprietary standards.

IS-IS

This routing protocol was developed to compete with OSPF and the two are more similar than they are dissimilar. It is moderately difficult to find anyone who has experience working with IS-IS even if it is open, fast, and classless. There is still however some interest in IS-IS because it can be adapted to support MPLS and IPv6.

BGP

BGP is a routing protocol used between AS on the Internet and you will have to use it to connect your network to the Internet.

Resources:

Internetworking Technology Handbook Routing Basics

Internetworking Technology Handbook RIP

Internetworking Technology Handbook IGRP

Internetworking Technology Handbook OSPF

Internetworking Technology Handbook EIGRP

Notes and Notices:

BSCI Design Foundation – Network Models

Published

Deon Botha

on July 25, 2008

in BSCI, BSCI Notes, Certification, Cisco Systems, Concepts and Constructs, ECNM, Enterprise Architecture, IIN and SONA

. 0 Comments

Design – Hierarchical

Where networks once were non-hierarchical (layer-1 design, layer-2 design, layer-3 design) they are generally now three-layer hierarchical in design (above). Cisco has been using this model for years and it gave a high-level overview of how a reliable network could be conceived but was largely conceptual because it did not provide specific guidance on “how-to” implement certain things, like:

Implementing redundancy,
Adding Internet Access,
Accounting for remote users,
Locating workgroup and enterprise services

Design – Enterprise Composite Network Model (ECNM)

Revisions to the hierarchical design showed redundant distribution and core devices and connections to make the hierarchical model more fault tolerant. The switch block design (above) explained how redundancy fit into a network, but still did not really adequately specify other parts of the network design. This lead to the Enterprise Composite Network Model (ECNM) development to address the failures of both the hierarchical model and switch block model.

This ECNM is broken into three large pieces:

Enterprise Campus,
Enterprise Edge,
Service Provider Edge.

Enterprise Composite Network Model

ECNM – Campus

The enterprise campus looks very much like the above switch block design with some added details:

Campus Backbone (like the core layer of the hierarchical model),
Building Distribution,
Building Access,
Management,
Server Farm (Enterprise Services).

The ECNM Campus builds onto the Switch block design but gives specific guidance as to where to place servers and management equipment. Take note that the servers look like a switch block and are redundantly attached (dual-homed) to the switches (not really shown nicely in the diagram).

ECNM – Enterprise Edge

The Enterprise edge shows the connections that the enterprise has with the wide area (other networks) and include:

E-Commerce,
Remote Access,
Internet Connectivity,
WAN (Internal links to other branches).

ECNM – Service Provider Edge

The service provider edge includes the public networks that facilitate wide area (other networks) connectivity:

Internet Service Provider (ISP),
Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) for dialup,
Frame Relay, ATM, and PPP for private connections.

Multiplexing

Historically voice traffic used one set of circuits and data traffic another. Also if you wanted more than one “number” the telecommunications company installed another physical line to your premises. If you wanted access to a data network they installed a data line for that purpose.

With line technologies like the T-carrier system (USA, Japan, Korea) 24 pulse-code modulated (I don’t know need to ask one the engineers about this), time-division multiplexed speech signals are carried over 2 copper pairs. This type of technology saved the telecommunications companies a lot of money in building out subscriber lines. The problem with T1 as a technology is that it cannot adjust as the customer usage requirements changes (see E-carrier system for Europe and other countries).

As technology changes so does the requirements from that technology; Modern networks are designed to carry voice, video, enterprise applications, normal LAN traffic and management traffic all on the same single secure infrastructure (convergence). The traffic is forced (statistically multiplexed) to share access to the network.

Service-Orientated Network Architecture (SONA) and Intelligent Information Network (IIN)

As covered above “Multiplexing” described the idea of a converged network as a system that integrates what was previously disparate systems (voice, video, data). The traffic types usually found on a converged network would include, but may not be limited to:

voice signalling and bearer traffic,
Core application traffic (ERP and CRM),
Transactional traffic related to database interactions (SQL),
Network management traffic for monitoring and maintaining the network structure (including routing protocol traffic),
Multicast multimedia,
Other traffic (web, e-mail, file transfer).

Each of the above traffic types has its own requirements and expectations that govern its successful execution. These requirements include security, QoS, transmission capacity, and delay.

To support this kind of multiplexed traffic, Cisco routers are able to implement filtering, compression, prioritization, and policing (dedicating network capacity). Except for the filtering process these processes are collectively known as QoS.

As an alternative to QoS, Cisco has an ideal called the Intelligent Information Network (IIN). This vision describes a network that integrates network and application functionality cooperatively allowing the network to be “smart” about how it handles traffic to minimize the footprint of applications. The IIN evolution is described in three phases:

Phase 1: Integrated Transport, deals with a converged network, built along a similar fashion of the ECNM and based on open standards (cross-compatibility)
Phase 2: Integrated Services, posits virtualization of resources such as servers, storage and network access; to move to an “on-demand” model. Don’t think marketing/advertising “virtualization” think practical virtualization the ISR routers (routing, switching, voice, network management, security and wireless) designed as an aio (all-in-one) appliance and Vitalizing Servers (if you have proper designed for the job servers) you can’t be trying this on SMB servers or try recycling 10 year old technology and thinking “bargain let’s load 5 operating systems on this”.
Phase 3: Integrated Applications, using application orientated networking (AON) to make the network “aware” allowing the network to actively monitor and participate in service delivery.

Service-Orientated Network Architecture (SONA) is the practical application or “how-to” of IIN in enterprise networks. SONA breaks down IIN into three layers;

SONA Infrastructure Layer is basically the same as IIN Phase 1,
SONA interactive Services Layer maps to IIN Phase 2,
SONA Application Layer has the same concepts as IIN Phase 3.

Resources:

Aragoen Celtdra on BSCI: Network Architecture and Design

Notes and Notices:

BSCI Design Foundation – Scalability

Published

Deon Botha

on July 25, 2008

in BSCI, BSCI Notes, Certification and Cisco Systems

. 0 Comments

As I posted after I passed BCMSN I was going to be doing things a little differently. This is the different I was talking about; I am going to crawl before I am going to try and fling myself off a building (baby steps). In this post I am going to go over the Foundation topics for Network Design.

Defining Scalability

As the course is called Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI) one of the underlying topics covered is scalability. This can be defined as the capacity of a network to keep pace with changes and growth. An example of this would exponential (full-mesh topology) versus linear network growth (hub and spoke topology or Star Topology).

When one compares the two topologies a full-mesh topology grows exponential and thus just isn’t realistically scalable, this would be because of the cost element associated to build a large network using this topology.

To illustrate the exponential growth pattern of a network using this topology use the following equation:

Connections = Sites ( Sites – 1 ) ÷ 2

Using this equation a table can be drawn up (left) where one can see just how quickly a relatively small number of nodes (sites) quickly require many connections to keep the one node has a connection to all other nodes true.

This is the reason why this topology isn’t practically scalable in real life (IRL). Calculating the number of point-to-point connections and related hardware requirements needed there are very few companies that would be able to bankroll this sustainably (maybe if they own the underlying network architecture like a telecom or a company where the network itself is the business).

A hub and spoke topology grows incrementally as the network increases in size. Look at the above diagram and you see 5 nodes and a central switching station in the centre. This type of topology is realistically scalable because adding the 10th node would cost the same as adding the 100th node; the only cost incurred would be a point-to-point connection and network kit.

To illustrate the linear growth pattern of this network using this topology use the following equation:

Connections = Sites – 1

Resources:

Aragoen Celtdra on BSCI: Network Architecture and Design

Notes and Notices:

New Cisco IOS Software Activation and Licensing Workflows

Published

Deon Botha

on July 22, 2008

in Cisco Systems and Vine

. 7 Comments

I was introduced to this new Cisco IOS Software Activation and Licensing idea at a Partner Enablement session on the 6th of June and my first impression was “Windows Activation on steroids”. A post by Joe Harris has a visual workflow link that explains this process if this whole thing confuses you.

One of my questions to the presenter afterwards was what impact would this have on the simulation software packages like dynamips. My position being that I wasn’t able to build a lab simply for learning/studies even with Cisco discounts at this point in my career. He understood my point of view and knew of many other partners in similar positions but couldn’t really answer me.

What I gathered from my session on the 6th of June was that not all Router and Switch platforms will migrate to this new activation and licensing platform but it will happen over a period of time. This activation and licensing system is being implemented because the “gentlemans agreement” system Cisco has used in the past isn’t working where there is misuse of the current system.

That being said I did ask how this will directly affect me and the answer was that on initial order/sale not a whole lot. When a customer purchases a switch/router they generally purchase what they want with the licensing they want. On a scenario like that the IOS and feature is installed and activated before being shipped to the customer or me and then I go install.

This new system will start becoming a bother when upgrading from IP Base to another feature license. This will require the following steps:

The order of a Product Authorization Key (PAK) from Cisco
The Unique Device Identifier (UDI) from the Router/Switch
Entered this information into the Cisco Licensing Portal
Taking the information from the Portal and installing the license onto the Switch/Router

The installation of the license file can be done using the *.lic file that you receive from the Portal using the Command line interface or the Cisco License Manager software. Using the command line:

Switch#license install tftp://x.x.x.x/license.lic

Alternatively one can use the call-home feature and the PAK Number, this however would mean that you have an internet connection to the Router/Switch and you feel comfortable that you won’t have the *.lic file when things go wrong as the Switch/Router installs this directly from the License Portal:

Switch#license call-home install PAK PAK-NUMBER CCO Username: abcdef CCO Password: !...................... Follow the prompts to install the license

There was talk about an emergency license availability for “emergency purposes” where say for example a customer has a current desperate need for an upgrade feature set this very instant and the order cycle would take a couple of days to fulfil. The emergency license would take a couple of hours at most and last for a finite period while the order process ran its couse.

BCMSN Passed

Published

Deon Botha

on July 21, 2008

in Certification and Cisco Systems

. 17 Comments

I passed the BCMSN exam this morning; I am happy to have passed the exam that being the desired result of writing an exam, yet I am extremely unhappy with myself in that I didn’t feel “on the ball” with alot of the questions.

The testing centre venue was fine by all accounts and standards and the people friendly. You know that you visit enough when the testing people recognize you and know that you are the guy coming in for the Cisco exam of the morning. The exam room air-conditioning unit was set not too high and not too cold for the exam this morning which was actually rather pleasant for a change.

My biggest complaint of most places is not really related to this test venue but a general complaint of events venues. Us Africans don’t know how to use Air-conditioning inside buildings because it’s set either too cold or too hot in relation to the outside temperature. This means that you are either wearing too much or too little clothing and sitting in a closed room for 110 minutes freezing/boiling and your hands/ears/nose are going numb while you are trying to recall information is a pain and not really conducive. Another thing with air-conditioning is that it dries out your eyes and sinuses and when there is no other ventilation in the room half way through the exam all you start caring for is to get out the room because of the headache you getting. Makes one feel that they should start advertising the “room” temperature for the day so that you can dress accordingly for the climate.

The Preparation

My thinking going in for the exam 4 months ago was that the BCMSN switching content “in theory” is fairly straight forward and that it would be easy enough to try and use as a “test” case for the future CCNP courses. That assumption paid off because I think I wouldn’t have made the BSCI exam with the hitch I came up with today.

My test case did pay dividends and I have found something that I will have to sort out post haste for the BSCI and other future exams. My approach with my notes has been up until now focused on getting to know and becoming comfortable with the core theory of the subject matter. This approach served me well enough and enabled me to “pass” the exam although I want to not just pass but pass well and without a doubt and in my opinion what I kept stumbling on (over and over and over) was the deeper technical and practical base knowledge upon which the theory builds.

Changes

Because this stumbling block was not the exception but instead the rule I am going to be adding more in-depth technical and practical “appreciation” to my notes so that these topics will hopefully become part of my knowledge base (KB) and long term memory. This hopefully will help me when I sit the next exam and similar questions come up.

Network Community Online

Published

Deon Botha

on July 20, 2008

in Asides and Off-Topic

. 1 Comment

This post is kind-of off-topic but I feel it’s needed at this point. At the end of this month Network Ninja will have been online for 4 months, it’s hopefully going to be a double anniversary as it will hopefully also mark my first active step towards becoming a full fledged Cisco CCNP Certified bloke.

As to why I have been very quiet as of late when it comes to BCMSN topics I am booked in on Monday morning (tomorrow) for the BCMSN exam at 8:30am GMT+2 and I have been reading and re-reading my own notes (fixing spelling and typos while doing this). Hopefully I bring back good news otherwise its going to be a close call otherwise I am just going to make another booking and get back to the drawing board, I am at the moment looking at my own study limits to see what kind of time I need to give myself to make notes, study and get the material from my short term to long term memory, I feel prepared and feel good about this but with me and my horror history with exams who knows (I’m not a glass half full, glass half empty kind of person… There is no stupid glass, it’s a figment of your imagination).

Combined with all of the above I think its also time to say Thank You/Dankie/Ke a leboga/Ngiyabonga to all the online Cisco Networkers and people I have made contact with along the way that I have received active and passive support from (blog posts that helped me understand something, exhanged emails, twitters, IMs, skype, etc) in the last 4 months.

Thanks to blindhog.net – Josh Horton is the man behind Blindhog and his site is dedicated to helping people learn Cisco, Linux and VOIP technologies with the help of video tutorials. He has a good series of video-torials on GNS3 over at his blog head on over at check them out.

Tip of the hat to www.bitbucketblog.com – Is a blog by a CCIE member busy with his CCIE Security. Bitbucketblog has some good write ups and prep notes. Alot of the CCIE stuff still goes over my head but it’s valuable stuff none the less. Head on over and check it out!

Shout out to Baby, You can Route My World! – A fellow lamb to the CCNP slaughter Aragoen Celtdra is busy with the routing track of the CCNP while I am doing the Switching track. Aragoen is excellent at taking the core of the material and condensing it into great bullet form study sheets. If you don’t like my long winded notes head on over to his bog and give his notes a squiz.

A Networkers Blog – A CCIE blog full of tidbits and interesting posts. Well worth visiting.

Richard Bannister’s CCIE Blog – The CCIE notes and study blog of Richard Bannister, the blog showcases the trials and tribulations of a studying CCIE and what it takes on a weekly basis to study. Richard posts on his study schedule on a weekly basis, what he has covered and his thoughts on the weeks content.

The Life of a CCIE Training Advisor – The blog of Mike a training advisor over at IPexpert and Proctor Labs, really nice guy whose job it is to help the CCIE community at large get Blended Learning Solutions. Get in touch with Mike for some training material, labs etc. I’m sure he can help you out.

CCIE Pilot – The blog of Mar Apuhin a studying CCIE Routing and Switching that is in the last days before LAB. Head on over there and send your words of encouragement.

CCIE Pursuit Blog – A great blog filled to the brim with posts relating to things concerning CCIE study and all things CCIE.

Colin McNamara – The blog of Colin McNamara covering “Technical reviews and articles from a CCIE with extensive experience in designing and implementing converged enterprise networks”.

Arden Packeer – The blog of Arden Packeer a CCIE based in OZ. His blog description is almost like my blog name (never noticed that until I was writing this up). Arden has a pet project going called ccieMagazine head on over there and show some support.

Etherealmind – The blog of Greg Ferro a CCIE his blog covers not only CCIE topics and is well worth following; Greg has a really cool Network Dictionary and also a great style of posting.

Last but not least thanks goes to JP for the things that you pass on and have organized, really appreciate it.

That all having been said after tomorrow I will hopefully be charting a course for the next 4 months to be able to keep on track with my initial plans for my studies.

Cisco Partner Enablement Training

Published

Deon Botha

on July 18, 2008

in Cisco Systems and Support

. 0 Comments

I am at the local Cisco offices today for Partner training. It’s basically Cisco letting Partners know where to find what on Cisco.com. For those of you that haven’t tried to find/navigate the Cisco Website it can be a little daunting at first (I remember how it was for me). The nuts and bolts of this training is Cisco letting Partners know what tools are available and giving us a bit of a demo (selling us on them).

I am writing this post so that I can keep these links in a central place; If you find them useful that’s cool. There are more tools available from Cisco like Quote Builder, Competitive Edge Portal, Sales Accelerator and others that I am not covering.

Most if not all of the tools I will be babbling on about will require a valid CCO login and that your CCO be linked to a valid Cisco Partner.

A good place to start if you are a new Cisco partner or just getting started on a new job at a Cisco Partner would be the Partner Enablement Page; from there you can find most of the tools that Cisco provide listen under logical headings that I will describe shortly below.

The first heading you will find is Develop whether this be business development or personal development it’s listed under here. First off the bat we have The Partner Enablement Page that gives you one click access to most of the Cisco tools that you will need under this section. Including tools like the Partner Enablement Navigator that is an online wizard for Partner enablement tools and resources to give you quick access to what you need when you need it. There is also a link to Partner Practice Builder that helps Partners create a strategic development plan for various decision making functions (i.e. whether to do Unified Communications or not?). Finally there is Partner Education Connection that provides online course content for most of their courses; the courses range from free to providing links to where training is available at Cisco Learning Partners.

Next up we have Market and this is a kind of obvious one this is links to tools that either help you market Cisco products (Campaign Builder) or give you specific and relevant information assist you to be more effective in marketing Cisco products (Cisco Customized Partner Intelligence).

Then we have Sell for those in the sales teams or supporting sales teams. Starting off with Cisco Demo Solutions which is a boxed demo solution available for purchase from Cisco. Then we have the Cisco Partner Helpline that gives partners access to technical product information, including assistance with network design and product selection.

Finally Deliver where you can find Steps to Success that has resources for selling, delivering and supporting business solutions throughout the network lifecycle.

The Ooh factor in Cisco Telepresence

Published

Deon Botha

on July 17, 2008

in Cisco Systems and Vine

. 1 Comment

UPDATED: Got sent some WOW stats!!

For those of us that visit Cisco.com fairly often this video clip (below) will be something that you may have seen before (it was featured a while back on the page). I really love this video clip simply because I lol’ed (laughed out loud) when I saw it the first time. I thought about the clip again after reading this from mybroadband and neither the video nor the article does this Cisco solution justice simply because until I was physically shown this solution at the Cisco offices I couldn’t quite grasp “how” Cisco imagined it was going to “cut back travel” costs with Collaborative Technologies.

So JP sent me some stats on Cisco Telepresence this morning. This is some WOW stats; in December 2007 Cisco announced 100 customer deployments in over 40 countries; companies like Verizon, BT, Procter & Gamble, SAP, and even in government (Xiamen Municipal Government).

The stats (9th June 2008) for the use of Telepresence in Cisco look like this; 229 Cisco Telepresence units in 108 Cities globally deployed in Cisco Systems. The overall average utilization of these units lie at about 45% as compared to <1% for video conferencing.

The units are spread globally as follows US/Canada has 145, APAC / Japan has 38, Europe has 38, and Emerging Markets has 8 units. The deployments are mixed CTS 3000/3200/1000 depending on the theatre.

Of these units 110,627 Teleprecence meetings has been scheduled to date at a total of 141,565 hours (average of 75 minutes per meeting) with 2,576 meetings a week in the past 30 days (May 2008). This technology is not only for in-house use as there has been 13,361 meetings with customers to discuss Cisco Technology using Telepresence.

Now comes the bottom line that I mentioned above about saving money (I didnt know this until today mind you) that 17,339 of the total 1110,627 meetings avoided travel meaning that Cisco saved about $165,080,000 (I like leaving zeros when talking about millions shows you how much we really talking about). That to anyone is a fair bit of money to be saving.

I was thinking until now that this could “potentially” save money, having this verified makes my eyes open to the potential of the solution.

Wonder if I can get one of these for demo in my living room

Autosensing on Ethernet

Published

Deon Botha

on July 15, 2008

in Cisco Systems and Vine

. 0 Comments

Going over the RSS feed for the day, I found an interesting post with alot of value no matter what certification level you are at; Greg Ferro over at Etherealmind has a great post about autosensing on ethernet links, how it works and a short history of the standard.

He argues in his post that autosensing should be used as default as it works (compred to pre-standard times) and that not using it will create problems on GigabitEthernet links. At the time of my posting (I am posting so I remember his post and where to find it) there are two comments that I feel add value.

Head on over and remember to leave a comment.

Network Ninja

Monthly Archive for July, 2008

BSCI IP Foundation – IP Addressing

BSCI Design Foundation – Routing Protocols

BSCI Design Foundation – Network Models

BSCI Design Foundation – Scalability

New Cisco IOS Software Activation and Licensing Workflows

BCMSN Passed

Network Community Online

Cisco Partner Enablement Training

The Ooh factor in Cisco Telepresence

Autosensing on Ethernet

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