Blog Archives %%page%% - 2008 July | Network Ninja

Monthly Archive for July, 2008

Cisco South Africa Partner Career Day

Published

on July 15, 2008

. 0 Comments

So I attended the Cisco South Africa Career Day 2008 and it was well worth going. The event was hosted by Cisco in conjunction with the Cisco Networking Academy and the University of Pretoria.

A way that I have used to gauge the importance of an event has been to look at the “headline” act. In todays case the introduction was done my General Manager of Cisco Systems, Mr Steve Midgley and the key note address was given by Deputy Minister of Education Mr Enver Surty.

The drill-down of the presentations was that there is a skills shortage and there are initiatives already happening and in the pipelines to help address this global problem.

The event took place at the the University of Pretoria in the Entertainment Hall and Lecture Room 100 and centred around the development and availability of skill in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Sector mainly locally but also touched on it globally (China and India).

The event was held at the University of Pretoria to provide Cisco Networking Academy graduates the opportunity to get some “face time” with Cisco channel partners. The event provided the Cisco partners an opportunity to meet the future talent and interview graduates face-to-face. This exposed Cisco Networking Academy graduates to openings within Partner organisations, while allowing Partners to asses prospective employees.

From Cisco systems there was a clear message that they were going to be actively involved in developing and building the skills needed to assist partners and in turn the local economy through various initiatives. They drove this message home by making this the “public” launch of the Cisco Talent Partner Portal that I posted about here 2 weeks ago.

I stole a few business cards myself and talked to some of the bigger partners, one never knows when that might come in handy.

Kudos again to JP for organizing the invite.

Difference between VLAN Access-map and ACL

Published

Deon Botha

on July 10, 2008

in ACL, BCMSN, Certification, Cisco Systems, Concepts and Constructs and VACL

. 1 Comment

Looking over some things before I go write the BCMSN exam this is something I wanted to waffle on about again because the reason for both aren’t so clear to me and why to use what when.

So short and sweet an Access Control List (ACL) is something that comes from the CCNA course and is something one can use to manage and control traffic that passes through a switch (mind passes through and doesn’t originate on) either in an inbound or outbound direction. Cisco Catalyst Switches filter traffic through the use of a TCAM (mentioned on this post). The reason for VLAN Access Control List (VACL) is that only traffic that passes between VLANs can be filtered using ACLs.

So this means logicaly that traffic that stays in the same VLAN doesn’t necessarily have a direction (inbound or outbound) in relation to the interface and also isn’t crossing any interface boundries. There is also the fact that the packets may also be non-IP, non-IPX, or completely bridged. VACLs are mechanisms that can directly affect packets inside a VLAN. VACLs are configured using access-maps

Cisco Talent of the Future

Published

Deon Botha

on July 7, 2008

in Asides, Business, Cisco Systems and Vine

. 0 Comments

As a heads up I’m going to be attending the Cisco South Africa Partner Career Day happening at the University of Pretoria. This event rolls into one many things I am really passionate about (I think most Cisco Certified individuals are passionate about at least some of these things) namely skills, the youth, Information Communication Technology (ICT) and training.

The event sounds similar to the Cisco Global Talent Acceleration Program (GTAP) (More at ITWEB) launch a while back and although that event was not really directly relevant to me (I was a little late out of uni myself to benefit directly or apply) or my business (we are Cisco Partner and this was basically a Cisco Post Graduate Training Program with a twist) there was talk about this programs content being extended or made available in some shape or form to the Partner Community (that means everyday businesses that are somehow connected to Cisco Systems in the ecosystem).

What this would in effect mean to me and you (partner based students of the network world that either work for Cisco Partners or are trying to skill up on our lonesome) without the frills is a fast track, hard hitting, quick and to the point series of training provided by an accredited Cisco learning partner and tested by Cisco Systems themselves that gets you to written CCIE level as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Lets see what this event holds in store for us, I will post it afterwards. Thanks goes out to JP for the heads up and hooking me up with an invite (its nice and conveniently close to my offices).

Gotta go see Wall-E

Published

Deon Botha

on July 7, 2008

in Asides

. 1 Comment

Very off topic. If you haven’t planned on this one yet, make plans to take the kids/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend to go see this. If you are like me and just love the movies in general as a form of escape, treat yourself to a break and go see it.

I was roaring with laughter most of the time with little Wall-E getting up to the most amazing stunts and antics. The movie has very little talking in it and Pixar/Disney pull it off amazingly well to keep both the young and the “old” entertained during the movie.

CCIE Pilot is one step closer

Published

Deon Botha

on July 4, 2008

in Cisco Systems and Vine

. 1 Comment

Head on over to CCIE Pilot and give a shout out there, Mar passed his CCIE written today. In his words now he is officially a “CCIE Candidate”, that makes it one small (big in my mind) step in his journey towards getting those magic numbers.

CCIE Magazine Launches

Published

Deon Botha

on July 4, 2008

in Asides, Cisco Systems and Vine

. 0 Comments

So Arden Packeer has been a busy guy it seems what with passing his CCIE Routing and Switching recently and starting off on the road towards another CCIE (Voice).

Tweeted this morning (for me at least) Arden launched CCIE Magazine and has the inauguration post up. Head on over and support a Networker in his endeavours; leave a comment, subscribe to the RSS feed, Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon the content and maybe even take out an ad if you are looking for some exposure for your own product or service (consider the exposure for recruiting advertising and the target audience for CCIE Magazine, thinking about yesterdays post).

It’s early days over at CCIE Magazine but it’s sure to grow into something grand.

Clearing a connected switch

Published

Deon Botha

on July 3, 2008

in BCMSN, Certification, Cisco Systems, Concepts and Constructs and VLAN

. 0 Comments

This is a useful thing to know in lab situations you probably won’t get this one very often in real world scenarios often (I say this because how often do you have to delete vlans and start from scratch? When the network is setup it’s just a case of small adjustments unless wholesale change is happening).

This lab assumes you have a setup like the one below and you are busy clearing settings to be able to start another lab exercise.

This is linked to the the previous post that dealt with how to clear an isolated switch where this post is clearing a switch connected to a larger network (if you have everything setup nicely and aren’t going to change wiring and disconnect and reconnect things because that leads to layer-1 issues).

Step 1: Telnet to the desired switch, whether that be the DSW or ASW switches of either POD 1 or POD 2. Once you have the console window open and you have privelaged level access you are ready to go.

Step 2: Delete the vlan.dat file from the switch

ASW1#delete vlan.dat Delete filename [vlan.dat]? Delete flash:vlan.dat? [confirm] ASW1#

Step 3: After deleting the vlan.dat file you can delete the startup-config file

ASW1#erase startup-config Erasing the nvram filesystem will remove all configuration files! Continue? [confirm]? [OK] Erase of nvram: complete ASW1#

Step 4: The problem with clearing a switch that is networked is that it has a tendency to relearn things (VTP) from the network. This is both a boon and a bane depending on what you want to do at the time. In this case its a bane because you want it not to do this because it makes life difficult. Issue the reload command.

ASW1(config)#reload System configuration has been modified. Save? [yes/no] no Proceed with reload?

After the reload has completed you check that the switch hasn’t learnt things from the network.

Switch#show vlan

If the switch shows any vlans other than VLAN 1 (default), 1002 (fddi), 1003 (token ring), 1004 (fddinet), and 1005 (trnet) then it has learnt things from the network and you have more work ahead.

If the switch only shows the VLANs above then it has been cleared and you don’t have to do anything else.

Step 5: To eliminating the vlans that the switch learnt again is simple. The switch is learning VLAN information from the network because one or more of it’s interfaces connect to an upstream VTP server. To fix this problem

Switch#conf term Switch(config)#interface range fastethernet 0/1 - 24 Switch(config-if-range)#shutdown Switch(config-if-range)#exit Switch(config)#no vlan 2-xxxx Switch(config)#exit Switch#show vlan

The interface range command can be either fastethernet or gigabitethernet depending on the switch (you probably knew that already) and should include from port 0/1 to the last port whatever that is 8 on upwards depending on the switch chassis you have in your lab/network.

The show vlan command should output the desired vlan information and not the extra vlans at this point.

Step 6: Set the VTP mode to transparent to stop the switch from learning things again

Switch#conf term Switch(config)#vtp mode transparent

Notes and Notices:

This is a part of my personal BCMSN notes and research to assist myself in learning and understanding the concepts and theory for the BCMSN 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 BCMSN Certification.

EMEA Cisco Recruiting

Published

Deon Botha

on July 3, 2008

in Cisco Systems and Vine

. 2 Comments

This may be old-ish news but I found this interesting. This is a Cisco initiative to help Channel Partners Address Technology Skills Shortfall with a new Partner Talent Portal in Middle East and Africa. Stories like this always lead me off the beaten track and thinking about interconnected things (I’m weird, that’s what makes me specials).

The management side of me finds this interesting, its probably more complex than this explanation but this is the basics of something called supply and demand (which is something I got drilled into my head when I was studying). The graph basically shows a single supply source for qualified individuals (that would be you and me) and a radical change in demand (market driven demand from Channel partners and even Cisco) and if you are wondering the other axis (not market) is generally what your pay might be as demand increases.

In times when there is growth (2010 World cup in South Africa, good economic conditions recently) there is a strong demand for “skilled” individuals (skill + experience), this creates a supply problem because there is then a short supply (due to (1) skill shortage in the form of certified individuals in this case (2) the certified individuals having no real world experience) to fill the demand.

This will always happens when there is a rapid upturn in the market, supply lags behind demand because oversupply is in most cases expensive (having certified individuals on staff with nothing to do) and counter productive (carrying the expense of certifying individuals when there is no work for them or need for them). There are many factors that play on this that I haven’t included because this can get overly complicated fairly quickly if you consider them for example in a South African context the massive skilled brain drain to other more developed markets, political factors, crime, local employment and training policies employed by companies, private sector willingness to skill and give experiential training, etc.

What is interesting and will be interesting about this scenario is what will happen in the short to long term future with the downturn in the global market, what I have already encountered (in the last couple of months) is that customers are less willing to undertake CAPEX spending (uncertainty about what will happen in the short to near term), which is bad as networking and network equipment is seen as a CAPEX spend.

If doom and gloom is on the horizon it doesn’t however mean the end of the world as OPEX spending to keep operations going will continue in the form of maintenance of currently installed equipment (which still needs certified skilled individuals to maintain) the only difference will be that the lifecycle of installed kit will be extended as customers will hold onto their kit longer to squeeze the Return on Investment ratio dry or the kit actually breaks.

Thanks goes to JP for the heads up.

Preparing a used switch for use

Published

Deon Botha

on July 3, 2008

in BCMSN, Cabling and Equiptment, Certification, Cisco Systems, Concepts and Constructs, SSH, Telnet and VLAN

. 1 Comment

Console Port DS

Step 1: Connect a Workstation (PC or notebook) to the console port of the switch (shown above for Access layer-2 and Distribution layer-3 devices). This is the Cisco Blue cable that comes with the switches (generally a RJ-45 connector on one end and Serial connector on the other, dependant on the switch it was shipped with).

This will enable you to gain console access via Telnet or SSH into your switch. This is how configuration is done at the command line level (if you got this far without ever doing this, it’s a miracle you passed).

Step 2 elete the vlan.dat file

When in privaleged mode, you can type the following commands and delete the vlan.dat file
ASW1#delete vlan.dat Delete filename [vlan.dat]? Delete flash:vlan.dat? [confirm] ASW1#

Step 3 elete the startup-config file

After erasing the vlan.dat file all vlan information is gone, now the startup config file needs to be erased as this holds VTP, interface, passwords and other information that you want to get rid of to start the switch from scratch.

ASW1#erase startup-config Erasing the nvram filesystem will remove all configuration files! Continue? [confirm]? [OK] Erase of nvram: complete ASW1#

Step 4:Reload

After the above steps, it is now time to reload the switch

ASW1#reload System configuration has been modified. Save? [yes/no] no Proceed with reload?

Side Note

As a side note User-Defined VLAN setting is stored in a file on flash called vlan.dat (unix/linux based operating systems like Cisco IOS use case sensitive file naming unlike windows where a file called Aaa.dat and aaa.dat will be seen as identical.

If and when VLAN information is configured and created on a network, this vlan.dat file is used and information stored inside this file. To insert new kit or old kit into a networking (or lab) use the above steps to get rid of the file. If you have for some reason renamed the file using the below steps then you need to follow the below steps.

You can change the file-name where the vlan.dat is stored in the following way:

ASW1(config)#vtp file VLAN.dat

This command changes the vlan.dat file from vlan.dat (all lowercase) uppercase which is seen as different in IOS.

To then delete the file keep in mind that you have to keep the case sensitive spelling otherwise IOS will tell you the file doesn’t exist or delete the old file (vlan.dat) and not the new file where information is actually stored in. To delete the file:

ASW1#delete VLAN.dat

You can name the file anything you want and do pretty much anything you want on “your network”, just keep in mind that keeping things as standard and normal as possible means that if you leave your current job / position / contract the next person to work on that network is going to hate your guts if you went buck wild and creative setting up things in totally weird ways.

Notes and Notices:

Network Ninja

Monthly Archive for July, 2008

Cisco South Africa Partner Career Day

Difference between VLAN Access-map and ACL

Cisco Talent of the Future

Gotta go see Wall-E

CCIE Pilot is one step closer

CCIE Magazine Launches

Clearing a connected switch

EMEA Cisco Recruiting

Preparing a used switch for use

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