Review of 2011 and plan for 2012

Unfortunately, I was not able to achieve my most important objective for 2011, which of course was/is CCIE R&S!!!

I have been felling a little down, questioning about if I should proceed with this objective or not because I have spent a lot of my time and money, and the worst part is the time that I have spent on this, but bottom line considering what I have put on this I don’t have any option other than continue on this track.

Although I was not able to get my digits, I increased a lot my networking skills, I’ve spent the majority of my free time studying and practicing, basically after the work and during the weekends. Then I decided to sell my rack and with that money I went for a one week bootcamp with Narbik (which was great and really met my expectations!!). In total, I have spent four weeks from my holidays to study, to go for the bootcamp and to take two (failed) attempts… A part of these failures, it was a great year though!

I have been wondering and planning how should I proceed after all what I have done so far. Basically I think I will need “just” to start all over again, I mean, I will be more focused in the details. I am using both two workbooks that I’ve got from Narkik’s bootcamp, which is Advanced and the Bootcamp workbooks,  and also the INE Vol.1 workbook. Meantime maybe I can arrange time to go with a free re-take for the Narbik’s bootcamp. Finally, I will probably do some 8 hour labs and maybe some mock labs, and if I feel confident I will then schedule my third and hopefully last attempt!

Most important than anything is to have a good health for me and my family, and the rest will certainly come sooner or later…

Stand up from the crowd

Actually I think that many of us that are trying to get and some others that already got it (damm you all… just kidding!) had this idea in mind, right? But now that someone important in the market says it it becomes true…

However, liked or not, the value of a CCIE is decreasing, which means that in a very near future (if not this is already occurring), having only one expertise does not make a REAL difference, bottom line, we will need to have two or more!!

Saying this, I think I should get back to my studies

Study plan till Narbik’s bootcamp

I have been thinking and I reached to a decision, from now on and till the bootcamp I will be only reviewing the INE Vol1 labs and also the INE Advanced Tech Class, because I am feeling that I have not been really focused since my failed first attempt so I really need to be more focus, effective, on my study. Basically I will have less then a month till the bootcamp, and this seems to me a good way to prepare me to a bootcamp, since I think I will fill some gaps  and at the end I will have a better perspective of things that I will need to be more focused during the bootcamp.

Cheers

Back on track

I have been away from my blog for several months… About my CCIE RS study I am starting all over again. Things did not go as I have planned. First I planned to go to Narbik’s bootcamp, which was cancelled. Anyway, I decided to go for my first attempt and see what happen… Unfortunately during last August I went for my first attempt and I failed

I was a little disappointed since I have been spending a lot of time for my preparation including the nights during the week, weekends and several days from my vacations… For me this coast is even higher that the 2000€ miserable lunch that I had!

I was not so terrible, but even though a little far for the needed 80%… Let’s say that if the passing score was 50% I would be a CCIE now But that’s not, so I will face it again!

In the troubleshooting section, there was nothing that I was not really expecting. The worst part of this section is that we have to solve the tickets exactly like Cisco wants. For example, accordingly with my experience I didn’t get the points from 2 tickets that I was counting to have… Probably I broke some restriction or something like that. I think this is really the major difficulty in this section.

In the configuration section, after the troubleshooting section and till lunch time I was a little lost… This became a disaster in the end, since I run out of time to solve all the tasks, so I had to leave some tasks that I knew how to configure it.

I must confess that I was very disappoint with myself for several days… But never thought in giving up, nope, that’s not going to happen, not after all the efforts, time, money… Sooner or later that’s something that I’m going to achieve!!!!

Meantime I received some good news, since the Narbik’s bootcamp in UK will take place this November, so finally I will meet Narbik and maybe learn some of his magic Just kidding, I have only hear very good feedback about his bootcamp,  so I am just expecting to fill some gaps that I have, and ultimately helping becoming a better engineer. That’s one of the reasons that I choose Narbik, I don’t want a bootcamp just to pass the exam… Do you know what I mean???

A part of this, I have take another big decision (more €€€€), since I decided to go to my 2nd attempt still during 2011, so next December I will face again the beast. Let’s just hope that this time I will nailed it down!

Wish me luck!

CCIE R&S Unofficial Update by Himawan Nugroho

Yesterday I was watching the recorded version that Himawan Nugroho presented in English about his unofficial update for the CCIE R&S certification. I’ve been a follower of his blog for several years now, and I’ve to say that during this time he have regularly shared very interesting information, thoughts, tips, … Since the beginning that I’ve seen him as a “offline” mentor for me… basically he really inspires me

So, as an advice, I’ve to say that for all that are preparing for the CCIE R&S lab exam this is something that you shouldn’t skip, neither his blog.

Anyway, back to the session that he presented, I’ve taken a few notes that I will share here. (I’m assuming that there is no problem in sharing this here in my blog!):

• 2 hours for troubleshooting section with 30 devices using the IOU (virtual environment)

• 6 hours for configuration section with 9 devices (5 routers and 4 switches):
• 5 routers:
• 2x 3825 12.4(T)
• 3x 1841 12.4(T)
• 4 switches:
• 2x 3560 12.2 (Layer 3)
• 2x 3560 12.2 (Only Layer 2)

• Total lab duration is 8h
• If troubleshooting section ends up early, that remain time can be used for configuration section
• Need to have 80% in each one of the sections to pass
• Troubleshooting section: 10 incidents
• Configuration section: 28 config questions
• There are no more questions on paper. We will have only the web interface
• General advices:

1. Re-draw the topology in paper to become more familiar with the network
2. Verify the initials configurations
3. No static route
4. No default route
5. Don’t remove existing feature

• Troubleshooting section:
• You will have access to the Doc CD during the troubleshooting section
• Skip the tickets that you are not familiar with, or you have to read something from teh Doc CD.
• There are questions with more than 2 faults but they will tell you
• The topology involved in each question will be highlighted, so you will not deal with the 30 devices at the same time
• Any question is independent of the remain questions.
• 12 minutes to each question in average

• Possibles diagrams for the configuration section:
• Physical connections (router-switches connections)
• Logical topology
• IGP topology
• BGP topology
• Make sure to verify the initial configurations, using ping, cdp, etc…
• Frame-relay switch will be removed. We will only deal with B2B
• They only check your running config to check if you is complying with the pre-requisites, for example, to check if you achieve the solution without using the network command

• Six rules for Troubleshooting by Himawan Nugroho:

1. Don’t get intimidated
2. Understand the symptom
3. Know how it works
4. Isolate the issue
5. Work from destination. A difference approach different than physical-layer2-layer3, bottom-up approach. Can telnet, ping, see in R.Table, Any ACL, any filter?
6. Get used with log and debug

• Any change to the lab will be announce with 6 months in advance

• Seems that there is also a good presentation, which is an Official version from Cisco Live – Bruno’s Cisco Live presentation – TECCCIE-3610

Finally I’d like to register a great comment that I’ve read from the Chat window. The author is Marko Milivojevic, which is a very well-known CCIE instructor from IPexpert:
«You don’t fail the CCIE lab. You either pass or don’t pass… Calling it a failure after trying is not fair. It’s one of the most difficult exams in the world!»

Have a nice studies

Status: 2011-03-06

As I said in my previous post, I’ve already booked my bootcamp with Narbik for April, in UK… One year as past since I passed my written which means that I’ve been preparing myself for the lab for a year now. Since a year as past, seems to me a good time to stop a little and analyze all the things that I’ve done so far!

Basically till now I’ve only used all the (EXCELLENT) products that I purchased from INE. From my experience I can tell you that their self products are great, with excellent quality!!! And now for those who are thinking… no I don’t have receive any kind of “incentive” to say good things about their products. I may sincerely recommend their products to everyone that would like to prepare for the lab exam.

Basically this is a list of what I’ve used so far:

Lastest versions
* CCIE R&S Advanced Troubleshooting Video-on-Demand (Completed 100%)
* CCIE R&S Lab Preparation Class-on-Demand (Completed 100%)
* CCIE R&S v4.0 Advanced Technologies Video-on-Demand (Completed 100%)
* CCIE R&S Written Exam (Completed 100%)

Older versions:
* CCIE R&S 5-Day Bootcamp Class-on-Demand (Completed 100%)
* CCIE R&S Advanced Technologies 10-Day Video-on-Demand v4.5 for v3.0 (Completed 100%)
* CCIE R&S Advanced Technologies 5-Day Video-on-Demand v4.5 for v3.0 (Completed 100%)

Audio Classes
* CCIE R&S Audio Bootcamp Week 1 & 2 (I’m still in the middle. Normally I used it during my commute to work)

Workbooks
* R&S Lab Workbook Volume I for CCIE v4.0 (100%)
* R&S Lab Workbook Volume II Dynamips for CCIE v4.0 (Just labs 01, 02, 04, 06, 18)
* R&S Lab Workbook Volume II for CCIE v4.0 (None)
* R&S Lab Workbook Volume III for CCIE v4.0 (Completed 100%)
* R&S Lab Workbook Volume IV for CCIE v4.0 (None)

Class-on-Demand
# R&S Lab Meet-Up Series Class-on-Demand (Completed 15%)
# R&S Open Lecture Series Class-on-Demand (Completed 75%)

To add to all this, I’ve also read here and there several chapters from TCP/IP Vol1 and Vol2, which I purchase from Cisco Press, as also several docs that I’ve uploaded to my Kindle, which most of the time I use to read on the bed at the end of the days!

In the last days, I’ve done 9 mini labs and one 8h-lab from Cisco ASET! I’ ve also started to work on the preparation ebook for Narbik’s bootcamp.

So, my plan till the bootcamp is to finish all the Cisco ASET labs as also the prep ebook. I’d also like to revisited some chapters from the INE Vol1 workbook, such as Multicast and QoS.

After the bootcamp, and considering my plan to schedule the lab for the middle of August, I will have around 4 months, which I will use to work on 8h labs and some mini-labs for my (identified) weaknesses.

Cheers

My first bootcamp is scheduled

Finally I’ve decided to go for my first bootcamp! I’ve been wondering a lot about (more) this big investment, and today I decided that now would be the right time to go for it. Right now I’ve already my vacations approved and I’ve purchased the bootcamp, so if nothing really bad happen finally I will meet Master Narbik next month in Milton Keynes, UK. I’ve read only great things about Narbik, and I must confess that I’m feeling a little anxious about the bootcamp…  Having all this in mind, at the beginning of February I’ve also decided to drop my lab date that was scheduled to May, so now I will have to see for a new date. I’m thinking about scheduling it to middle of August, since that would give me some more time to prepare myself after the bootcamp. Anyway, later than that, it’s not really an option for me, since my written will expire at the end of August. Which means that, well prepared or not well prepared, I’m going to face the beast till the end of August!

 

L2 features to the CCIE R&S Troubleshooting section

Finally seems that Cisco is adding Layer 2 features to the CCIE R&S Troubleshooting section… In my opinion, that’s make sense since we are talking about a R&S exam, right?! I think all candidates agree with this new change. However and considering that we know that (at least all the gurus with plenty of CCIEs talks about it…) this kind of exam also needs a good preparation from the physiologic point of view, in my opinion is a little unfair that this kind of change is being integrated in the lab exam just with 2-3 days of difference between the announcement… I know that a CCIE candidate needs to have great skills in troubleshooting all the subjects from the blueprint, and all that stuff…bla bla bla…

It’s not my case but I’m just concern about the additional physiologic effects that some candidates will suffer at least for those who will be doing the exam next week, or even worst next Monday… If that was my case, I would be felling a little “unconfortable”, at minimum… Anyway, life is not fair even when you schedule your CCIE lab exam!

Plan for 2011

Well, reviewing my personnel objectives for 2010, which basically consisted in achieving my CCIE number… I’ve to admit that I’ve totally failed… I even didn’t feel confidant to try the lab exam… In the other hand, and considering all the remain points of view, 2010 was a good year!

There is no surprise that my big objective will be passing the CCIE R&S lab exam… As I wrote before I’m really considering got for a bootcamp since this is also an experience that I’ve never had and seems to me a perfect time to go for it … The biggest disadvantage of course is that it’s me that will have to pay for it so it’s kind of a big investment (more)…

Right now I’m already doing full scale labs from the INE Vol2 and I will continue doing them for the next weeks…

Take care

 

Lab exam is scheduled!

I have finally decided to schedule my lab exam: May 3rd of 2011 will be the BIG day!

 

 

 

INE Vol 2 Difficulty Rating

Since the difficulty rate of the labs from Vol.2 is different, I will take that criteria to select the next lab that I will be doing. So, here is the order of the labs from Vol.2, according with the difficulty rate:

Vol2 Labs	Difficulty Rating
1	6
2	6
4	7
6	7
12	7
18	7
3	8
5	8
8	8
9	8
10	8
16	8
17	8
20	8
7	9
11	9
13	9
14	9
15	9
19	9

Status: 2010-11-24

After I’ve finished all the ten Vol.3 labs, I’m glad when I decided to jump on them because now I’m felling much more confident about my core techonoliges knowledge, that was a good decision!

But now I’ve been wondering if I should go for the remain topics as I did before, which means go for the theory of each one and doing the Vol.1 labs. The problem is that I’m afraid to loose some of the core knowledge while I’m focus on QoS, Security, Management…

After thinking for a while I’ve reached to a new (re)approach of my study plan

My new approach will be to do one lab from Vol.2 each week, of course I won’t do it 8 hours straight, I will have to divide them in half. For the remain time of each week I will focus on the rest of the topics doing the labs from Vol.1. If it works fine to me, I will do this till I end up all the labs from Vol.1.

At that time, I will move on for the remain configuration labs as also for the troubleshooting labs.

But let see in one or two weeks if this approach works good for me!

 

Status: 2010-11-17

During the last week I’ve been working till late so CCIE studies have stayed beyond. This week is not going to be better so I’m planning to study harder during the next weekend.

Right now I’m doing the labs from the INE VOL3 workbook. In general I think that I’m doing well, just need to improve my redistribution skills since I’m taking more time that should be spent.

I’m also using Dynamips to do some of these labs. The advantage is that Dynamips allow me to study any time any place, but in the other hand, I found myself spending more time troubleshooting Dynamips issues other than troubleshooting my own configurations :S

From this particular experience with Dynamips, I’ve learn that when I face something which does not work as I’d expect, the better approach is to stop/start all the devices. Most of the times this was the only action that needs to be done to got everything up and running.

Right now, I’m on lab 6 so my (feasible) plan is to finish the remain labs from the INE Vol 3 till the end of this month.

During December I’m counting to clear the remain subjects using the INE Vol1 labs, including QoS (ouch!), since I’d really like to start the new year doing the 8h labs included in INE Vol2 workbook.

Here is my plan till the end of 2010:

2010-W48 29-12-2010 05-12-2010 Vol1: QoS

2010-W49 06-12-2010 12-12-2010 Vol1: QoS

2010-W50 13-12-2010 19-12-2010 Vol1: Security

2010-W51 20-12-2010 26-12-2010 Vol1: IP Services

2010-W52 27-12-2010 02-01-2011 Vol1: Management

 

Cheers!

Ric

Re-designing my study plan

Following a great post written by Petr Lapukhov, I’ve been wondering how it would fit on me. Finally, I’ve reached some conclusions so I was able to re-defining my study plan. I want to build a very strong base knowledge for the Core technologies, so I will redo the labs from Vol I, from point to point, exactly as per as his suggestion:

• Bridging & Switching: 1.1-1.15

• Frame-Relay: 2.1-2.8

• IP Routing: 3.1-3.11

• RIP: 4.1-4.11

• EIGRP: 5.1-5.10

• OSPF: 6.1-6.14

• BGP: 7.1-7.12

• IPv6: 9.1-9.9

• Multicast: 8.1-8.10

• MPLS VPN: 14.1-14.7

Then, I will go for all the Vol 3 labs, once again just with the Core technologies in mind.

After that stage I think I will have a strong base core knowledge, so I will go ahead with Vol 1 Labs for the remain topics, such as QoS, Security, IP Services, and Management.

Finally I will go for the Vol 2 labs, and in between some Mock labs.

In between, I’m really considering the option to go for a bootcamp… If that’s going to happen most probably I will attend one  of the Narbik’s bootcamp, even though I don’t know him personally I’m a usual reader of his great contributions in GroupStudy mailing lists… But lets see what it’s going to happen!

So many doubts…

Ok, I’m back from my vacations… I’m feelling completely lazy and I have not touch anything related with CCIE Studies for more than 15 days… and I’m wondering that if it’s still worth or not???

I’m thinking if it wouldn’t be better to just enjoy the free time after work and the weekends as a “normal” guy do!! I don’t know, too many doubts, I even don’t know anymore what should be my plan for my career for the next 10 year or so… Argh! Too much inertia!

For now I will just wait, and maybe all this inertia and doubts would be gone away… I hope so! I don’t really like to be in this kind of limbo…

Time for BGP

This Monday I started the BGP study. Although I’ve been able to study more than I was, I’m still not happy with the time I had spent studying for the CCIE lab exam. Too much social events I guess… I decided to have a conversation with my wife in order to reach in an agreement about my plan, now I’ve just to put it in action

The objective for the BGP will follow the same strategy, but I hope more in a more intensive way. Till this weekend I have to finish all the theory behind BGP, to start doing labs this weekend and till August 1st. It ‘s a big topic, so a lot of work is waiting for me. the advantage is that I’m a lover of BGP, I must confess that is my favorite routing protocol, and I hope that will help me in some way.

Change at work

Things with my CCIE study was not evolving as I planned but somehow recently I was able to kind of got a “new opportunity” with my employer. So seems that I will be at a customer headquarters for the next couple of months in a service provider environment working very close with Cisco. Although I don’t feel very comfortable in a outsourced position, in the other hand I will have more time to study, since I will not need to work after hours in a regular fashion as I used to… meaning that I will have all the nights and the entire weekends free to dedicate to my family and study

About the CCIE studies, I’m still studying OSPF. I’m trying to catch all the details about it since I’m IMHO it’s a very important subject for the lab exam. I’ve watched all the INE ATC classes, both recent and old version, as also some of the recorded Open Lectures classes about OSPF. I’ve to say that INE did and continue doing an excellent job. Right now I’m in the middle of OSPF mini-labs from the INE workbook vol.1. So it’s lab time… My plan is to finished them till this weekend and then start BGP!!! Another big topic

New Benefits for Cisco 360 Learning Program

I think that’s a very important information for all of we that is considering the option to go for a bootcamp… Since I think Narbik’s bootcamp will also include this promotion, that means Narbik’s bootcamp has a new great point that need to be taken in analysis:

“…New Promotion: Purchase and complete at least one instructor-led workshop for CCIE Routing and Switching or CCIE Voice, including all classroom assessments. (No additional assessments need be purchased and no minimum score is required).

In both scenarios, you must first make one paid attempt at the lab, and then contact Learning Partner to request free voucher code from Cisco by December 31, 2011. Free retake is limited to one per track.”

Of course that I’ll only go for the lab exam when I feel that I’m well prepared since I’m one of that guys that hates to lose… And I’m still considering if I’d go for a bootcamp or not, however, knowing that I’d have a 1400$ voucher if something goes wrong would certainly remove some pressure during the lab exam

Expiration of the Written Exam

Of course that I’m planning to pass at the first attempt, but it’s good to know that:
Candidates must make an initial attempt of the CCIE lab exam within 18 months of passing the CCIE written exam. Candidates who do not pass must re-attempt the lab exam within 12 months of their last scored attempt in order for their written exam to remain valid. If a candidate does not pass the lab exam within three years of passing the written exam, he or she must retake the written exam before being allowed to attempt the lab exam again.

You may check this and other important rules directly from Cisco.

Re-learning EIGRP

Today I’ll refresh my knowledge abou EIGRP. At this stage my strategy is always the same:

1. Watch the INE classes for this topic
2. Do the respective labs from INE workbook Vol.1

I will continue doing this till I finished all the CoD and the Vol1 labs.

BTW I’m really glad to have my own rack

WKB1 – Task 4.2 RIP Authentication

During last when I was playing with RIP, I got a problem with my MD5 authentication so I needed to go check the BB2… First I was getting (also) an error message that confused me: “%TCP-6-BADAUTH: No MD5 digest from 192.10.1.2(179) to 192.10.1.254(12475) (RST)”. Even after I was able to receive and send routes between BB2 and R2 I was still getting those messages. Since it was late… I guess my brain was already sleeping… If not I’d see that the message refers to TCP and port 179 meaning that it had nothing related with RIP but with BGP! Too much caffeine I guess :S

No time!

I really need to make some decision about my professional life because this way I’ll never get my CCIE! I’ve been working too many hours, with lot of migrations at nights and at weekends, resulting with almost no time for family, friends, and neither to CCIE studies… also no sports, no cinema, no series, no TV, no, no…

Finally I will have a weekend to rest and be with my family… I will also try to restart my CCIE studies!

My rack – update2

As I said in my previous post, I’m using my own CCIE rack, although it’s not perfect it will allow me to practice for the core subjects. I’ve build a rack taking in consideration the “ROI” between the price that I had to paid for a particular device and what I’d get from it. Here is the most updates pictures of my CCIE R&S rack:

Here’s the description of each one of them:

R1=2610XM

R2=2620XM

R3=2611XM

R4=2611XM

R5=2611XM

R6=2611XM

SW1= 3550 EMI

SW2= 3550 EMI

SW3= 3550 EMI

SW4= 3550 EMI

BB1=2522

BB2=2610XM

BB3=2620

TS=AS2511-RJ

I know that there several features that I won’t be able to get some hands-on with only this platforms, but IMHO and before we hit QoS labs, or some firewall zone labs, etc, we must be able to build a perfect CORE, and FAST! Only after that, I will spend some time working on all those “peripheral” features (of course that I’m aware that they means very important points to pass the lab ). When that time arrive, and since I can’t afford to paid for 3560 and/or 1800 platforms, I will buy some time on remote labs…

Take care and have a nice studies

CCIE written cleared!

During last month, and as planned, I’ve cleared the CCIE written exam. To be honest, I was expecting more exhaustive/detailed exam questions than I got, which means that probably I’ve spend more time than I really needed studying for the written exam… but for sure that it will help me a lot during the lab preparation.

I’ve already started my lab preparation, step by step, trying to create a very strong foundations before I even think to try to do a 8 hour lab! The problem is that I’ve been overwhelmed with some work projects, including working during some weekends,  which means that I’ve not been able to study accordingly to my plan, but I’ve tried to use every free time that I got to read or practice something related with the CCIE!

For the next couple of weeks I will continue to watch the INE CoD videos, and then work along the respective labs from the INE workbook Vol. I. I’m following the divide-to-conquer strategy, using the workbook Vol I as a guide, meaning that I will watch and read all I can before I hit the respective labs for that particular section.  Then when I finished all the labs in the Vol I, I will start to do some 8-hour labs from the Vol. II. But let’s wait and see to finish the Vol. I, need to stay focus on it!

CCIE R&S Written Status Prep. 2010-01-18

At the end of this year I’ve finally started my studies for the CCIE battle. First I want to clear the written asap, so my objective is to clear it till the end of February. Right now I’m very motivated, and I’ve been able to study almost all the nights during the week days. Also this weekend I’ve spent almost 10 hours for studies purposes, which means that right now I’m on a good position to reach this first step.

During the last year I’ve purchased the CCIE 2.0 program from the INE, including the Written and the Troubleshooting CoD, but only now I was able to use the products.

My studies for the written exam, started by watching the R&S Written Bootcamp CoD presented by Anthony Sequeira from the INE team. In my opinion, he did a very good job since he was able to summarize in a very good way the very extensive blueprint.

After that I started to read the CCIE R&S Official Exam Certification Guide, and simultaneously I’m also watching the R&S Advanced Technologies 5-Day Class-on-Demand also from Anthony Sequeira. Although this CoD is not intended to prepare for the written, Anthony presents again a very concise overview about the major topics from the blueprint, and at the same time he does a lot of CLI demonstrations… I like very much of this approach since he gives us the theory and then we are able to see him implementing it in the lab scenario. This approach works very well for me, since it helps me understanding in a better way some concepts… and to be honest after working 8-10 hours, doing the families stuffs, it’s much more easier to watch some CoDs rather than read a book

So, my plan for now is to finish watching this CoD, as also to finish the Odom’s book. Then I will read it all over again, but this time I will take some notes with the information that I need to memorize!

Then I will go once again over the Written CoD, right before the written exam.

Create a loopback adapter in Windows Vista

A few days ago I needed to create a loopback interface in a machine running Windows Vista for testing purposes and unexpectedly I had spent more time that is supposed

Anyway, I’m just document it, for a future experience…

1. Control Panel  > Add Hardware > Click Next on the “Welcome to Add Hardware Wizard”
2. On the page that comes up we need to click on “Install the hardware that I manually select from a list” button
3. Click Next > Choose Network adapters
4. Click Next > Under Manufacturer choose Microsoft Under Network Adapter choose Microsoft Loopback Adapter
5. Click Next > Next  …
6. Then to assign a static IP Address to the Microsoft Loopback Adapter, go to Start > Control Panel > Manage Network Connections
7. You will see a network registered with a name like “Local Area Connection 2 Unidentified Network Microsoft Loopback Adapter”
8. Right click on it and select Properties
9. Click on TCP/IPv4 > click Properties … and it’s done!

How a VTP client can update the VTP database server

I was searching in the web about this possibility, when I found a very good article written by Wendell Odom. Here is the excerpt explaining a possible scenario that could lead to this issue:

«In a lab that’s separate from the production network, an engineer is configuring switches, with VTP configured, with the same domain name and password as the production network (maybe somebody started with a copy/paste?). Anyway, one of the production switches fails, so the engineer grabs one of the VTP client switches, since the engineer thought that adding a VTP client switch to the production network would be harmless. Well, the VTP and VLAN config are stored in the vlan.dat file in flash, not in NVRAM – so even if the engineer had done a erase startup-config before unplugging the switch, the switch still has its VTP info (which matches the production network) and its VLAN database – which may well have a larger revision number, because of all the experimentation in the lab. So, you plug in the old lab switch, the trunk comes up to the production network, and you overwrite the VLAN database on all the switches, practically instantly. Yikes. This could delete all the VLANs on the existing production switches, and essentially crash the entire campus network. There’s probably no better advertisement for not using VTP (aka using transparent mode) than this scary scenario.»

Summarizing, as best practice and before using any used switch, we should always issue the command “vtp mode transparent” just to make sure that the revision number will be reseted… BTW, recently I’ve noticed that Nexus 5K only supports vtp mode transparent

Plan for 2010

Well last day of 2009 is ending and a new year is about to start…  it’s time to make a plan for the arriving year!

From the personal point of view, the year of 2009 was a great year, it’s difficult to wish a better year, so I just hope that all may continue on the same wave!

About my career, I really need to do something with it if I want to evolve and take part on better projects and of course increase my family quality of living. The solution for that it’s now very clear in my mind: CCIE R&S.

From that perspective, 2010 will be a hard year because to reach that kind of goal, I will have to dedicate a lot of my personal time. Time management will take a very important role during 2010, since I will have to balance my time between family, job and CCIE studies, all the rest will have to suffer drastically cuts, which includes time to be with friends and sports. Sleep hours will also have to decrease… I think that’s the price that I’ll have to pay off!?!

The first step will be to clear the written test. This will allow me to schedule my lab exam because I think that I’m the kind of person that works better if I’ve a defined date in my view, I hope that will help me to concentrate on my goal day by day. I will try to schedule it for the last week of October 2010. The reason that I’d like to go for the lab exam in this particular week has a mathematical explanation… It started with the assumption that I will need 600 hours of study. Then, I planned my normal week in order to have 20h per week just for study:

• 3h per night (22:00 – 01:00) for 4 days of workday –> 4x3h=12h
• 8h at the weekend
• Total: 20h per week

This means that I will need 30 weeks to reach the 600h. So, considering that I’ll start the lab preparation in March I will reach the 600h at the end of September. However, there are several variables that can influence this math, so I decided to add a “deviation” factor, which I decide to be approximately 15%, which means adding around one month.

Even knowing that Cisco is putting some efforts to reduce the number of CCIEs, particular  the R&S, I know that if I’d be able to follow my plan I’ll have a good chance to get it… my biggest enemy will be my job, since normally I have to work more than the expected 8h/day but that’s something that I need to change next year if I want to get my number

Wish a very happy new year to everyone!

Santa is back again!

Time has pass in a blink of eyes… Christmas has arrived once again I’ve to confess that I love this time of year, not because I’m a Christian, since nowadays I’m more close to be an atheist than ever, because if we think, we have done terrible things in the name of religion, and I’m not thinking in any in particular but in all in general, if you study history and/or be aware of reality all over the world you will understand what I mean, but my idea is not to start a discussion about religion, but to talk about Christmas… Like I was saying, I love this time of the year, the idea behind of the Santa Claus pagan symbol, the lights, people in general become more friendly and more generous. It’s also a time that all of our family, even those that live far away take some time to spend with each other. I think that if Christmas did not exist we would never see each other for an entire year or maybe years, so apart of all the commercial side that this time of year also means, that are plenty of positive effects that Christmas make possible.

Apart of being with the family, it’s also time to stop from the rush of routine, and analyze the ending year and then do plans for the next coming year. For me the year of 2009 was a great year, first and the most important, I become a father, everything went just fine and I’m lucky enough to have a great healthy boy, full of energy! From the personal point of view, I’ve a great wife and son, as the rest of the family, there was not any relevant health problem with any of them, including my parents that considering their age, are my biggest concern these days, so now I just want that in 2010 could be the same!

From the job perspective, it was also a good year nevertheless I’ve to admit that was a hard and stressful year! I change my role in my company, a new manager, a new team, although it was the same company, all was different. The truth is that I had the opportunity to take part in some important projects; I’ve learned a lot and gained a lot of experience. The downside is that, I had to spend a lot of my personal time in order to prepare me for those projects, since I don’t have the kind of knowledge to do them in a blink of eyes; I’m not in that kind of level… yet It was a year full of new things, all happening at the same time, and in the middle I decided that I would completely cut off the study time for the CCIE to spend it on the preparation for those projects.

For sure that next year will be the year where I will be really committed with the CCIE studies, for sure that my biggest challenge for 2010 will be balancing my CCIE studies with work and family!! But for now I will just enjoy the Christmas evening with my family!

Merry Christmas to all!

My rack – update1

All right! My 2611XM and AS2511RJ arrived during last week… From the harware point of view I’ve all that I’ve planned to get. I’ve uploaded some pics of it, but it still doesn’t have any cabling! So for the next couple of months this will be the rack that I will be using for my studies. Now I just need to gather all the necessary cables, I’ve plenty of RJ-45 straight cables, and I already bought the DCE-DTE cables. During this weekend I made the last rollover cables that I need but now I need to make almost 15 crossover cables! Let’s the fun begin!!

Building my home rack

A very important matter for the CCIE preparation, as everyone knows is practice, practice, practice… Several options are possible, remote rack rental, dynamips, and of course building our own rack! Unfortunately and with version 4 of the lab blueprint, Cisco really increased the amount of money that needs to be spent on that!

I’m not a real fan of remote rack because I would become a prisoner of a tight schedule, the availability of the racks, but the major problem with it, is the difference between the time zones where most racks are installed and Portugal’s time zone. With this option I wouldn’t be able to practice every time I could, and between job and family there isn’t no much free time to be spent on studying so it must be wisely used.

Dynamips is indeed a great tool, I’ve already tried on a Quad Core server with 16 Gb of RAM running Windows server 2003, and it really rocks! I was able to start all the devices with “start /all” command without any problem, and in about 3 minutes I had all the devices up and running… and always with great performances, really awesome! Of course the server was not mine, and right now it’s doing what it’s supposed to do… but it was really cool to see that kind of performance!

Since I don’t have a machine where I’d be able to run efficiently, I’ll only used it in some particular cases, maybe to test some simple scenarios or some particular features like mpls, zone based firewall, etc.

I had already some devices in my rack, and although I’m don’t have the needed budget to build the appropriate home rack, considering that I’ve also recently purchased the CCIE 2.0 program from INE, I’ve decided to build my own rack! The idea is to spend the minimum to get the maximum! Which means won’t have any 1841, 3550, or 3560… Sounds awful, but I’m think it’s possible to build a decent home rack that at least, could allow me to prepare for the core knowledge of the blueprint!

IMHO, a preparation for an exam like the CCIE R&S without touching on real routers and switches does not make sense, does not sound good to me… Or maybe I just a geek and I’m getting some excuses to have my own rack!

Right now, my rack home is based on the following:

• 2x Cisco 2501

• 1x Cisco 2522

• 3x Catalyst 2924-XL

• 1x Catalyst 3524-XL-EN

• 2x Cisco 2610XM

Right now I’m waiting for a AS2511-RJ, and 4x Cisco 2611XM, and when they arrived I will upload some pictures from the complete cabled rack!

Of course, I will continue checking ebay looking for a good bargain, at least for 2x 3550

Plan for September of 2009

Right now I’m on vacations but considering that my son has only 3 months, me and my wife decided to not go abroad this year, since it’s advisable to stay home during the most hot period of the day. So I’ve spend some time at home doing “nothing”. Considering that I have to pass 2 exams till the end of September, I’ve taken some time to study here and there…

The plan for September consists on:

1. Pass SNAF till 09-03-2009;
2. Pass SNRS till 09-30-2009.

This would allow me to start October’s fully concentrated on the CCIE studies, although that considering the blueprint of the SNRS exam, while I study for it I will get a good picture for some features that I will to master for the CCIE exam

Back to my routine!

One month later after spent all June abroad working in a project, I’m thinking that after all I love my routine, my country, my life! It’s strange that sometimes we only give the right value to those little things when we can’t have them. I have to stay that was not a easy time!!!

During this project I had an opportunity to stay working there for some time, minimum 1 year. The good side was the amount of money that I’d get paid if I’d accept the offer… but considering that this is not the best time for me and my family, I had to pass it… The primary reason behind my decision is that the country that we are talking about is not the best and safe place in the world to raise a child, and I also had to consider that my wife has a good job so I’d be a total selfish person if I decided to accept it! After a month I’m truly convinced that I’ve taken the right decision, and I’m feeling great for that! Which means that I’m back to my routine… family, friends, hobbies, places… and that’s feel great!!!

About CCIE… ouch! During this month I did not read a single line for the CCIE, since I was totally focus on my son and in some matters that needed to be solved.

Next month (August) I will take some time off, however I will need to pass in 2 cisco exams from a professional level due to job impositions. The good news is that after September I will be FINALY 100% focus in the CCIE studies!

Now it’s for real!

With the beginning of this year I’ve decided to go for the CCIE R&S but with my new job role and my son that have just born on May 5th I’ve not been able to focus on CCIE preparation, even worst I’ve been studying nothing… but I think I was expecting that could happen with so many changes occurring in my life, I’m trying to normalize asap.

Well but in life we need to establish our priorities and I know mine pretty well… Although CCIE is not in the top of my priorities right now, that does not mean I’ve forgotten it, it’s still is a big personal “project” of mine

So, to prove that (to myself) and in order to put me in the right track, I’ve finally decided for a vendor to help me in my pursuit: INE!

They were giving a good discount during the long USA weekend (Memorial Day) so I’ve decided to purchased their CCIE 2.0 Self-Paced Program (Electronic) as also their CCIE Routing & Switching Written Exam Bootcamp!

Although I’m leaving for another month for a new project abroad I will try to watch both CoD’s while I’m there. In this kind of projects the workload is really hard so probably I won’t be able to do more than that!

Strange it that since this purchase I’m feeling a little anxious to start using the products since I’m still waiting for them to become available in my member account! Probably is the responsability of the amount of investment that I made…

ACE documentation

Just a quick note about this matter… Since I didn’t have any experience with ACE from the real world, as first step I needed to read a lot the documentation. First I started my search at Cisco site, as I always do, particularly from the “new” DocCD. But the most useful link that I found out, a little unexpected to me, was at the Cisco DocWiki so in this list I put it in the first position since it was the link that in fact served me as guidance to successfully reach my objectives. Here is the links that I used for, and maybe this information can help someone out there not wasting to much time looking for good information about Cisco ACEs:

1. http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Category:Data_Center_Application_Services_Configuration_Examples
2. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6906/tsd_products_support_model_home.html
3. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps7027/products_installation_and_configuration_guides_list.html

Even that this won’t be useful for anyone, for sure that will help me in the future

Finished my first big implemention project :-)

Awesome, I arrived about a week ago from another country where I was working in a very interesting project. The project was to implement a new data and voice network, where basically I was the engineer responsible for the data network part Of course we had to migrated the data center for this new network with minimal impact… The customer was a bank so you can imagine the responsibility of it… But luckily it went just fine so at the end I felt that the customer really enjoyed our work, which of course it’s great, is very good for my “ego”!!!!

As soon as I arrived my boss assigned me a new task: a little participation on a big project, basically I should implement the load balance solution based on the “new” Cisco ACE 4710 products. At the beginning it was kind of difficult to start it due to the lack of my experience with this product, as also nobody in my company has much experience with this product so I was kind of alone in this task. Anyway, the solution is now up and running and I’ve gained a few more points on this new game

Both these experiences were great and I’m feeling very luckily because for the last couple of months I’ve been learning a lot!

The bad part of this, is that I’ve not been able to study anything, so righ now I’m exactly where I was on pursuing the  CCIE

Using PSP to read some PDFs files during dead times

A few days ago I was checking around my rss feeds and reading what others pursuing the same objective are doing when I faced this post. When I was reading that post, seemed to me a very good idea of having a portable ebook reader… Nice tip liquid6… If for some reason you hit this post, I want to thank you!

Since buying one of them, even on ebay was completely out of my possibilities, I started to think on a way to achieve something similar to it that could allow me some study time whenever I was stuck for some reason!?!

After some days, I started to think that most probably someone already thought on a solution for that using the PSP (PlayStation Portable), so my next step was to check with my best friend Google

After some time searching, browsing and testing I was able to find a good homebrew application to run on my (slim) PSP: bookr

It’s not perfect but it works just fine, so my best congratulations for the programmers!

That allows me to read my PDFs files any time any place, which is good because  some times we just have to wait and opening the laptop is not an option, so that’s a perfect time to study a little with the help of new best friend, PSP!!!  So basically me and my PSP became inseparables, wherever I’m going to, my “new” buddy goes with me

New Cisco Documentation

Brian McGahan from Internetwork Expert gives an excellent explanation about how to use the new Cisco Documentation!

Check out their free new Class-on-Demand for Understanding the Cisco Documentation, even if you are not preparing for the CCIE RS exam it’s a video that you should watch, if you regularly needs to search some kind of information about Cisco documentation!

Great, great resource!!!

Odom’s book – status 2

I’m really too behind considering to where I’ve planned to be right now… I’m still reading the Odom’s book, Chapter 14 – “Shaping and Policing “, but the worst is that since the third day in my new job role that I’ve not read a single page

I’ve the feeling that I’m having the big chance in my life, and I’m always thinking about the projects I’m working on, and even during the nights I can’t stop thinking about them… I don’t want to deliver a good project, I need to be superb!

The bad thing is my lack of concentration for studies, I’m really really at a low level of motivating for studies so I’m still stuck in the same page (476) for about a week!

Frankly I think I need to stabilize because too many changes are occurring in my life and in my daily routine, and I’m feeling kind of anxious about all of them, and I’m starting to feeling that can have a bad effect in the results that I want to achieve on those projects… First I thought that maybe could be the pressure, but It can’t be because I’m used to have pressure for a long time, considering that I had being in support for quit some time, so I do know what’s having a customer with a service down or even a network down, and calling us and putting pressure on us to solve their problem… nahh it’s not that… in the other side it’s possible to be kind of a pressure that I’m inflecting in myself or something like that…

Well, I think it’s better to relax a while and try to forget all of this for a while… I’m going to watch some TV and try have a good night of sleep, seems to me a good plan! Tomorrow it will be another day, and maybe I just need to adapt to my new routine!?!?!

BTW, about the status of my productivity chain… too bad to be truth, better not to touch on that matter

Changing the network configuration on your laptop

Just a little tip… Who works or plays in the network world regurlaly needs to change the network configuration on the laptop or whatever, to do some tests or for any other reason. Well, I was tired to always changing manually those settings but a few years ago when I was in a Juniper’s Firewalls (Netscreen) workshop, the guy that was leading it (sorry but I don’t remember his name) used a very nice tool, named as NetSetMan, it’s free and it works just fine, at least for me so since then I’ve been using it, so I thought that maybe this could help someone out there

Changes on the CCIE RS written exam

I received the January Newsletter of the Cisco Learning Network where is announced some changes on both written and lab CCIE RS exam. The two announced changes for the written will take effect on February 17th 2009 and basically consists on the following:

1. «Candidates will now be required to answer each question before moving on to the next question; candidates will no longer be allowed to skip a question and come back to it at a later time»;
2. «The overall exam score and the exam passing score will now be reported as a scaled score, on a scale from 300-1000. This change will not affect the difficulty of the current set of exams and will assure CCIE written exams will be consistent with Cisco’s other career certification exams».

Another brick wall down!

After almost 6 years since I left University I finally will have the opportunity that I’ve been waiting for… It’s official, I will integrate the Engineering team and without loosing more time I will take a big role in 2 new projects! I couldn’t imagined a better start to begin this New Year… Unless of course I had won the lottery, but unfortunately that didn’t happen! Eheh

Of course this will means less time for the CCIE studies, but in the other hand I will be playing a LOT with several subjects that are covered on CCIE R&S, and one thing leads to the other and vice-versa.

So, my plan for this week will be to finish the Odom’s book, in order to  start the Jeff Doyle’s book  (Routing TCP/IP Volume I) the week after.

Meanwhile I will need to adapt to my new environment, and that will also take me some time during the day that usually I used for studies, so right now I have to use very careful all my free time.

It’s a boy!

Last Friday, January 9th, me and my wife had the confirmation about the sex of our (first) baby… it’s a boy!! But most important is that he is growing very well so we have nothing to worry about! Yes!

Today he completes 22 weeks which means that he will complete the “normal” forty weeks on May 17th… But of course he may decide to come up to this world before that day

Last Friday it was a kind of a full of a day, since it was also my last day working in the Support! Next Monday I will meet with my managers (news and olders) to get to know what they will propose me to do during this year. I’m very anxious also about this, since I asked them to move me to the engineering team, so tomorrow is the day when  I’m getting to know if that will happens… or not!

Simultaneously, I’ve been trying to keep focus on the CCIE studies, but that haven’t been happening and I’m still reading the Odom’s book, so I’m too far of my 100 pages per day… right now I’m on chapter 13, Congestion Management  and Avoidance. Anyway, as far I’m going through this book I’m starting to feel more and more confident considering that I’ve been just refreshing some already known concepts, considering that nothing truly new came up. I think that only will happen when I reach the Multicast chapter, because it’s a subject that I never studied or worked with, so right now that is my weakness and is where I may think that I will need to spend (not wast!) more time.

So, considering the several points of views of my life, this year will be a very, very challenger year, since I will become a dady, I will changing my role at work, and I will be preparing myself for getting my magic numbers! Seems that I will have very fully days this year!

2009 has just begun…

And with it a lot of wishes ans hopes! Of course, I’m not different from everybody else

Following the FMI report for 2009, the world economic will be suffering the biggest recession since 1945. The USA that represents 1/4 of the world economic will be in recession, as also Europe and Japan, and those are the worst scenario that we could expected to have! How will this affect us/me? Well, this means that all the investments and needless costs (should?) will be postpone, which means less projects, less opportunities, less everything… it’s a vicious circle that creates a complex scenario that’s very difficult to overcome. I don’t want to look like pessimistic but we should always be prepared for the worst… while hope for the better…

It’s during this kind of periods that I think we should put more efforts, even more than before, in order to become better in our jobs, and with that more priceless to our employer, and ultimately for the market. That way we will be protecting us and our families, while we will be also helping our employer achieving better performances and revenues.

Particularly, the beginning of the new year is already meaning a big change in my career considering that I’ve been passing all the matters to my colleagues for the last 2 months, seems that finally I’m leaving the Support team in a few days! I don’t know if I will be doing what I wished/asked for, but if not at least, I will be more closer than ever to my goal… I don’t mind to take one step at a time!!!!

Anyway, next week or so I will have a meeting with my new manager and probably will know what I’m supposed to do for the next couple of months… I’m kind of anxious (very anxious to be honest), but meanwhile I’m going to concentrate my efforts for the written exam preparation because I’d like to cleared it ASAP

Odom’s book – status 1

As planed I’m reading the Odom’s book as my first step for the CCIE RS written test, although I’m too behind my objective of 100 ppd (pages per day), the book seems to be very “readable”, without too much details but a very good way to start

I’m in the middle of the OSFP chapter (around 300 pages), and to be honest till now I’ve not read anything that I didn’t know, but it’s a very good book to refresh the several subjects in a superficial way though. One is for sure, I’ll use this book once again to do some revisions right before the written exam.

But I’m too slowly, I need to speed up my reading, or else I won’t be able to do the written exam before April 2009… Better to study one or two more hours before I go to sleep!  Backing to lecture…

CCDE number scheme

Seems that even before the beginning of the new year the new CCDE certified is known… Apparently, Ryan Hicks is the first one, with the number: CCDE #20080001. If this is real a true story, is confirmed that Cisco will have a new number format completly different of the numbering scheme for CCIE tracks… Looking to this number scheme, I see that Cisco is not counting to certified more than 9999 CCDE per year, or am I missing something… Of course that I’m being ironic Anyway, I think that the number of the CCDE certificates per year will be much lesser than any CCIE track, even more, I think that there is a chance that a few years from now CCIE will be so considerable in the market as a CCNP is right now, and CCDE will take the CCIE’s place!?!?!?!

Productivity Secret

After my last post about my CCIE Written plan I’ve been wondering how I would be able to read all of the books till the end of March 2009, considering that all the books means around 6000 pages. So, in order to read all of them during 60 days, I’d need to read 100 of pages per day!

Today I was browsing on the Web looking for nothing really special when without knowing I hit an article about the Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret. After I read it all I started to think if I could use the Seinfield’s method to achieve my goal! I thought so… I already have a calender where I will mark with an X every day that I was able to finish 100 pages… The objective, of course is to have a chain of X’s!!!!

With that in mind and if everything goes according to my plan, on March 8th I should finished my first step for my preparation for the CCIE written test, but let’s see how it goes, since I’m expecting some changes either on my professional level as also on my personal life!

Christmas Holidays

Yesterday after I passed my last exam to achieve the remaining Data Center specialization that my company needed till the end of the year, I felt really relieved… I was very anxious to start my CCIE studies, so even yesterday I started to read the Odom’s book, as the first step of my CCIE written preparation!

I’ve been following some discounts that some vendors are offering, and seems that this period of time is the best time to buy some materials… Last week I was able to get a 20% of discount for the Self-Study Blended Learning Solution from IPexpert but right now I’m really out of budget, so unfortunately I was not able to take advantage of it

Yesterday night, I received the Internetwork Expert‘s newsletter also mentioning a great deal till the end of this year: 25% of discount! I was checking and that means around of 750$ of discount if I choose to buy their CCIE 2.0 Program… But again and for the same reason, it’s not possible for me right now to spend this kind of amount of money… grrr!

I will try to forget that, and will try to concentrate on the written preparation, so my plan is to finish reading the Odom’s book till the end of the year!

Merry Christmas for all!

CCIE Written plan

I’ve been following severals CCIE candidates during that last 2 years, lots of them already achieved their goal, others are still pursuing it, but from all of them and although we don’t know each other, I was/am able to learn something… that’s the beauty of Web 2.0!!!!

Recently, Jared Scrivener from IPExpert wrote the best post about the CCIE R&S Written test preparation, IMHO!

I totally agree with his approach, and right now I already was able to gathered all of them, some I already had them, others were lent me, and others I buy them. So, basically I already have all that I need for the CCIE Written exam preparation. I will read them all by the following order:

1. CCIE Routing and Switching Exam Certification Guide, 3rd Edition By Wendell Odom, Rus Healy, Naren Mehta
2. Routing TCP/IP, Volume 1, 2nd Edition By Jeff Doyle, Jennifer Carroll
3. CCNP BCMSN Official Exam Certification Guide, 4th Edition By Dave Hucaby
4. Internet Routing Architectures, 2nd Edition by Sam Halabi
5. Routing TCP/IP, Volume II By Jeff Doyle, Jennifer DeHaven Carroll
6. Developing IP Multicast Networks, Volume I By Beau Williamson
7. QOS Exam Certification Guide (IP Telephony Self-Study), 2nd Edition By Wendell Odom, Michael J. Cavanaugh

My plan is to do the written exam till the end of March 2009, but of course that will depend of my job… but to be honest I’d like to do it even during February considering that most of the topics I already have basic knowledge, but I only really know that time that I will need when I start to study all the topics one by one!

Cisco Data Center Specialization

It has been a while since I didn’t write on my blog, but I have been quite occupied with my work and my studies!

Some changes are occurring… At professional level I’m trying to change my role in my actual company so I have been passing all my current matters to a colleague of mine that will be supposed to substitute me… finally… But now I’m sure that will not happen till the next year for sure

At the same time, I was told that I must do 3 exams till the end of the year in order to achieve 2 Cisco certifications, that are considered very important to my company (Cisco Gold Partner):

1. Cisco Data Center Application Services Support Specialist
2. Cisco Data Center Networking Infrastructure Support Specialist

Which of course I do not mind of, on the contrary, I think I addict to study… My wife is always saying that she thought that after I finished my studies in University that I would stop study… I say that my job is like a surgeon, we need to be keep update!

About future plans, I’ve scheduled the remain exam to next Dec 23rd, for which I’m study it right now, will continue to prepare my replacement and hope that next year and could move on, and may take part of some interesting implementation projects, which is what I want to do in the future, basically I want to move from the Support role for the engineering/implementation role! But I will have to wait for next year to see what Santa will bring me

The only certain that I have right now is that, after Christmas I will start my CCIE studies, having my company’s support or not, because like Randy Pausch said, “Brick walls aren’t there to stop you, they’re there to prove how bad you want something”. So, I will follow his advise and if needed, I will prove that I really want to be a CCIE!!!!!!!!!!!

PIX-525 Password Recovery Adventure

Well, recently I had a “new” experience with a “old” PIX-525!?!?! Never seen, never done!

Seemed that for some reason our customer was unable to access to the enable configuration mode, so a Password Recovery should be done! Before went through it, I searched into Cisco site and found out this link.

So, since this PIX-520 had a floppy drive I should follow the respective procedure… However, I had to learn by the though way that this link is not well explained, which meant that I lost much more time that I was thinking at the beginning

So, I decided to add some explanations/clarifications to this procedure because I think that it’s not fully clear…

Here are the basic steps that you will have to go through in order to execute the password recovery procedure for PIXs with a Floppy Drive, which are contained in the link that I’ve mentioned earlier:

1. Get the appropriate password software image from Cisco
2. Copy the software image to a diskette
3. Place the diskette into the floppy drive
4. Reboot your PIX

Following are some important notes to have in mind during the procedure:

1. You will need a special software image from Cisco called npxy.bin, where the xy value represents the version of software that the PIX is running.
2. You will need the “rawrite.exe” application, that must be used to copy the binary image to a blank, formatted 3.5 floppy diskette. Note that, you cannot use the DOS copy command, or the Windows Explorer to copy the npxy.bin file to the diskette. The rawrite.exe program creates a bootable diskette that you’ll use for the password recovery procedure. After you copied the npxy.bin to the diskette using the rawrite application, you will not be able to read it under your system (e.g. Windows), but this is an expected behaviour.
3. During this copy, the rawrite application will ask you 2 questions, “Enter source file name”, “Enter destination drive”. Here is an example: C:>  rawrite.exe
   RaWrite 1.2 – Write disk file to raw floppy diskette
   Enter source file name: np63.bin
   Enter destination drive: a:
   Please insert a formatted diskette into drive A: and press Enter
   Number of sectors per track for this disk is 18.
   Writing image to drive A:. Press ^C to abort.
   Track: 78 Head: 1  Sector: 16 Done.

After you have prepared the floppy diskette, the procedure is indeed very simple and smoothly.

CCDA cleared!

On September 18th of 2008 I did well on my Cisco DESGN (640-863) and with that I’m very close to start the BIG hunt: CCIE R&S. Of course that since I had started studying for the CCNA exam, which was my first Cisco exam, I consider it was the beginning of everything, because since then I’ve been dreaming with becoming a CCIE

But from the other hand, the preparation for any CCIE lab exam is on a completely different level!

Right now, I’m CCNA, CCDA, CCNP, and CCIP. Till the end of November I want to do the ARCH exam in order to achieve the CCDP certification, BTW I already studying for it

So the idea is to finish the Professional certifications with CCDP and then start the CCIE R&S written, of possible even during December of 2008

I know that the CCIE R&S lab is a VERY difficult exam but although you might don’t known me well, I’m not the kind of guy that likes to lose, so I will only go for the exam when I feel that I will conquer the beast and won’t be defeat by it… For more than a year I’ve been thinking and designing my CCIE preparation,  I know what I need, how/where I can get it, how much does it costs, and what must be done to achieve it, thinking as an Network Architect and considering the PPDIOO approach let’s say that the next step is the Implementation phase, everything is well designed and documented in order to allow me achiving the ultimate objective, passing the CCIE at the FIRST attempt, so it’s just a matter of when I will start the journey and that’s my goal for 2009!!!!

But for now, first I need to clear the ARCH exam!

Certification versus Experience

Today I was browsing on the Web when I found out this post written by Jason Hiner in his blog. Many times the discussion about the certification versus experience arises… Well, I totally agree with what Jason have written and he gives a very good explanation about both point of views:

«7.) Certifications won’t always help you become a better technologist, but they can help you land a better job or a pay raise
Headhunters and human resources departments love IT certifications. They make it easy to match up job candidates with job openings. They also make it easy for HR to screen candidates. You’ll hear a lot of veteran IT pros whine about techies who were hired based on certifications but who don’t have the experience to effectively do the job. They are often right. That has happened in plenty of places. But the fact is that certifications open up your career options. They show that you are organized and ambitious and have a desire to educate yourself and expand your skills. If you are an experienced IT pro and have certifications to match your experience, you will find yourself to be extremely marketable. Tech certifications are simply a way to prove your baseline knowledge and to market yourself as a professional. However, most of them are not a good indicator of how good you will be at the job.»

I’m back!

Yes, I’m back from vacations

I always hate the first week after vacations, because there are always too many matters to be clean and a routine that must be retaken….urgh!

During my holidays I tried to stay away as possible from all the matters that could be related with my job, so I even tried to be away of the Internet… Of course that a person with my addiction could held it for 2 entire weeks, right?!? Only at the end of the second week, I read some funny emails, followed some blogs… and after getting known a little of the history behind a truly great mind of our time, Randy Pausch, I had to watch on Youtube his Last Lecture, as also some others videos about him.

All I can say is that he was really a Great Great man, simply as that! But from the other side is really really sad to see bad things happening to such a good people… On his last lecture, there is a phrase that I kept in my mind and I have been thinking about it over and over: “Brick walls aren’t there to stop you, they’re there to prove how bad you want something”. This is a kind of inspirational phrase that can be applied to everything in our life, isn’t it?

Although we never met, I really want to thank you for being who you were, in particular the inspiration that you still are able to transmit to others!

Thanks God… Vacations!!

Finally I’m on vacations… It had been some 2 hard weeks, with too much work load and with the ISCW exam I scheduled to last Friday, I was not able to sleep more than 5 hours/day… I was/am feeling very tired! Even my last work day, Friday 18-07-2008 was very challenger and stressfully. It started with my exam on the morning, which I did well, so now I’m also a CCNP (and a CCIP, which I already was)… After the exam I had to help a customer solving a problem involving a new ISR Cisco 2811, with some PC’s and IP phones connected to it. Then, during the afternoon I had to transfer all my open matters to a colleague of mine, and finally at the end, to finish in the hard and “best” way, I still had to join a maintenance window starting at 23:00 and ending at 07:00 of Saturday… Don’t you think that is a good way to end up before you leave on vacations?!?!?! Nice…

So now I will try to get rest, try to keep away from everything that is related with networking, or even with Internet… I don’t know if I will be able to stay away till the end of it but at least stay that way for 4/5 days

See you soon!

Discovering SDM

Following my preparation for the ISCW exam, I’m now getting used to SDM way of configuration… Just to do some configurations and get to knowing all the possibilities that this feature give us. where we need to go to configure each task. Particularly for the ISCW exam, I will concentrate my efforts on following tasks:

1. Firewall and ACL
2. VPN
3. Security Audit
4. Intrusion Prevention
5. Additional Tasks>AAA

So, today all the day (night) will be dedicated to try some of configurations using the SDM software…

Then, Wednesday and Thursday nights I will revise my notes and fill the blanks, and hope that Friday around 12:00, I may say that I finished already my CCNP! And then vacations for 2 weeks!!!

*error* C12k – “Non-zero CAN jam reset counter”

Just another note that I want to save, related with an issue that I had to deal a few months ago, after an IOS upgrade on a Cisco 12k.

After upgrading that particular 12k Cisco router, if we issued a “show version” command, a warning message was displayed, related with slot 29 (fan tray):
-> “WARNING: Non-zero CAN jam reset counter in slot 29″

Seems this counters keep track of failures occurred in the past and may show up even after the root cause has been fixed.

In a event like this, here is what we should do:
1- router# test mbus clear-jam-counts
2- After that, if the warning message still appears, most probably is due to a faulty hardware or card. Fortunately this wasn’t the case so the situation was cleared!!!

The Day The Routers Died

For everyone that works in the networking area, IPv6 is a topic we should follow closely. I’m dreaming the day where everything will have an IP (of course, not possible with IPv4), things like a door, a window, a fridge, etc. That way, we may connect remotely to them, check or/and change their state, for example, we may change the temperature of our fridge, check if you have locked the door, turn on/off the air conditioner before you arrive home, etc.

Meantime, it is also a topic that belongs to the blue print of the CCIE-RS certification, so this should be enough to keep me focusing on what is happening around in the world related with this subject. The discussing about IPv6 has started for a few years, and several experts have been giving their opinions about it. In one of the “Network World Chats”, Jeff Doyle (one of the gurus!), gave is opinion that I think is important to read.

In one of the RIPE meeting, Gary Feldman approached this topic in a very creative way. LOL He wrote a song named “The Day that Routers Died” and his performance is available here… At least, it is a funny way to talk about this subject!!!

Rommon feature – tftpdnld

tftpdnld is very cool feature available on Cisco devices (at least on some of them). It’s a very straight and effective way to upload an image to a Cisco device. I already used it a few times, just to give some examples:

1. Cisco 2610
2. Cisco 2851
3. RAN-SVC card

Steps that I’ve followed:

1. Connected my laptop to the device via Console cable
2. Connected my laptop to the device via Ethernet port
3. Configured the IP address 192.168.1.10 on my laptop
4. Started the TFTP server service on my laptop
5. Powered up the router and configured the following parameters:
6. rommon 1> IP_ADDRESS=192.168.1.9
7. rommon 2> IP_SUBNET_MASK=255.255.255.0
8. rommon 3> DEFAULT_GATEWAY=192.168.1.10
9. rommon 4> TFTP_SERVER=192.168.1.10
10. rommon 5> TFTP_FILE=c2600-j1s3-mz.123-23.bin
11. rommon 6> tftpdnld
12. rommon 7> boot

And Voilá, after around 5 minutes (depending on the image), the router was ready for configuration!

ISCW exam next 2008-07-18 (Friday)

It has been a hard week… These week I’m on call support (24h/7) which means that I have to be available after business hours (18:00 till 09:00 of the next day) for any urgent help that our customers may need!

The problem is that I was counting, special the time after normal business hours, to study for the ISCW exam, but it has not been possible since I was called during the last 3 nights, which meant that I had to work till 02:00AM

So please God allow me some free time for my studies, please, please, please!

I’m more concern about the SDM part of the exam, since I’m not used to work with that (cool and friendly app, I don’t have any problem at all with GUI’s) so I don’t have any experience with it, which could cost me some important points on the exam!?! But at least next week, if nothing really bad happens, I will be able to study after 18:00.

I already read the official certification book 2 times, watched a video from a vendor and also did some labs! At this time, I think I only need to revise some subjects and gain more experience with SDM!

So next week I will dedicated all my free time for the ISCW preparation (my wife will not like that one for sure!), considering that the day after the exam I will go on vacations for 2 entire vacations, iupi!

Why would I want to become a CCIE?

When I was finishing my graduation at university (IST) I finally knew the road that I prefer: Networking. Fortunately and after some time, I was able to start working on that area But first I started working as a system administrator in a bank (for almost 2 years) but during that time I had continued to looking for an opportunity in the network field. It took me almost two years since I finished my degree, that I was able to catch a “good” networking position job. Then and during the next 1.5 years I worked in a multinational company (Siemens), where I worked restrictively with Juniper devices, particular and most of the time with Netscreen firewalls. Finally and a little unexpectedly, a new opportunity showed up, this time to join a Cisco Partner, where I’m working since then, 100% dedicated to Cisco devices.

Considering my ultimate goal, and since I’ve already about 4 years of experience in this area, I think I know what it’s necessary to be done in order to become closest to that ultimate goal. After analyzing all the available options, I conclude that I should go for one of the following ones:

1. Master degree
2. CCIE certification

After considering the investment that I have to do and the ROI that I can get after I achieved it, I have decided to go for the CCIE R&S!

Of course, that I know this is a difficult goal to achieve, but from the other side it’s also very challenger, and as I read over there: “Life is hard so if you want to make it soft you have to work hard” So, let’s start to work hard on this! There are already around 15000 CCIE numbers over there, and those numbers are increasing faster than ever CCIEs Worldwide!

The way that I designed my plan of attack, was to go first for the CCIP track (because that covers my weak areas that were important for my work), then go for the CCNP track. I decided to complete these 2 tracks first because both of them covers the majority of the blue prints (but of course in a less, less deeper manner!) defined for the written and lab exam. By the way, the blue print for the lab exam is quiet different than the blue print for the written exam.

At the moment I’m studying for the ISCW exam to finish my CCNP track. Then vacations! After that I think that I will be prepared to start the preparation of the CCIE R&S written test, but it will always depending of my workload…

Keep in touch!

Hello world!

When we are studying a programming language, not that I’m a developer or something like that, I just learn some few programming languages at the university, but certainly you all noticed that in the process of learning it, we always have as first step: the creation of a “Hello world!” program. Seems that it’s the same when we create a blog, so, I decided to let it be my first post on the blogsphere!

The reason for I’ve decided to create a blog simply was, why not? Since that everyone has one, why not me?!? So here I am, sharing and registering some thoughts, experiences, ideas, etc.

The first thing when you decided to create a blog, it’s to choose a name for it! So I named it as “Default Route”. Why? Well, since I will probably posting just when I will have some free time and nothing else to do it (yeah, I’m really a very occupied person… ehehe, just kidding!), seemed to me a very logical name… Anyhow, I will use it almost for everything, but most of the time on things related network stuff, in particular related with my work experiences, my studies, some tricks or hints that I found while browsing the Web, and of course all the remain geek sutff, there will be no stick rule here!

Take care!