Today I am going to talk about the next step in the BGP. As we discussed on BGP Synchronisation and BGP multihop concept in my earlier articles. If you would like to have a look on that topics please check with the below links for your references.

BGP Synchronization Rule
BGP Load balancing ebgp-multihop

Some of the other articles on the BGP where we have BGP basics , BGP configurations on HP Routers and other articles are

BGP Basics Overview
Cisco Routers Sample BGP Configurations : Quick and Easy
Juniper Routers Sample BGP Configurations : Quick and Easy

In this article, I will take through the concept of the route maps and the configuration of the route maps in the BGP environment. All these configurations showing below will be on Cisco router.

Why we are using the BGP route maps, well route maps are used to control BGP routing information. Route maps are to define the condition by which routes are redistributed between routing domains.

Note : Route maps cannot be used to filter incoming BGP updates based on IP address. You can, however, use route maps to filter outgoing BGP updates based on IP address.

With the use of Continue reading

Today I am going to talk about one of the basic feature of the BGP named as BGP Synchronization. Your first question : what is BGP Synchronization ? 

BGP Synchronization means that the BGP should not advertise a route until all of the routers within the AS have learned about the route via an IGP. Hope it clears the concept. Let me explain you in another way. It means if you got a ebgp route from the external neighbor via router A (as a assumption) and you want to send it to router B which is connected to another ebgp neighbour, the routes can only be learned to router B once learned by internal routers via IGP protocol.

Let me take an topology and explanation to it and further we can go with the configuration where we will disable the Synchronization as we don't want the traffic to be known to the IGP protocol.

Fig 1.1- BGP Synchronization

Today I am going to talk about the BGP configuration where i will tell you about the load balancing between the two links connecting two service providers via BGP protocol. We have two different methods to achieve this one is use of ebgp multihop command or the other way is to use the ttl security command and both these methods are applicable on the BGP neighbor command.

In this article, We are going to take through the ebgp multihop command on to the neighbours between two service providers. I knew many of you already knew the load balancing concept in the BGP.

In my example, I am taking two serial links between two routers which shares the e-BGP information between them which means each router belongs to the specific AS number. Below is the topology for your reference.

Fig 1.1- use of ebgp multihop

In the above topology, Router A is in AS100 have two serial links connected to Router B which is in AS 200 and for both the links, e-bgp is sharing information.

Below is the configuration on Router A and Router B for your reference. All the IPs and the topology uses here has no relevance Continue reading

Today I am going to talk about the Voice VLAN. The Voice VLAN feature enables the VLAN to carry the voice traffic. So you have a switch with is connected to the IP Phones, it can be of Cisco Avaya or any other and is connected to the specified VLANs or you can name them Voice VLANs in your network. So when switch is connected to the IP phones, the connected switch sends the voice traffic with layer 3 IP precedence and Layer 2 class of service in short name as COS values which are set as default of value 5. That is the reason because the sound quality of an IP phone call can deteriorate if the data is unevenly sent, the switch supports quality of service (QoS) based on IEEE 802.1p CoS. 

Fig 1.1- Sample Topology- Switch and IP Phone

Today I am going to talk about the VPLS configuration on Cisco ASR 9000 series routers. Before we will start with the configuration part, lets talk about the basics of the VPLS.

Today I am going to talk about the configurations of DMVPN on Juniper routers and then associate Dynamic VPN with remote clients step by step. I talked about DMVPN earlier in my articles as well where i explained the basics of the DMVPN. I promised at that time that I will come up with the configurations of DMVPN on each and every vendor. Now I am coming up with the DMVPN configurations on Juniper routers first and I will come up with the configurations on Cisco, Huawei and HP routers later on.

Below are some of the links where i started with the DMVPN explanations
DMVPN Basics
DMVPN Vs IPSEC Basics
Quick Comparison: IPSEC vs DMVPN vs EasyVPN vs GETVPN


The configurations used here are for the demo purposes and has no relevance with any of the live and the enterprise networks. What kind of Topology it looks like, So i am pasting here the sample DMVPN topology and has no relevance with the configuration defining below. The configuration is just for your reference to take it further.

Fig 1.1- Sample DMVPN Topology

I am going to talk about the OSPF show commands in this article on different vendors which includes Cisco, Juniper, Huawei, HP and Arista Networks. These commands are working as per the device you have. Please let me know if you knew any other commands in general for OSPF in different platforms which includes Cisco, Juniper, Huawei, HP and Arista Networks.

Fig 1.1- Sample OSPF topology

Above is the sample topology and below are the sample OSPF show commands which will help you to troubleshoot OSPF in your network for the various platforms

Cisco OSPF show Commands

Today I am going to talk about the Juniper Q-Fabric solution which is an alternate approach to the Cisco SDA - Software Defined Access solution in the market. If you check the SDA in detail, Cisco uses Fabric network and on the top of it they are using LISP and VXLAN in the campus environment as a overlay protocols. On top of it there is Automation, Analytics and Authentication which is then connected via different APIs in the network.

Let's talk about the Q-fabric which is introduced by Juniper in the market. The so called Q-fabric of juniper is composed of multiple components working together as a single switch to provide high-performance, any-to-any connectivity and management simplicity in the data center or in the campus as well that depends where the requirement actually have.

QFabric System flattens the entire data center network to a single tier where all access points are equal, eliminating the effects of network locality and making it the ideal network foundation for cloud-ready, virtualized data centers.

With the help of QFabric System you can actually improves application performance with low latency and converged services in a nonblocking, lossless architecture that supports Layer 2, Layer 3, Continue reading

Today I am going to talk about the BGP configurations on the HP routers. I already posted the articles on the BGP configurations earlier where i defined the basic configurations on the Cisco and Juniper routers. Apart from these configurations I already put the basic information of the BGP as well. Below are some of the articles for which you can refer to study yourself step by step.

BGP Basics
BGP basics on Juniper Routers
BGP configurations on Cisco routers

Today I am going to have the basic configurations on HP routers with the topology. Below is the basic topology and the basic BGP configuration as below. The Topology and the IP addresses used here are only for the demo purposes and has no relevance with any of the live or enterprise networks.

Below is the demo topology showing the use of the HP routers where BGP is configured in the MPLS environment. This is just a example to showcase the topology. I will come up with the configurations on HP routers in the MPLS environment in later stage. As of now first we need to talk about the basic BGP on the HP routers and step by step we Continue reading

Today I am going to talk about the configuration of the Brocade router as Zone-Based Firewall. The first query in your mind will be that what is this zone based firewalls are ?

Well Zone based Firewalls are interfaces that are grouped into security “zones,” where each interface in a zone has the same security level.

In the Zone Based Firewalls, the packet-filtering policies are applied to the traffic flowing between the various zones in the network which is defined by the network administrator . So the concept is simple that the traffic flowing between interfaces that is there in the same zone is not filtered and flows freely because the interfaces share the same security level and the traffic flowing between the different zones will be filtered accordingly as security level can be different for different zones.

I will come up the Zone based Firewalls for Cisco soon in another article where i can share the configurations with the topology. This article is purely of Brocade where it is worked as Zone Based Firewall.

So below is the network where we defined three different zones which is defined by network administrator as per the demand in the network. The Zones are

• Continue reading

Today I am going to talk about the basic configuration of OSPF in Huawei Routers. There is already have a article on OSPF configuration on Cisco routers
OSPF Basic configuration Step by step on Cisco Routers

Apart from the above we have another articles on OSPF as shown below
OSPF Basics
OSPF Point to Multipoint Configuration- Cisco and Juniper
OSPF States
Difference between OSPF and RIP

Lets take an Topology here and below is the diagram for the configuration. We have the following topology as :

• Router A is connected between Area 1 and Area 0
• Router B is connected between Area 2 and Area 0
• Router C is a internal Area 1 Router
• Router D is a internal Area 2 Router
• Router E is a internal Area 1 Router
• Router F is a internal Area 2 Router

Fig 1.1-

Today I am going to discuss on the connectivity of the two datacenter and in the Active-Active state or you can called them as Connecting Multiple Active Datacenter with OTV and Dark Fiber.

First let's talk about the technologies, Cisco OTV is a Overlay Transport Virtualization technology and is used to extend the LAN segments across the datacenter or in other words you can say that extending the Layer 2 traffic over the Layer 3 network.

Note : Cisco OTV supports on Cisco Nexus 7K series switches and is not supported in Cisco Nexus 9K Switches.

Cisco OTV- Overlay Transport Virtualization technology
As I said, that Cisco OTV is the way to extend your layer 2 network across the datacenter via the Layer 3 links. OTV actually works on the MAC routing concept.

MAC and Routing ..What :)

Yes, control plane protocol in Cisco OTV is used to exchange MAC reachability information between network devices providing LAN extension functionality. This is a huge change from Layer 2 switching that traditionally leverages data plane learning, and it is justified by the need to limit flooding of Layer 2 traffic across the transport infrastructure. 

Layer 2 communications between sites Continue reading

Another Cyber-attack shocked Europe as many of the Firms like Airport industries, Banks, Government departments effected by this Petya Cyberattack. It was said that it is the beginning of the attacks and will have many more attacks in near future. Cyber security is one of the most demanding feature now a days who can save you from these cyber attacks.

Fig 1.1- Petya Cyberattack After Wannacry

Experts says, Petya Ransomware attack is just a test and will come up with more worse in the future. So you need to take care about the attacks by applying best security features like Cisco OpenDNS as a first line of security of the big and the other enterprise networks.

Many of the vendors come up with their inputs on the cyberattack where most of the industries across Ukraine, Russia and some part of Europe effected. Most of the firms from Danish and Spanish are effected as well. It may grow towards the Asia and the American region but still no footprints of these attacks.

It is said that ( the effected industries review)- The virus is believed to be ransomware - a piece of malicious software that shuts down a computer system and Continue reading

Today I am going to talk about the basic configurations of OSPF on Cisco routers step by step. OSPF is one of the link state routing protocol and I already wrote some of the articles on OSPF as below:

OSPF Basics- Theory
OSPF point to Multipoint Configuration- Cisco & Juniper
OSPF States
Difference between OSPF Vs RIP routing Protocols

From the above given links, you will able to understand much more about the OSPF. This article is all about the basic configurations on router about the OSPF.

Below is the basic topology of the OSPF which has not any relevance with the configuration part. The topology is just to show you what kind of network you have in the OSPF separated in the areas but with have one process id.

Fig 1.1- Sample OSPF Topology

There is no relevance of the IP addresses uses here with any of the live networks or with any of the enterprise networks.

Lets talk step by step in OSPF

In Step 1, I am talking about how to enable the OSPF routing protocol on Cisco routers by putting the OSPF process id. Make sure you know about the process id, It is similar Continue reading