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Wireshark Certified Network Analyst !!

Well, I finally took the time to buckle down and take the WCNA – Wireshark Certified Network Analyst. Once I finished up with the exam I can happily say I successfully past the exam which I have to admit is pretty cool. Protocol Analysis is definitely an interesting set of technologies to learn & know, it is also […]

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Wireshark tid-bit: Use the command line

Many of us are familiar with the GUI version of Wireshark, but believe it or not but there are also a slew of other command line based utilities that enhance Wireshark and also aid us in capturing and analyzing data. Let’s take a quick look at some of these tools. tshark – This is pretty […]

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Wireshark tid-bit: Using profiles & Coloring rules

Well, my first draft got lost in the cloud so let’s try this again! The more you use Wireshark and the more familiar you get with protocols / packet analysis the quicker you realize what you may need to for.  Luckily for us, if we know what we are looking for we can configure Wireshark […]

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Networking Field Day – Afterwards – Brocade SDN

I wanted to start off stating Brocade broke one of the biggest barriers with getting involved with SDN and labbing out the technology. Brocade offers a free download of their Vyatta Controller! With this free download you can run a 5x node SDN network for one year, included with 60x days of support! This eliminates a […]

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The two types of people that go to Cisco Live.

With Cisco Live US ( #CLUS ) 2015 slowly approaching, It’s becoming a popular topic and the question comes up, “Do you think it’s worth going to CLUS?” Like most questions I answer I start with “Well, it kind of depends what you are going for”, CLUS is a big event and there is plenty […]

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Networking Field Day – Afterwards – Cisco ACI

I first need to give a shout out to @_vCarly and her amazing skills at the white board, I only wish my white boarding design were half clean as that! If @_vCarly were to a host a white boarding session at CLUS this year I would most likely attend! I suppose we should discuss the […]

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Cisco’s EoS announcement for the ASA CX Modules and Cisco Prime Security Manager

How about that, 2 blogs posts in one day! However this is going to a real quick post so it shouldn’t count but hey there is a picture so it’s legit! I caught wind of this announcement on twitter late last night and just needed to put a small post about it. Mainly because some […]

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Networking Field Day – Afterthoughts – New SolarWinds features.

  One thing I really liked about SolarWinds was the fact they were the first vendor to start with a white board discussion. Being a network engineer I am a big fan of drawing boxes and lines on a white board. To me it is a more engaging way to have a presentation compared pre-built […]

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Networking Field Day – Afterthoughts – NetBeez & Wireless Monitoring

Well, Networking Field Day 9 has ended, it was a very quick, fun and informative three days. I have to start by giving NetBeez a lot of respect for the great presentation, and I that same I almost want to apologize for the suggestions and feedback that we (All the delegates) bombarded them with during […]

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Networking Field Day 9 First look: Generation-SDN -Part 1

If there is one topic prevalent at Networking Field Day #9 it is SDN, well okay maybe this is one of the most prevalent topics in the networking industry right now. Among many the presenters at Networking Field Day #9 quite a few of them bring some flavor of SDN or SDN-WAN’s to the table. A few […]

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Networking Field Day 9: First look- Monitor the network with NetBeez?!

With Networking Field Day #9 quickly approaching, I can’t help but start digging into the presenters and see what they currently offer. In reviewing the presenters at Networking Field Day #9, one of them NetBeez offers an interesting take on network monitoring. I must admit this is one of the presenters I needed to do a little […]

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Field Trip: Networking Field Day

Very excited to announce I was invited to participate in Networking Field Day #9. The first question is: What is Networking Day? Well it is an event where we (networkers) get to participate, listen, and interact with various different vendors. And I’ll be joining a great group, a few of which I’ve met at the […]

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Hello 2015!

Hard to be believe 2014 is gone and and 2015 is here! Yea I know we are already a few days into 2015 but hey for some reason I still hear people saying “Happy New Year”, much like I still Christmas decorations out. So what’s in store in for 2015!? Well we are going to […]

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Packet Flow with FirePower.

As I was going through some CiscoLive365 sessions (Remember CiscoLive365 is great!) just this last weekend I came across the slides for BRKSEC-2028 – Deploying Next Generation Firewall with ASA & Firepower services. Unfortunately there is no video for this session yet but the presentation slides are there and luckily the slides are detailed enough so […]

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Wireshark tid-bit: Quickly gathering the contents of a PCAP.

I don’t know about you but when I find myself performing packet captures and analyzing PCAPs I usually only know the symptoms of the issue I am attempting to troubleshoot. IE: Connection timeouts, slow response, long transfer times, etc. I usually don’t know much more than that, only in rare occasions do I get a […]

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Wireshark Tid-bit: What does the IP Identification field tell us?

There are many different fields in the various headers we get to examine during packet analysis, one of the most overlooked field is the IP Identification field. This simple 16-bit field is displayed in Hex and has a few different uses, most importantly: Identifies fragmented packets. Identifies the individual packets that the sender transmits. How does […]

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Wireshark tid-bit: Packets larger than the MTU size.. why, how?

Ever so often when I was doing some packet analysis I would come across systems that were sending packets larger the Ethernet MTU of the segment. Or so I thought those packets were getting transmitted, eventually I finally figured out why I was seeing packets with an increased packet size. The answer was large segment/send […]

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But I’ve got an ‘Excellent Signal’!!?

Ever so often I find myself troubleshooting some type of wireless related issue, and while wireless issue’s vary from Slow performance Clients can’t connect Poor voice performance Or even random disconnects, the list is endless. However one of the common things I hear during the troubleshooting process is without a doubt along the lines of: […]

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End-Of-Sale date announced for various Cisco IPS’s

Since Cisco started announcing the Sourcefire FirePower  (Hardware & Software) modules earlier this year I have been wondering what was going to happen to their existing IPS line. Looks like the End Of Sale announcement was recently made, with an EoS date in April of next year. The EoX announce affects both the IPS Modules […]

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Monitoring OTV – Overlay Transport Virtualization

If there is anything I find more enjoyable then doing some type of network design or writing on whiteboard, it’s thinking about  network management and creating some new alert or poller that let’s me know when something changes that shouldn’t. It would seem over the last few years Data Center technologies have really become popular: […]