CCIE Renewed Once More – Exam 400-101 v5.1

I’ve given in to the Sunk Cost Fallacy once more: I’ve renewed my CCIE. There was a lot of foot dragging this time around, and I only had four months to spare. But it’s done, for another year. Here’s some quick notes on my prep, and thoughts on the exam.

Preparation

I decided to sit the CCIE R&S Written Exam to renew. This was the easiest route for me. I don’t use Cisco products on a day to day basis, so certifying with a different track would be very hard for me.

The version hasn’t changed since the last time I sat it. It’s still 400-100, v5.1. The only difference is that the “Evolving Technologies” section has been tweaked a little. Think Automation toolsets, Cloud concepts, etc.

I used the study guide I purchased last time from “CCIE in 8 Weeks”. I also re-subscribed to their online practice exams. I meant to only subscribe for 3 months, but…I couldn’t get motivated to do this exam. I ended up paying for another 3 months access, before I finally knuckled down and did the study while I was on vacation. I flicked through my old CCIE flashcards a few times too.

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L2TP/IPSec Remote Access VPN on VyOS

Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) is a tunneling protocol used to support virtual private networks (VPNs). It does not provide any encryption or confidentiality by itself. Therefore, it is often combined with IPSec that is used for encapsulation of L2TP packets between the endpoints. Securing L2TP using IPsec is standardized in RFC3193. The tutorial provides remote Access L2TP/IPsec configuration for VyOS network OS.

So far, I have tested L2TP/IPSec configuration on VyOS 1.2.0 with an Android phone as configured as L2TP/IPSec client. However, I have not been successful, ended with the error message below. The same L2TP/IPSec configuration works for the legacy 64-bits Vyatta 6.6, therefore, it is used in our lab, instead of VyOS.

xl2tpd[1809]: Maximum retries exceeded for tunnel

We employ Cisco vIOS-L3 in order to simulate a SOHO router. The router is connected to the Wifi router Access_Point (172.17.100.1/26) with an associated wireless client (Android phone IP 172.17.100.5/16). The L2TP/IPSec client is running on the phone. The client is configured to connect to the VPN gateway running on Vyatta (10.0.1.1/24) in order to reach the server LAN subnet (10.0.0.0/24) within L2TP/IPSec VPN tunnel Continue reading

How HPE Greenlake Flex Capacity Enables Pay-Per-Use IT

HPE GreenLake takes IT consumption in a new direction. It offers a catalog of pre-designed, end-to-end solutions, such as Big Data, Backup, and Database with EDB Postgres, that simplify the IT experience by delivering a cloud-like consumption model managed for your on-premises environment.Outcome-based IT consumption delivers a range of benefits that you can’t get from solutions solely built from scratch or bought from the public cloud. Delivering the best of both worlds, HPE GreenLake enables: Faster time to value with solutions that are ready quickly and evolve ahead of your needs Better economics with a flexible, pay-per-use model that offers simplicity and financial clarity On-premises for proper control over compliance, performance, and security Simplified IT that’s operated for you to free up resources and add business value Because pre-designed workload solutions do not fit every business, HPE also offers fully customizable infrastructure modules that deliver greater technology choice depending on IT preferences. With HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity, you design your own infrastructure solutions, selecting from a broad range of HPE and partner technologies, as well as optional services that span your infrastructure to your apps and workloads.To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: Case Study: Building Connectivity on Azure Stack

In this short video, partners from HPE, The Sourcing Company, and Interxion describe how they provide customers with increased agility, enhanced innovation, and cost control with the right mix of private and public cloud to handle all workloads. Read more information about HPE ProLiant for Azure Stack here.To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: True Hyperconvergence at Scale: HPE Simplivity With Composable Fabric

Many hyperconverged solutions only focus on software-defined storage. However, many networking functions and technologies can be consolidated for simplicity and scale in the data center. This video describes how HPE SimpliVity with Composable Fabric gives organizations the power to run any virtual machine anywhere, anytime. Read more about HPE SimpliVity here. Related links:To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: HPE Synergy For Dummies

Business must move fast today to keep up with competitive forces. That means IT must provide an agile — anytime, anywhere, any workload — infrastructure that ensures growth, boosts productivity, enhances innovation, improves the customer experience, and reduces risk.A composable infrastructure helps organizations achieve these important objectives that are difficult — if not impossible — to achieve via traditional means, such as the ability to do the following: Deploy quickly with simple flexing, scaling, and updating Run workloads anywhere — on physical servers, on virtual servers, or in containers Operate any workload upon which the business depends, without worrying about infrastructure resources or compatibility Ensure the infrastructure is able to provide the right service levels so the business can stay in business In other words, IT must inherently become part of the fabric of products and services that are rapidly innovated at every company, with an anytime, anywhere, any workload infrastructure.To read this article in full, please click here

BrandPost: Software-Defined Helps Tackle Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Challenges

As hybrid cloud deployments enfold, organizations can expect to encounter some long-term challenges. In a recent podcast, Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions and John Abbott, Vice President of Infrastructure and Co-Founder of The 451 Group, discussed the growth of hybrid cloud and the challenges enterprises are facing.Solving the complexity problem  As organizations seek a mix of hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure, they are implementing cloud in a way that wasn’t anticipated years ago. “CAPEX to OPEX, operational agility, complexity, and costs have all been big factors,” explained Abbott. “Also, on-premises deployments continue to remain a critical function. You can’t just get rid of your existing infrastructure investments that you have made over many, many years.”To read this article in full, please click here

Some Raspberry Pi compatible computers

I noticed this spreadsheet over at r/raspberry_pi reddit. I thought I'd write up some additional notes.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jWMaK-26EEAKMhmp6SLhjScWW2WKH4eKD-93hjpmm_s/edit#gid=0


Consider the Upboard, an x86 computer in the Raspberry Pi form factor for $99. When you include storage, power supplies, heatsinks, cases, and so on, it's actually pretty competitive. It's not ARM, so many things built for the Raspberry Pi won't necessarily work. But on the other hand, most of the software built for the Raspberry Pi was originally developed for x86 anyway, so sometimes it'll work better.

Consider the quasi-RPi boards that support the same GPIO headers, but in a form factor that's not the same as a RPi. A good example would be the ODroid-N2. These aren't listed in the above spreadsheet, but there's a tone of them. There's only two Nano Pi's listed in the spreadsheet having the same form factor as the RPi, but there's around 20 different actual boards with all sorts of different form factors and capabilities.

Consider the heatsink, which can make a big difference in the performance and stability of the board. You can put a small heatsink on any board, but you really need larger heatsinks and possibly fans. Some boards, Continue reading

Weekend Reads 053119

There were over 90 protests nationwide recently against the coming 5G technology, mostly related to health concerns. The protesters have some of the facts wrong about 5G and that makes it easier for policymakers to ignore them. —Doug Dawson

The public cloud is dampening demand for data center capacity and leading to closures, consolidation and a big rethink on data center ownership. Right? Not quite, according to the latest Uptime Intelligence research. —Rhonda Ascierto

After some years of accelerating IPv6 deployment, we are now into a period of slower growth and it’s not clear where we are heading. It is therefore interesting to try to predict the future of IPv6 over the coming years. —Christofer Flinta

Information security must be about far more than simple prevention. Preventing cyberattacks is a critical component of modern information security, however, on its own prevention is inadequate. Understanding dwell time is useful in understanding why. —Trevor Pott

Several subjects have come up with the past week that all come down to the same thing: your threat model is wrong. Instead of addressing the the threat that exists, you’ve morphed the threat into something else that you’d rather deal with, or which is easier to Continue reading

VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC 1.7: New NSX Features

The latest version of VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC (SDDC Version 1.7) was released recently and is being rolled out to customers. In this post, I’ll discuss the new NSX Networking and Security features.

Looking at the features released in VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC 1.7 in the below diagram, we can see the features can be grouped into three categories: Connectivity, Services, and Operations. Further below I go into more detail in each of these specific NSX features. For a complete list of all new features in VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC 1.7 in general, check out the release notes here.  Continue reading

BrandPost: Cloud Networking Provides a Digital Home Away from Home

Today’s travelers expect all the technology amenities of home while on the road. That includes, by a wide margin, better Wi-Fi than hotels typically offer, according to a recent YouGov/ALICE survey. The survey found that 59% of guests want better Wi-Fi and that 34% of them would trade a business center for better in-room tech.That’s not surprising in the digital age. But how can hotels—particularly those built when push-button phones were state of the art in telecommunications—keep up with rising consumer expectations around technology?The answer lies in flexible, easy-to-install-and-manage software-defined networking (SD-WAN), in this case from Cisco Meraki.To read this article in full, please click here

Reducing Barriers: A Recap of the Webinar on Digital Accessibility

Accessibility for persons with disabilities isn’t just for people who are disabled. It benefits everyone – and there’s even a business case for it, too. That was the key message of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) event organized by the Internet Society Accessibility Special Interest Group (A11ySIG). The webinar was A11ySIG’s very first, only a month after its formation!

The purpose of GAAD is to get people talking, thinking, and learning about digital access and inclusion (including web, software, mobile, etc.) and about people with different disabilities.

The webinar “Digital Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities” was facilitated by A11ySIG’s president, Muhammad Shabbir Awan. Dan York, the Internet Society’s Director of Web Strategy was a guest speaker together with the founders of A11ySIG.

Joly MacFie, A11ySIG’s admin, outlined the historical context of the Special Interest Group, which grew from the Disability and Special Needs Chapter, the first non-geographical Chapter. Joly paid tribute to the Chapter’s Cynthia Waddell, who was a pioneer of web accessibility and an inspiration to many.

Dan York reinforced the Internet Society’s vision “The Internet is for Everyone” and stated its goal for accessibility across its websites. He explained that the work being done includes:

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