I hope to clear the air on what a vendor certificate (or any certificate, such as a degree/diploma/etc) is, and is not. Too many times have I heard/seen people place too little or too much stock in the single piece of paper. What a certificate is A certificate, simply put, is proof that on a […]
The post The Value of Certifications appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ken Matlock.
I had an opportunity recently to sit in a Cisco onePK lab and it opened my eyes to exactly what Cisco is doing with onePK, why it’s going to be so important as Software Defined Networking (SDN) continues to gain traction, and why onePK is different than what anyone else is doing in the industry.
onePK is a key element within Cisco’s announced Open Network Environment SDN strategy. onePK is an easy-to-use toolkit for development, automation, rapid service creation and more. It enables you to access the valuable data inside your network via easy-to-use APIs.
Source: www.cisco.com/go/onepk
Since having my own eyes opened, I’ve been pondering how to explain my new found understanding in a way that others will grasp. In particular to business decision makers (BDMs) and technical decision makers (TDMs). I’m really, really, struggling to come up with a good analogy for BDMs. I’m still working on that one. Surprisingly, I’m also struggling to come up with a sound analogy that will work with the majority of TDMs that I know. Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised at that since all the TDMs I deal with are on the infrastructure side of things (networks, storage, Continue reading
At Cisco Live US 2013, we were able to get together a nice group of folks to share their opinions on the announcements we found most interesting. You’ll know some of them from Tech Field Day, an event Greg and I have been a part of several times. This show is good conversation with smart […]
The post Show 153 – Cisco Live 2013 Roundtable Discussion with Tech Field Day appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.
I had an opportunity recently to sit in a Cisco onePK lab and it opened my eyes to exactly what Cisco is doing with onePK, why it's going to be so important as Software Defined Networking (SDN) continues to gain traction, and why onePK is different than what anyone else is doing in the industry.
onePK is a key element within Cisco's announced Open Network Environment SDN strategy. onePK is an easy-to-use toolkit for development, automation, rapid service creation and more. It enables you to access the valuable data inside your network via easy-to-use APIs.
Source: www.cisco.com/go/onepk
Since having my own eyes opened, I've been pondering how to explain my new found understanding in a way that others will grasp. In particular to business decision makers (BDMs) and technical decision makers (TDMs). I'm really, really, struggling to come up with a good analogy for BDMs. I'm still working on that one. Surprisingly, I'm also struggling to come up with a sound analogy that will work with the majority of TDMs that I know. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised at that since all the TDMs I deal with are on the infrastructure side of things (networks, storage, Continue reading
In the mood for some self analysis and reflection around your career and your employer? Good. I’ve strong feelings about employment in general and even stronger ones around balancing it with your personal life (I wouldn’t dare say private any more) and making work work for you. I’m definitely in the work to live camp. […]
The post Your Career – Enemies Within and Without appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.
This morning I read an article in which the writer thought that wireless security was too inconvenient and difficult, so he simply disabled it, leaving his network wide open. He was tired of his complex password being too hard for guests to use and made the comparison that they didn’t have to use these kinds […]
The post Network Security and the N00b Meter appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Mrs. Y.
Unfortunately the equipment I was using didn’t support PVST+ (Sup2Ts in 6503 Catalyst Switches), so I skipped testing UplinkFast and BackboneFast as these are incorporated in 802.1w (RSTP) and 802.1s (MSTP, which is basically an extension of RSTP).
For this test, SwitchD will be treated as a Rogue Switch being attached to the network. Initially, SwitchC’s port 2/1 is configured as an access port with only PortFast enabled.
*Jul 5 22:02:06.023: %SPANTREE-2-BLOCK_BPDUGUARD: Received BPDU on port GigabitEthernet2/1 with BPDU Guard enabled. Disabling Continue reading
This Masterclass article series aims to provide in-depth technical information on the installation, usage and operation of the classic and supremely popular tcpdump network traffic analysis program including alternatives, running tcpdump as a process, building expressions, understanding output and more. I’ve covered the Basics and Parameters previously and here I move on to filter Expressions; […]
The post Masterclass – Tcpdump – Expressions appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.
At the beginning of 2013 I was asked to join the Juniper Ambassador team; essentially an outreach program to those active in social channels including the J-Net community. Whilst I was appreciative of the vendor swag; it wasn’t until the community manager had the bright idea for us to collaborate on a book did it […]
The post Ambassadors Cookbook for Enterprise now available appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Glen Kemp.
We’ve all been there – a recent re-org or maybe your boss gets promoted or your boss leaves and you end up with a new manager. As I have mentored people over the years, I’d say that the most common reaction is “Crud! I have to start over.” But once you get past that moment […]
The post You have a new manager – now what do you do? appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Michael Bushong.
Note: Updated October 24, 2013, to fix some editorial nits, and to clarify the intended point that it is the combination of a working mark/drop algorithm with flow scheduling that is the “killer” innovation, rather than the specifics of today’s fq_codel algorithm.
Latency (called “lag” by gamers), once incurred, cannot be undone, as best first explained by Stuart Cheshire in his rant: “It’s the latency, Stupid.” and more formally in “Latency and the Quest for Interactivity,” and noted recently by Stuart’s 12 year old daughter, who sent Stuart a link to one of the myriad “Lag Kills” tee shirts, coffee bugs, and other items popular among gamers.
Out of the mouth of babes…
Any unnecessary latency is too much latency.
Many networking engineers and researchers express the opinion that 100 milliseconds latency is “good enough”. If the Internet’s worst latency (under load) was 100ms, indeed, we’d be much better off than we are today (and would have space warp technology as well!). But the speed of light and human factors research easily demonstrate this opinion is badly flawed.
Many have understood bufferbloat to be a problem that primarily occurs when a saturating “ Continue reading
I dont doubt that vendors have a tight line to walk when it comes maintaining their brand integrity. To build up a skill set in the market the certification teams put in many weeks developing a program that is relevant, useful and achieves the goals required. Followed by countless hours reviewing each of the certifications regularly to ensure integrity. There is the added benefit that these certifications build of community of loyal followers – The Cisco and VMWare certification programs are evidence to this.
I personally have been involved in the development, technical review, and exam rewrite process and I can attest to the effort that the certifications teams go to to ensure the validity and integrity of their offerings. Weeding out sources of brain dumps and NDA violations and other activities that threaten this integrity work becomes an on going commitment that requires many hours of dedication.
On the other side of the line is the requirement to have the partners representing the vendor to maintain a level of skills and customer satisfaction. This ensures that when the brand is represented in the market that it will be delivered by the most skilled people capable of delivering the Continue reading
I spend a lot of time commuting. During that commute, I listen to technical podcasts and lots of different leadership and career oriented audio books. One of the topics that experts seem to have differing opinions on is defining what is good enough. I’ve heard many refer to Nike’s ad campaign, Just Do It, and […]
The post The Illusion of Perfection appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Paul Stewart.
Recently the New York Times posted an article stating that while Edward Snowden was at the NSA, he learned to be a hacker by taking a CEH course and getting the certification. But the certification, listed on a résumé that Mr. Snowden later prepared, would also have given him some of the skills he needed […]
The post Snowden Media Douchebaggery appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Mrs. Y.
The Cisco ASA firewall has supported multiple security contexts since version 7 was released in 2005. This feature allows you to configure multiple independent logical firewalls in the same ASA hardware. When version 8.5(1) released in July 2011, support was added for mixed mode firewalls in which both routed and transparent contexts can reside on […]
The post Cisco ASA Virtualization with Mixed-Mode Security Contexts appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Eyvonne Sharp.
There is one thing that anybody who has been in a room with me longer than 5 minutes can tell you – I am not a smart guy! I have lots of smart friends. I am not one of them. Sometimes I feel like I’ve done more stupid things, more often than I would like to admit, and its only that I have been stupid enough often enough that I have eventually learned “dont do that!“.
A couple of things have happened over the past few weeks that made me think about “The Smartest Guy in the Room”, and I thought I would share a few incomplete thoughts on the matter.
Back on June 18, Matthew Norwood (who I would nominate for the award of “Nicest man in Network Blogging and Puppeteering”) wrote this blog post about consulting. In this post he talks about how as a consultant sometimes you have to accept that you are not the smartest guy in the room. At first this may seem odd, especially because usually our customers are paying us lots of money because we are experts. Funnily enough, on consulting engagements my job is more “I Continue reading
