Let's talk About Networks, by Jerome Tissieres
I have the honor to have my blog selected as a finalist in the Best Cert Study Journey category of the IT Blog Awards, hosted by Cisco. Voting is now open to everyone until January 4th, here! Here, in my opinion, are my two best articles related to the category “Best Cert Study Journey”: My journey to network programmability and automation 6 CCIE strategy mistakes Thank you in advance for your support! Did you like this article? Please share it…
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Recently, my license for Cisco VIRL expired and I wanted to test alternatives to have a lab on my laptop. I got used to install the client and the server parts of VIRL on my laptop, to not have to worry about connectivity when I want to do a lab or a demo to a colleague or a customer. With the exceptional opportunities of the different cloud solutions actually, this is probably not the best solution, but it suits me well for a small lab and I’d like to continue…
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After doing a lot of Python tutorials and spending time “playing” with Postman and API calls during my journey to network programmability and automation, I wanted to make a concrete example, from zero to a visible result. Since I love photography and my country is full of beautiful but not well-known places, I chose to do the following: Take the complete list of municipalities, towns and villages in my country. Choose one location per day, randomly, in this list. Search and download a photo of this place on Google map, including…
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As I wrote on my recent post here, I was involved into a project to implement a Meraki MX into the Azure Cloud. This project also includes a migration phase with site-to-site VPN tunnels between Meraki MX and Cisco ASA. Even if the “Non-Meraki VPN peers” are supported on the Meraki MX, you may have some surprises with the Cisco ASA. Here are some tips to avoid problems and save you time. The tests below have been made with MX version 14.31 (in beta at the time I write this…
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Recently, I was involved into a project where we had to deploy a Cisco Meraki vMX100 into Microsoft Azure cloud and build site-to-site and clients VPNs. The setup process on Azure is relatively simple, however, I lost quite a lot of time on basic issues because the documentation provided by Cisco is not 100% accurate. Here are some tips and tricks to save you time.
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The IPv4 full BGP table size is at around 725000 prefix now. This may cause problems for companies who do not have the resources to update or upgrade their edge routers. But, except for Internet transit providers, who does really need to get the full IPv4 BGP table today? And what are the alternatives? Let’s see that in details with some use-cases.
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Here is my journey to start learning network programmability and automation, and how I get the Cisco network programmability specialist certification (300-550 exam). In this post, I give you the links towards all the resources which I used to study. Back in 2015: SDN, new fancy buzzword or a paradigm shift? I started this journey in 2015, when at the Cisco Network Innovation Summit in Prague, I saw a presentation of Tim Szigeti about dynamic QoS with Cisco APIC-EM. That was the trigger for me, after a few years reading…
Read More...After being six times at Cisco Live Europe between 2009 and 2016, this year my management allowed me to go to Cisco Live US. I registered last week and now I am starting to see some rumors about the customer appreciation event (CAE) and the keynote speakers. Customer Appreciation Event First rumor read here and there, the CAE of Wednesday June 13th, will be at Universal Studios Orlando. From 7:30 PM to 11:30 PM, CAE participants will have exclusive access to the theme park, including the rides and attractions. The event will…
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On Cisco routers, by default the BGP protocol will not do load-sharing – and even less unequal cost load-sharing – across multiple links, for traffic to the same eBGP destination with different AS-path. Let’s see how we can change this. We can configure the command: “maximum-paths n”, but it only works if the weight, local-pref. and AS-path attributes are the same across the different uplinks. So how can we do load sharing if we are multihomed to different ASes? In that case, we must use the BGP command: “bgp bestpath as-path multipath-relax”. VIRL lab…
Read More...I passed the CCIE R&S written exams version 4.0 and 5.0, studied for the lab exams for both versions with workbooks and mock labs from many vendors such as INE, IPexpert (closed today), Narbik Kocharians / Micronics Training and Cisco expert-level training. I attempted the CCIE R&S lab exam once on version 4.0 and three times on version 5.0. Now I would like to share with you my experience about the CCIE strategy and especially the mistakes to avoid to have the best chance to get your numbers.
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The Cisco Embedded Event Manager or Cisco EEM is a software component of Cisco IOS, IOS-XR, and NX-OS that provides real-time network event detection and onboard automation. EEM allows you to automate tasks, perform minor enhancements and create workarounds and can makes life easier for network operators by tracking and classifying events that take place on a network device and providing actions options for those events.
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Recently, a customer called me to configure Netflow on these routers because he just installed NetFlow Analyzer software from ManageEngine. This software is an “all in one” NetFlow collector, database, WebUI software, able to build pretty nice reports. In my opinion, Netflow is one of the absolutely required software to have a good visibility when you operate a network.
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Cisco Meraki access-points can operate as mesh repeaters, which allows them to extend the wireless network range. Since repeaters also support wired clients plugged into their wired interface, a repeater can be used to bridge a remote LAN segment back to the main network. This article explains how the LAN can be extended via a wireless bridge, including limitations and requirements. There are 3 supported designs for extending the LAN via wireless mesh.
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Configuring a LACP link aggregation, EtherChannel, or port-channel, or Eth-trunk between Huawei and Cisco switch is something very common. But since the configuration syntax between the two vendors is different, it can be confusing. In this article, I will show how to configure a LACP port-channel – called Eth-trunk on Huawei – properly between a Cisco catalyst switch running IOS or IOS-XE and a Huawei switch, model 6700 in this case.
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Wireless mesh networking is included and enabled by default in every Cisco Meraki AP. The goal is to create a self-healing network that is resilient to cable and switch failures. But, how does it works exactly? How does an AP choose between the existing neighbors? How can we monitor the status and performances of a mesh link? And as it is enable by default, is it possible to deactivate this feature?
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