Technology

In this post I would like to give a demonstration of using the Auto-Tunnel Mesh group feature.

As you may know, manual MPLS-TE tunnels are first and foremost unidirectional, meaning that if you do them between two PE nodes, you have to do a tunnel in each direction with the local PE node being the headend.

First off, lets take a look at the topology I will be using for this example:

Everything works, and we the math is right, we should see an NHRP shortcut being created for the Spoke to Spoke tunnel:

I am fortunate enough, to be able to goto Cisco Live US! again this year.

Last year was such an experience, that my hopes are really high for this year as well.

I will be arriving on Friday the 8th and leaving on the 15th. Not a long stay this time, but it was what my boss could arrange for.

Wow, what a busy month this has been!

So I started my new job on February 1st and thus far, everything has been really great.

My new coworkers are very friendly and helpful.

I’ve spent the better part of february, trying to get to grips with the SP network I will be focusing on from now on. Im still not where I want to be yet, but im getting there. One of the guys I will be working very closely with, started cleaning up the network when he was hired 9 months ago and he’s done a really great job with what he’s had to work with.

This post is my follow-up on a recent discussion on twitter.

Working for a VAR (Value Added Reseller) is not always the glamours life some make it out to be.

Working as a consultant, what you are really doing, is being the CEO of your own service company.

Even though im still in San Diego, Cisco Live! US 2015 is but a memory.

But what a memory it is! It being my first time attending a Cisco Live conference, I didn’t really know what to expect.

What I was met with, was a conference full of really sharp and nice people. The conference staff was very helpful and polite and really made an impression on me, from the time I first stepped onto the pavement outside San Diego convention center.

This blog post outlines what “MPLS VPNs over mGRE” is all about as well as provide an example of such a configuration.

So what is “MPLS VPNs over mGRE”? – Well, basically its taking regular MPLS VPN’s and using it over an IP only core network. Since VPN’s over MPLS is one of the primary drivers for implementing an MPLS network in the first place, using the same functionality over an IP-only core might be very compelling for some not willing/able to run MPLS label switching in the core.

This is my current schedule for the Cisco Live US 2015 event.

Most are related to my CCDE studies and a few are with technologies and products that im interested in in general.

Monday:

08:00 – 09:30 BRKSAN-2101 FCoE for small and mid size enterprises.

Just wanted to let you know that Daniel from lostintransit.se is doing a webinar on network design. I will be attending and helping out any way i can.

Go here to learn more: https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/blogs/community_cafe/2015/01/21/network-design-fundamentals-webinar-with-ciscovip-daniel-dib

Woke up to a very nice email today.

I have been selected as a Cisco Champion for 2015! – Now i get to see what all the fuzz is about and hopefully be able to contribute something.

In this post id like to provide an example of a fairly new development to EIGRP which is called EIGRP Over The Top (OTP).

In all its simplicity it establish an EIGRP multihop adjacency using LISP as the encapsulation method for transport through the WAN network.

In this fairly short post, id like to address a topic that came up on IRC (#cciestudy @ freenode.net). Its about how you select a route thats being redistributed into an OSPF NSSA area and comes into the OSPF backbone area 0.

In this post I would like to show how its possible to use a fairly new protocol, LISP, to interconnect IPv6 islands over an IPv4 backbone/core network.

LISP stands for Locator ID Seperation Protocol. As the name suggest, its actually meant to decouple location from identity. This means it can be used for such cool things as mobility, being VM’s or a mobile data connection.

In the process of restudying EIGRP as a protocol, and more specifically as to how it converges, you can’t avoid running into the saying “Remember to bound your queries!”.

From a conceptual point of view its fairly easy to understand that the further out you ask for a prefix the longer the convergence process will take. But what really takes place when you have different tools in place to bound the query from taking place?

Well, a short update. I managed to pass the CCIE Service Provider lab exam on March 14th.

I am quite exhausted from the experience, but very happy 🙂

With the release of the IOS XRv router, along with CSR (Cloud Services Router), its time that I go ahead and build myself a virtualization solution.

To that effect, I have just ordered the components for a home build server, which was the cheapest, not to mention most silent option available.

Its been a long time since my last update. I apologise for this. It wasnt my intention, it just sort of happened.

In the meantime I have tried the CCIE SP lab and didnt pass it, so I am still studying for my next attempt which is comming up shortly.

NTP has always been one of those things I have found tricky to really lab up. Its fairly easy to setup, but verifying whether everything is working as you expect, can be hard because it takes a while to synchronize (and even unsynchronize).

I have been very quiet when it comes to the topic of SDN (Software Defined Networking). However, these days you can hardly go through your day without spotting an article about it.

The reason I have been quiet is pretty simple. I wanted to understand it a bit better before writing anything about it.

Some very smart people have created a new website aimed at the career aspects of the tech world.

In time the site should prove to be a valuable tool for anyone trying to land a job in the tech industry.

In this post i would like to explain the usage of the “MPLS VPN Per VRF Label” feature.

By default, in each VRF, prefixes are assigned a VPN label, used to identify the route within the VRF itself.

This label is the only label that is being looked at by the receiving PE router.

I just ordered my ticket for DKNOG, which will be happening on March 21st in Copenhagen.

Catch me there if you can!

www.dknog.dk

Yesterday it was announced that Belkin intends to purchase the Linksys division of Cisco’s hands.

I for one, am very happy to see this happen.

I think that for Cisco to be really great, it needs to focus on its core competencies, which does not include home networking equipment.

Just wanted to let you know of a good place to go for some IOS-XR training.

Head on over to FryGuy’s place:

http://www.fryguy.net/2012/11/06/ios-xr-cisco-videos-and-training/

I ran into this error today on an old ASA and i needed a quick fix that didnt involve downgrading any Java versions from the clients servers.

I can confirm that by using version 6.1(5)51 of the ASDM works correctly (as noted in the link below).

I think the video below is worth going through for a couple of reasons.

First off, it explains one networking company’s strategy towards SDN (Software Defined Networking). Its a great academic concept with lots of potential. However there’s no real push for it from customers (at least the customer base of Arista).

The cat is out of the bag.

I am going for my 2nd CCIE. This time its in the Service Provider track.

For a while i have felt something missing. And what is missing is a clear cut direction on what i want to learn more about in my professional life.

I think one of the most important things this to happen this week, was a public announcement

from the boss of TeliaSonera.

He announced that they would in the near future, start to charge people for any VoIP calls they would make through their broadband services.

There’s news on INE’s Service Provider material.

Updated workbooks for the SPv3 will be arriving “soon”. Hopefully that means within a month or two.

If you are interested, you can read more and even get a peak into a sample lab.

Its been a rough week. I have been finishing up projects and getting rid of loose ends.

I have also been giving a couple of lectures on IPv6 (Basically primers) to customers as well as some information on basic failover configuration in IOS. The advent of 3G and low cost gives alot of new opportunities for customers.

The picture below should be put into a frame and put onto the desk of everyone in the IT industry.

By day, I am a consultant, so I have quite a few stories that relate to this picture.

Below are my findings regarding CAR. Please be advised that this is work in progress.

CAR is the ancient way of doing policing.

It is not configured using any of the new and fancy MQC style configuration.

It is an interface-based command set.

A couple of things i have found interesting this week.

The first one is that Intel is still in the game for making NIC’s. Even though they are doing some good ones in the server space, this batch seems to be targeted at the entry-level.

Finally.

I have been using Things as my task management program for about 5-6 months.

Its been better than not using anything at all, but what has really annoyed me quite heavily is its inability to do “Cloud” synchronization. The only form of synchronization from Things is through your wireless network. And even so, just directly to your Mac, which then syncs to the other devices.

I own alot of books.

By books, i mean those paper things, that takes up alot of space and for which we chop down trees.

Recently, i have been shifting my reading onto my iPad. Its easy to carry around, it holds multiple books and pdf files. On top of that, i find its a great reading device. The fonts are rendered fantastically and they are easy on the eyes to read. I have no trouble reading on the iPad.

I stumbled across this blog post which i think most will find very interesting.

At least i think it contains some ideas that should be followed whenever you make a change to your own or your customers network.

Head on over and take a look: http://lamejournal.com/2011/12/07/guide-to-making-changes/

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  <a href="http://www.packet-forwarding.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/topology.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-928" title="EIGRP Topology" src="http://www.packet-forwarding.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/topology.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="82" /></a>
  
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    EIGRP Topology
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<br /> <strong>Configuration:</strong>

In this post i will shed some light on some spanning-tree info that has been floating around. But also an explanation why i choose a non-obvious answer to an IPexpert question.

Specifically 2 things.

The first one is the selection of ports and what _exactly_ selects the root port.

I am back from our company trip to Dubai.

Dubai is a fantastic place. Its my first time in the middle east and it left a great impression.

The whole city struck me as a proof-of-concept kind of city. They decided they wanted to do something great and they went ahead and did it. Even better, they did it without much red-tape.

It seems that everywhere i look, be it on twitter, google+ or my regular reading list of blogs, Openflow comes up alot.

What is Openflow?

Openflow is an initiative to create a protocol and an API infrastructure to improve overall functionality of your network.