Happy New Year 2024

Happy New Year - 2024 everyone!! Its a new year, which means a new beginning. For the last couple of years I have been very incognito and focused on some personal areas of my life. This meant that I have not been active in the networking community as much as I would have liked and not attended as many things either.
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Invest in Yourself

Hi Folks, I wanted to take a few moments to share an idea I learned way back. Its very simple, because its the simple of act of “investing in yourself”. What I mean by that is, that you should set aside some amount of $$$ each year and use that to further educate yourself in a suitable area.
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Lab Gear Ordered - Part 1

It was a scary experience, but a few moments ago I pressed the “Buy” button on a new (refurbished) server that is going to be the backbone and workhorse of my lab preparation. Basically its a 1U HPE server (DL360 Generation 9) with 2x Xeon E5-2690v3 processors (12 Cores/2.
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SCOR Exam Passed

So a couple of days ago, I passed the Cisco 350-701 SCOR (Secure Core) Exam. I passed on my 2nd attempt. I spent quite a bit of time preparing for this exam, as alot of security technologies are new to me.
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Enterprise Networking PVT

This week, I am attending Cisco’s EMEAR Enterprise Networking PVT in Amsterdam and I wanted to highlight some key takeaways. Cisco is really doubling down on getting its software strategy in place. Everything, and I mean everything gets a mention in regards to what sort of software is enabling it (DNA Center/SD-Access/SD-WAN etc.
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ASA Lessons: Static PAT

I decided a while back I would spend a bit of time learning about the Cisco ASA firewall. This is the first post surrounding some technologies I have explored during that time. For some of you it might be easy stuff, but for others, including myself, might find it interesting for reference.
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Leadership Matters

Im currently listening to an awesome book called Extreme Ownership. I wish to share some thoughts on its teachings as I think they are very valuable in any industry and particularly the IT industry. First off, this is the book (im using the Audible service for audio-books):
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Updated Learning Path

I am modifying my learning path for the year. Basically I will be focusing on automation, Python and Network API’s. These are the courses/goals I will be trying to attain: Course: PRNE (Completed) Course: NPDESI (Completed) Course: NPDEV (Completed) Book: Network Programmability and Automation (100% Done) With those 3 courses completed, I will have re-certified my CCIE’s and CCDE using the Continuing Education Program.
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Site Migrated

Just a quick update on the site migration process. Everything should be in working order now, including certificates and the image repository. As always, give me a shout if you find something broken. The old VPS server is about to be taken down, which will be the final test for something cross-function that might be left behind.
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Site Maintenance Update

A quick update on the site maintenance progress. I have chosen to move away from Wordpress and instead using a CI/CD workflow using Hugo+Netlify+Github. Im still learning the ropes, so expect some mistakes here and there. Its a work in progress like anything else.
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Site Maintenance

I am performing some site maintenance in conjunction with a move to a new VPS server. (Thank you Hetzner (some irony may be involved)).

Hopefully everything should be reachable, but some minor UI tweaks may occur.

Thanks for understanding.

/Kim

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Practical OTV

Practical OTV ————- This post is all about OTV (Overlay Transport Virtualization) on the CSR1000v. I wanted to create the post because there are alot of acronyms and terminology involved. A secondary objective was to have a “real” multicast network in the middle, as the examples I have seen around the web, have used a direct P2P network for the DCI.
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Useful links for Observium + Rancid

I recently decided that i would like to utilize Observium as well as rancid for configuration backups on my home network. To that effect, the following links really helped me out getting it all setup correctly: https://docs.observium.org/rancid/ http://packetsandpings.blogspot.com/2013/05/installing-and-configuring-rancid.html https://layer77.net/2016/08/10/upgrading-from-rancid-2-3-8-to-3-4-1/ Let me know if you run into anything i might help out with.
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JNCIA-Junos

I recently completed the entry level Juniper certification. I thought it would be a good idea to study for something other than the mighty Cisco, so Juniper’s JNCIA-Junos seemed like a good choice. It was a very fair exam I can highly recommend.
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So whats next?

I’ve had a little time readjusting after my exam and I’ve given some thought on what to keep me busy next. Basically I have 3 projects to keep me busy for the next foreseeable future. 1) CCNA-Wireless My boss came to me a week ago and tasked me with this.
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