#CiscoChampion

September 15, 2014

PERSPECTIVES

Book Review : CCIE Security v4.0 Practice Labs by Natalie Timms

3 min read

I have been studying for my CCIE Security since late last year, with a short hiatus after Cisco Live due to health issues – more on that in a later post. When I saw that Natalie Timms – former manager for the CCIE Security exam program, was writing a book focused on practical labs for […]

September 5, 2014

PERSPECTIVES

Summary: Don’t be a networking Lizard

1 min read

Who’s more intelligent a rocket scientist or a lizard? Well it’s a matter of perspective. I’ll grant you that a lizard is less likely to design a spaceship capable of inter stellar flight, but if you put that same rocket scientist in the desert, I know who my money would be on to survive the […]

August 25, 2014

PERSPECTIVES

Value of Cisco Certifications: Making Money Vs. Study

7 min read

Imagine that you see a Tweet today inviting you to apply for a part-time networking job, something you can do in addition to your normal job. You appear to be qualified for the job, and the work looks interesting as well. However, it requires enough of your time so that you would have to set […]

August 21, 2014

PERSPECTIVES

Is Networking Cool — Again? Yup!

4 min read

I don’t think that anyone can deny that being in the IT industry at this time is exciting and interesting. It’s also exhausting. There is a ton of hyperbole floating...

August 18, 2014

PERSPECTIVES

Alternative Learning Tactics for the Busy Professional

1 min read

When it comes to career development, time is a currency that must be spent wisely. I myself am a full-time dad, a full-time network engineer, and that leaves little time for personal endeavors. However we must still allocate time to develop our skillsets outside of work. Here are some tips for doing just that.

August 12, 2014

PERSPECTIVES

Dynamic Multipoint VPN (DMVPN) Setup.

5 min read

Since DMVPN has been added to the CCIE v5 BluePrint (http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/exams/docs/ccieRS_Lab5.pdf) I figured that now was just as good of a time as any to write this blog. DMVPN stands for Dynamic Multipoint VPN and it is an effective solution for dynamic secure overlay networks. DMVPN is combination of the following technologies: Multipoint GRE (mGRE) […]

July 30, 2014

PERSPECTIVES

Summary: If you bundle it, they will come!

1 min read

Recently I was speaking to someone (Mike from New Jersey) at Cisco Live and they were raving about their journey to the Flexpod. They were seeking the best compute, networking and storage yet didn’t want to be boggled down with details when it came to the purchasing process. Converged systems like this are relatively new, […]

July 30, 2014

PERSPECTIVES

Summary: Decoding UCS Invicta – Part 3

1 min read

In part one of this series we covered the internals of HDDs, in part two we went over the internals of SSD, In part three we continue reviewing storage concepts to refresh or learn the right lingo. Lets start by understanding “Redundant Array of Independent Disks” (RAID). There are RAID levels like RAID0 and RAID1 […]

July 21, 2014

PERSPECTIVES

ACI—Some lesser known features

3 min read

I am a consultant at a Cisco partner and I get to see a lot of different networks. Most of the networks are Cisco, but there are a few that are not. From time to time, I get network assessment projects. I love these types of projects as they are an exploration of  uncharted networks […]