Colin McNamara - CCIE 18233 , RHCE, GCIH, CCVP, GEEK

Technical reviews and articles from a CCIE with extensive experience in designing and implementing converged enterprise networks.

Colin McNamara - CCIE 18233 , RHCE, GCIH, CCVP, GEEK header image 4

It’s on like Donkey Kong - CCDE practical registration is open

July 10th, 2008 · 2 Comments

The CCDE just got VERY real in a big way.The following announcement was posted in the CCDE zone at the Cisco Learning Network. (If you haven’t checked the Cisco Learning Network out yet, I recommend it. Its like NetPro on steriods, but focused around certifications.)

REGISTER NOW for the BETA Practical Exam
Cisco is now registering beta [...]

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Tags: CCDE

Link Round Up - L2TPv3 FCOE Trill Wounded Warriors

May 28th, 2008 · 1 Comment

I come accross alot of very interesting material each week, only some of which I write about. These are some links that I found interesting this week.
1. Layer 2 Tunneling Protcol (V3) static and hairpin configuration example - my buddy Rick was nerding it out in the lab and sent a great configuration doc for [...]

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Tags: CCIE · CISCO · DC3.0 · FCOE · Fibre Channel Over Ethernet · Green Data Center · MPLS · NX-OS · Nexus 7000 · Technology · certification

Challenges integrating VMware into Cisco networks

March 15th, 2008 · 4 Comments

In the past couple years, VMware has changed from a product hidden in development and testing environments to a full fledged enterprise computing platform. It brings many benefits to the companies that implement it, however with those benefits come changes to the access layer of your data center. Your access layer is no longer a [...]

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Tags: CISCO · Technology · virtualization · vmware

Cisco is using Linux virtualization and 40 core CPU’s for its next generation routers

March 10th, 2008 · No Comments

Cisco recently released a new series of router called the Aggregation Services Router, or ASR for short. This series of routers is mainly targeted at the service provider market, where it is targeted as a single chassis solution for what is called the “triple play” - Voice, Video, and Data. More accurately it can [...]

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Tags: ASR1000 · CCIE · CISCO · IOS-EX · IOS-XE · MPLS · linux

Reader question - Why are corporations looking for BGP experience?

March 2nd, 2008 · No Comments

Mike, a reader of my blog, sent me an email last week with decent question for someone early in their career. Mike is currently looking for a new job. He was curious why so many corporate IT jobs were requiring BGP knowledge and experience.
Mike Writes -
“Hi Colin,
I’m an avid reader of your blog and [...]

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Tags: CCIE · CISCO · Technology · certification

Identity aware networking using Cisco TrustSec

February 23rd, 2008 · No Comments

With all the fanfare surrounding the recent Nexus 7000 release I think many people have missed a significant new development in Cisco’s security portfolio. That new development is Cisco TrustSec. TrustSec takes the classic notion of access control based source and destination ip:ports and replaces it with a role and resource based methodology that fits [...]

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Tags: CISCO · DC3.0 · security

Usability features in Cisco’s Nexus 7000

February 7th, 2008 · 6 Comments

Douglas Gourlay, Sr Director, Marketing and Product Management for Cisco’s Data Center Business Unit and writer of Cisco’s Data Center Blog commented on my celebrity sighting post (me and the nexus 7000). He asked two questions regarding my post about the Nexus 7000, and I feel that it best serves everyone to answer them here.
What [...]

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Tags: CISCO · DC3.0 · FCOE · Fibre Channel Over Ethernet · NX-OS · Nexus 7000 · vmware

Me and the Nexus 7000 last week at the Data Center VT

February 7th, 2008 · 3 Comments

I spent the majority of last week at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters attending the Partner DataCenter Virtual Training. We spent three days going over new product releases, getting briefed and trained on new features as well as new products, as well as socializing with other engineers who focus on DataCenter technologies.
As with any vendor specific [...]

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Tags: CCIE · CISCO · DC3.0 · FCOE · Fibre Channel Over Ethernet · NX-OS · Nexus 7000