June 25, 2008
New CCNA Certifications: The Cat is Out of the Bag!
Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, Cisco announced the new CCNA-level certifications...and they are (drum roll please):
CCNA Security
CCNA Voice
CCNA Wireless
I'm actually creating the CCNA Voice Official Exam Certification Guide for Cisco Press as we speak. I've got to tell you - this certification is awesome. It completely fills a much needed gap of knowledge that's needed before you get into the CCVP program. I can't speak for the Security & Wireless certs, but in the CCNA Voice, you'll be learning:
VoIP & Legacy System Integration
CallManager Express setup
Unity Express setup
Basic QoS, Dial-Peers, and other technical nuances
Having this foundation before someone gets into a CCVP will be awesome. Yesterday afternoon, Cisco Press conducted a "podcast video interview" with me about the cert. I'll post the link as soon as it's available. I was actually interviewed by none other than Jeff Doyle (the TCP/IP routing genus) - I'm honored! Anyhow, I'm finally free to talk about this stuff, which is relieving. I'm sure I'll talk plenty about it in my 4:00pm session today at Networkers.
UPDATE: It looks like the Routing and Switching CCNA (the original) will be the prerequisite for all the other CCNA specialties.
UPDATEx2: CCVP and CCSP will now require CCNA Voice and CCNA Security as official prerequisites as of June 2009.
Here's more information, if you're interested:
Official Cisco Press Announcement
Cisco's CCNA Voice Preparation Course
Posted by JC at 5:14 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 20, 2008
A Cisco Tip Repository
Cisco has converted their "Reader TIPS" from the TAC newsletter into a WIKI. Plenty of cool stuff here:
http://supportwiki.cisco.com/ViewWiki/index.php/Tech_Insights:Homepage
Posted by JC at 9:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 4, 2008
Cisco Networkers is Here Again!
It's that time of year again. Starting June 23rd, Cisco Networkers kicks off in Orlando, FL...okay...who's idea was it to move this to the East coast... (ugh...3 hours earlier wake up time...)
This should be a week of technology fun - some of the sessions are a little dry, but have great information. I'll be teaching a couple CCVP certification prep sessions, so stop on by and say hello if you happen to be roaming the halls! Here's my session info:
CCVP Prep: Cisco IP Telephony Essentials, Tuesday 8:00am (Yes, that'd be 5:00am my time...I'm begging for pity on this time thing...)
CCVP Prep: Cisco IP Telephony Essentials, Wednesday, 4:00pm
I'm just excited to hear that the Blue Man Group will be performing this year along with Barenaked Ladies (who came up with that name anyway???) for the "Cisco Event".
Anyone up for karaoke on "If I had a million dollars"?
Posted by JC at 3:00 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
May 7, 2008
I LOVE THESE THINGS!!!
Do these 800 series routers just keep getting cooler or what?!? This one (Cisco 881) can even connect to a G3 cellular data network to use as a WAN link. I checked my reseller prices - it's about $450.00. Sweet!
All it's missing is an LCD display screen on the front. Now THAT would be hot! I have no idea what it would say...not sure I'd even care - I just want an LCD display screen.
NOTE: Correction G3 = 3G...dyslexia strikes again...
Posted by JC at 1:25 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
April 18, 2008
New Support WIKI from Cisco
Cisco has released a new BETA support WIKI that allows you to quickly see a tone of (alphabetized) support articles for any platform, IOS, etc... That you want.
Seems real nice - check this one out: http://supportwiki.cisco.com/
Posted by JC at 10:52 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 16, 2008
Goodbye Linksys, Goodbye...
According to Network World magazine, Cisco will be phasing out the Linksys name much faster than expected. Now...if they could just add the IOS to my $39.00 Linksys vonage router...
Posted by JC at 9:12 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 30, 2008
Cisco Announces CCDE Certification
Well, it's now out there: The Cisco Certified Design Expert (CCDE) - the next "expert" level certificaiton equivalent to the CCIE. I've been reviewing many of the resources on this one...all I can say is has got to be intense! I'm really curious about the how the practical exam will be administered...are you interviewed? Drawing network diagrams?
Anyhow, here's all the information - let me know if you find any interesting facts about this:
Cisco CCDE Certification Page:
http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccde/index.html
CCDE Written Exam Info:
http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccde/ccde_exam_information.html
CCDE Book List: (Check this thing out!!! These books are huge!)
http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccde/booklist.html
YouTube Video with Russ White on CCDE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qOz-FSpC-k&feature=related
Posted by JC at 3:46 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 24, 2007
Cisco Networkers 2007
Well, I've found myself up here in California for yet another year of Cisco Networkers. I've been presenting at Networkers for 6 years in a row now and every year I'm amazed at how this conference all comes together. If you are at Networkers this year, I'll be presenting the following sessions:
July 24th: IP Telephony Essentials (2pm-4pm)
July 25th: Gateway/Gatekeeper Exam Prep (4:30pm - 6:30pm)
July 26th: Gateway/Gatekeeper Exam Prep (10am - 12pm)
July 26th: IP Telephony Essentials (1pm-3pm)
Stop by and say hi! I'm a little amused to find out that the yearly "Customer Appreciation Event" will feature the band KISS (these guys are still alive?!?)...I'm more interested in what funky hat they'll be giving out.
Posted by JC at 12:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 20, 2007
Free E-Learning...eh...E-Reading...eh...something
I guess the big news of this is that it's FREE...as it should be :). Cisco has started to develop some quick training describing how to enable features on the ASA/PIX firewall. Some of the topics are neat..."How to set up Packet Tracers" "How to set up SSL VPNs." The modules DO actually describe how to do these things if you can bear the pain of listening to a computer generated voice reading a script someone wrote. Sure isn't as good as the Cisco training available from Jeremy Cioara on CBTNuggets (ehem...shameless plug). It sounds like the voice that announces the names in my airport...Anyhow, the link to this training is here!
Posted by JC at 10:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 25, 2006
It's Even Better: Cisco's Output Interpreter
A Cisco tech support email I received last week mentioned the ol' Cisco Output Interpreter utility on their website. This utility analyzes the output of various show / debug commands to decrypt their meaning and point out configuration or hardware errors on your router. I remember trying out the Output Interpreter a few years back and not being very impressed, but thought I'd give it a shot today.
I ran a "show tech-support" command on one of my routers and pasted it into the Cisco Output Interpreter...WOW! Has this utility improved. Not only did it mention that I was getting many buffer drops, but also had multiple security improvement recommendations (which I'll be implementing later today). The best part about it was this:
It actually took the entire "show run" output and hyperlinked every command. This way, if there's ever a command I was unsure about, I could click it and get a detailed description of what the command does. I'll be stealing that output and emailing it to a few of my customers to save me the time to train them on their own router. Nice!
Anyhow, the Cisco Output Interpreter requires a CCO login and is available here: https://www.cisco.com/cgi-bin/Support/OutputInterpreter/home.pl?locale=en
Posted by JC at 9:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 27, 2006
Cisco Case Study & White Paper Galore!
When I was at Cisco Networkers 2006 last week, one of the vendors handed me this Cisco@Work CD. I know many of you Packet magazine subscribers already have a copy of this, but I thought I'd make it available for everyone else. This CD contains a ton of case studies, white papers, and video on demand of all sorts of topics.
I couldn't get the index file to work, but if you dig through the directories, there's plenty of good material to be found. Bed time reading for the next year or so! :o) Have fun!
Note - due to the video on demand, this download is pretty large (500MB or so)
Click here for ZIP version of the Cisco@Work CD-ROM
NOTE: As of 05.2008, I have removed this download due to bandwidth constraints.
Posted by JC at 3:24 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack