June 2010 Archives

Tuesday was the first "official" day of Cisco Live!.

Overlay Virtual Transport: This session covered the new L2 transport technologies for datacenters.  This technology is going to become very popular due to the L2 access requirements for VMotion across physical data center locations.

Keynote: John Chambers: John is a remarkable speaker and a visionary.  In some ways this keynote was quite similar to previous ones, however it helps highly the continuity of Cisco's long term vision.  John emphasized the speed at which Cisco is attempting to innovate and build/expand technologies.  Cisco also unvieled the new Cius - Cisco's tablet based answer to the iPad with mobile telepresence and two high definition (720p) cameras, 3G/4G wireless and a docking station that doubles as a Cisco IP phone. <- I want one :)

Introduction to Cisco Layer 2 Multipathing (L2MP): How many people out there love to hate Spanning-tree?  If you don't, you probably should.  What if you could change your blocked spanning tree ports into multiple active load balanced paths and never have to see spanning-tree again?  Well you can... Soon.  Trill (future standard), L2MP or FabricPath (new name) will become the way we handle redundant L2 paths in the future, at least on Nexus, once the new hardware that can support the appropriate tags has been released.

Cisco Trusted Security & Security Group Tagging: This session covered TrustSec and some of the features around making this happen.  Unfortunately I had to leave before the class was finished, so I hope to post more later after I finish reviewing the recorded content.

CCIE/CCDE NetVet Reception: John Chambers met with the CCIE/CCDE NetVets (those attended 3 or more of the previous 5 networkers events) and answered questions and accepted comments from the gathered audience.  Answers were very candid (some subject to NDA, but I forget which so I must be vague).  Questions included supply chain issues, Certification - related questions (Value of CCDE/CCA, Possible master level implementation certification), Network Management, UCX, HP/IBM partner status, etc. 

CCIE Party: Event at the VooDoo lounge on the 51st floor of the Rio Hotel.  The local signature drink, the Witch Doctor, was flowing quite readily.  Kicking party with a live band, and plenty of geeks, well lubricated, networking.  Always a good event.

Hangover - fortunately missing, but we will see how that goes after the Customer Appriciation event Wednesday night.  I am not sure that IOS EEM was the best class for the morning after events like these, but such is life!

Yestarday was a busy day for me at Cisco Live.  Here is a brief summary:

CCDE Written exam: I decided to take advantage of the free certification exam to recertify my CCDE.  Unfortunately I had no time to study, but I managed to remember enough MPLS-TE to pass anyway.

Cisco Catalyst 3750 Switch Architecture: This session went over the details of the capabilities of the hardware at a very low level.  It covered all the 3750 models.  There was a discussion on how licensing will work in the new 3750-X (Yea! IPv6 has been moved down to IP Services!).  Details on the Stackwise and Stackwise Plus functionality only served to underscore how cool the new 3750-X is! 

Secure Borderless Network Design: Borderless Networks is really an umbrella architecture that combines other technologies and techniques to enable highly secure and mobile solutions.  This session covered the internet module portion of this, specifically the ASA, IPS, and WSA.  VPN technologies were also touched upon.

Cisco ASR1000 Series Routers: System & Solution Architecture: Imagine an ISR router (2800 for example) that can do NAT, IOS Firewall and IPS, and VPN at the same time at 20 Gbps!  Wow.  This session discussed the hardware capabilities and options and how they interoperate to support this highly available chassis.  I am going to be looking for oppertunities where this product might fit in the future.

I also spent a few minutes hanging out in the Certification Lounge.  I found that the CCDE could be recertified with any expert level certification, even though the website says otherwise.  I also met one of the first two CCAr's last night.  He was part of the internal team for CCDE, but not for CCAr.  At least one other individual is in the CCAr path right now.  Unfortunately I secured financing too late to be in the CCAr on this round, but another opening will be coming soon.

Hello from Cisco Live!  Attached is my schedule for the week.  I hope to see you there!