This Saturday, July 4th, marks the two year anniversary of my "From the Field" blog on Network World. It's been a great and demanding experience. Best I can tell, I've written over 140 blogs in those 2 years on everything from Webtorials to Routing iSCSI with 10GIG. There are usually around 10,000 to 15,000 unique readers of my blogs each month. Read more
Years ago, when I started studying Cisco stuff, I learned about the ISO Telecommunications Management Network model FCAPS - an acronym for Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, and Security. Although I don't read about the model much anymore, after studying the acronym many times in preparation for CCNP, CCDP, or CCIE written exams, it stuck with me. And it came in handy 4 months ago when we started tackling IP Telephony management. Read more
I've sort of noticed this year there's been a lack of advertising and excitement for Networkers (aka Cisco Live) in San Francisco starting in 2 weeks.
No, I'm not attending. But that is because training budgets are tight this year. If they weren't I would definitely go since I enjoy the week of learning, socializing, information from vendors, and blogging topics. Read more
About six months ago we upgraded all of our global Cisco 3000-series VPN Concentrators to Cisco ASAs. A very smooth and nice upgrade for us that has provided a nice boost of per-user VPN performance (my download speeds from home via Cisco IPSec client on my laptop jumped from 2 Mbps to 8-9 Mbps). Read more
Back when I worked in network operations at AT&T, I was (strangely) proud that I knew all the different versions, feature sets, and varieties of Cisco IOS. It was one of the things I could use quickly when dealing with bugs and outages. However, now, all the different versions of IOS are making me sick. Especially now being a manager having to deal with all of them.
Let's take a short stroll down IOS lane...
Best I can tell there are nine varieties of IOS: Read more
Earlier this week, my employer purchased another company in a $1.5 billion deal. The company we purchased is about 10% of our size in workforce and sales revenue. They have 820 employees and $274 million in sales. So, while this is not a merger of equals, it is more than a purchase of a startup. There will be significant communications (networking) issues to deal with. Read more
As I mentioned last year, I moved (officially) into management and started my MBA at NC State University. While I still do a ton of technical work, the MBA is opening my eyes to other ways to measure the network. Read more
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably have picked up the fact that I live in the Raleigh, NC area - sometimes referred to as the Triangle Area. The "Triangle" name came from the intersection of the three major universities in the region: Read more
The next round of CCDE practical results are coming out today. These are for the people who took the practical exam in Chicago on February 11th.
So far, via Twitter, I have heard that Jeremy Fillben has passed - CCDE #20090003 and Claus Holbech has passed - CCDE #2009::4. Still looking for 2009::1 and 2009::2.
I started my short blog series last week on the world-wide undersea fiber optic cable systems with a history of undersea cable systems and a high-level overview of the components of a cable system. Now that you understand how the cable systems came about and what parts are involved, this week I'll go over how cable systems are deployed and repaired and finish with some facts on the world's current undersea cable systems.
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Being a WAN guy at heart, I have always been amazed by the submarine fiber optic cable systems that crisscross the Earth. To be able to send gigabytes of data to India in seconds, call China on my mobile phone, and have a telepresence with Japan all because of these cable systems astonishes me. Read more
(Quick blog tonight. Family in town, going golfing tomorrow if the weather holds up)
Getting good content to read would seem to not be a problem in the age of Google and targeted marketing programs. However, instead of having to search for proper reading material, having a single repository of a huge amount of whitepapers would be a simple, valuable resource. Enter Webtorials.
About a year and a half ago, I blogged about how nothing compares to actually building a network. That rule certainly held true this week as we began implementing our new data center. Read more
As I've mentioned in a few recent blogs, we're building a data center right now with the networking based on the Cisco Nexus-series line. This last week saw us enter the second major phase of this project: Installation.
If I categorize this new data center we are building into three phases it would be like this: Read more
My fellow CiscoSubnet blogger Scott Hogg wrote a good blog the other day about free IT training in a down economy. With these difficult economic times, employers are cutting back or downright eliminating paid training courses. But, keeping your skill set up to par and learning new technology does not take a break during the recession. Read more
I was invited a few weeks ago to drive next door to Cisco's RTP office and do an interview with Mike Reid from the Cisco Learning Network. The 17-minute interview covers different questions about the CCDE certification, how I worked toward the CCDE, and tips for preparing for the exams.
Enjoy! Read more
Several weeks ago I wrote a couple blogs on the Cisco ASR 1000-series routers: one blog on the hardware architecture of the ASR 1000-series and a blog on Cisco IOS XE. Before finishing my little series on the ASR 1000-series I thought it would be good to review the Cisco QuantumFlow Processor (QFP), the engine in the ASR 1000-series. Read more
Last year, I was honored to be awarded the Network Professional Association Award for Professionalism Professional Excellence and Innovation - Corporate Fortune X.
NX-OS Training Videos on YouTube
Since we've been on a Nexus switch track over the last couple weeks, first discussing the highlights of our Nexus Data Center design and then Virtual Port-channels (vPC), I thought it would be a good to share some NX-OS training videos that are on YouTube. Read more
The next CCDE Practical Exam in tomorrow, February 11th, in Chicago and London.
I wanted to send a quick note out to all CCDE Practical Test takers tomorrow to say "good luck". Eat a good meal, get a good night sleep, and visualize success. Read more
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Michael Morris is a communications engineering manager at a $3-billion high-tech company. His background is in enterprise WANs working with telcos and developing large-scale routing designs. He has worked on networks at government and corporate organizations, including networks at two Fortune 10 companies. In his current role, he leads a team of 10 engineers responsible for large-scale IT networking projects and architectural standards for data networks, storage area networks, IP telephony, contact centers, and security. Michael is CCIE #11733 and recently became one of the first three Cisco Certified Design Experts (CCDE) ever (#20080002). He has 11 years experience in networking and communications, including four years as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army. He has a bachelor's degree in MIS from the University at Buffalo and is working on his MBA from NC State University. In 2008, he was awarded the Network Professional Association (NPA) Professional Excellence and Innovation Award for his work on network architecture, templates and enterprise MPLS design.
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