Closing the Cisco Cert Zone (for Now)
Hi folks. This short post is a notice to let everyone know that I'll not be continuing to blog in the Cisco Cert Zone for the foreseeable future. For those of you who just saw this blog, the links below point out some of the more...
Cisco Announces the Cisco Certified Technician
Practical. That's the one overriding word that keeps coming to mind when I think of Cisco's new Cisco Certified Technician (CCT) cert announced today. But then again, I've always been a fan of the Cisco TAC, and it's not surprising...
Answers on Cisco's Cert Announcements Here at Cisco Live
In the last day or so here at Cisco Live, I've heard John Chambers talk in a couple of settings, and had several conversations with folks who work with Cisco certs. Today I'll toss out a few more thoughts from the show that I think...
Miscellaneous Thoughts from the First Day at Cisco Live this Year
As usual at Networkers, my schedule's a little tight to write something thorough about what's come up at the show this week. But even on the first full day of the show Monday, there were a couple of tidbits that came up that I think...
CCNA Lab Part 8: How Many Switches, and Which Ones?
It's time to wrap up (hoorah!) this spring's foray into the question of what to put in your CCNA lab. I hope that you've found the series useful. Today, I'll touch on a few final points with switches, looking at two questions. First,...
CCNA Lab Part 7: Choosing the Right Switch Models
After working through a longish discussion about Cisco routers for your CCNA lab, it will be nice to discuss switches. Thankfully, the choice of switches is a lot easier to figure out than the choice of routers. Switches have less...
CCNA Lab Series Part 6: The Best Router for CCNA, 2011
Today we'll wrap up the router portion of this lab series with the conclusion: what should you buy? Hopefully, the earlier posts in this series so far helps anyone make their own decision, especially those new to the Cisco cert...
CCNA Lab Part V: Ruling Out (or In) 2500 and 2600
Cisco 2500 and 2600 series routers have long been some of the favorite router models for cost-conscious Cisco cert candidates looking to build a lab. They were cheap, they worked, and there was a seemingly endless supply in the used...
CCNA Lab IV: Choosing the IOS Version and Feature Set
It's back to the CCNA Lab series today to discuss how to choose the right IOS for routers. Cisco routers run software called IOS. Traditionally - that is, from the early days of Cisco until the last year or two - Cisco offered lots...
The Verdict: Either OpenFlow Matters a Lot, or Not at All
Unsurprisingly, the opinions on OpenFlow from the vendors at Interop were all over the map. However, since I did ask a bunch of people at the show about OpenFlow, I figure it's worth a post to summarize some of the more interesting...
A Couple of Interesting Uses of OpenFlow
At the beginning of Interop, I wrote a post that introduced the basics of OpenFlow. I promised to ask around and find out what problems different vendors are trying to solve using OpenFlow. This post highlights two cases: one you can...
Best Tidbit from Interop: Amazon is Hiring!
It's the last day of the Interop show, and I happened by the Amazon booth. They are hiring in IT groups all over Amazons business units. And when some of the folks working the booth flip their badges over, it says "we're hiring"....
Neat Net Stories from Vint Cerf and Dan Lynch at Interop
Interstellar networks. Padding Statements of Work in US DoD contracts to encourage the development of the Internet. Turning off the old protocols on the Internet, for a day, to encourage the adoption of the "new" TCP/IP protocols....
Cisco Updates Data Center Specialization Certs
Cisco has several (9) well-established Specialization certifications focused on Data Center technology. Today, Cisco announced changes to those certs. Today, I'll give a quick bit of background, a little on the changes, and defer...
OpenFlow Buzz at Interop
From time to time, I like to write about something a bit more futuristic, something that is not yet common enough to get into the Cisco cert track. And because I was headed to Interop this week, the folks at Network World suggested I...
CCNA Lab III: Sifting Through the Router Model Series
If you go to EBay, and search on "Cisco router", you get a lot of hits (over 7000 just a few minutes ago.) It can be quite daunting if you're early into your CCENT or CCNA study, three chapters into the ICND1 book, and trying to...
CCNA Lab II: How Topologies Drive Device Choices
Buy one router, even an old klonky 2501, and you can get some benefit for hands-on practice for CCENT and CCNA. It's not very exciting, but you can at least try out the CLI, save configs, upgrade the IOS, and configure many features...
If Cisco Would Give Us Anything for Learning/Testing...
Down deep inside, when I heard of Cisco's new Cisco Learning Labs service, part of my gut reaction was negative. Imagine a little devil on my left shoulder: "That's nice, but it's not what we want." "Cisco didn't approve IOS images...
Update on the Question of Cisco-Approved IOS for Self-Study
The announcement of the new Cisco Learning Labs offering gives us all a great reason to discuss a movement that's been growing over the last several years: to ask Cisco to give us all access to approved IOS images, for use to testing...
Cisco Introduces Cisco Learning Labs
The folks from Learning@Cisco announced a new service today: Cisco Learning Labs. In short: pay money, get remote access to a lab topology of routers and switches, plus lab exercises, from Cisco. The unique twist: the routers and...
