This week I attended a two days training of Cisco DCINX9K. The training is focused on Cisco Nexus 9000 switches in NX-OS mode. NX9K can run two different software images, the full ACI image with all the cool SDN stuff and the traditional NS-OX image with some cool features like Python, Rest API, VX-LAN and more. Now …

Today I had a chat about MTU with a customer. MTU is my second favorite topic for tech talks in front of the coffee machine, STP is still the first because there are so many misconceptions about it. Even QoS is funny, people has many creative ideas and expectations from it. Let's talk about MTU. Everything begun today …

A few days ago a customer called worried by the flow control counters increasing on his Cisco 4510 switch, he just sent me this asking for an explanation: CORE_4510#show interfaces flowcontrol Port Send FlowControl Receive FlowControl RxPause TxPause admin oper admin oper --------- -------- -------- -------- -------- …

Some time ago I've installed the new core switches for a customer: a couple of Nexus 7000, a couple of 5000 and twelve Nexus 2232TM, Virtual port channels, VLANs, Radius auth and so on.. all the usual configs a good network engineer does. Since the Nexus 5000 are connected to an iSCSI storage I've configured Jumbo …

This means two things: I'm CCIE for over one year now I need to prepare again the written exam The last day to test the v4 edition is June 3, 2014, I've passed that exam twice so I expect a little effort to pass it again.

Ten years ago I've passed my first Cisco exam: CCNA! What was supposed to be just a marginal skill for a junior systems engineer became both my job and my passion. Ten years and 21 Cisco exams later (and a bunch of other vendors), with 2 labs in Brussels, 1 FAIL and 1 PASS, I'm still excited about networking and I hope …

Last week I had the opportunity to attend Cisco Live in Milan. This is my second time at Cisco Live, I've been in London last year. Some people still doesn't know what Cisco Live is. Is it an event for pre-sales? A technical training? A party with free beer for nerds? I can say it is it all and much more. At Cisco …

Questo post e' dedicato ai networkers iscritti al CUG di AreaNetworking.it per condividere la mia esperienza del Cisco Live! 2013 a Londra. Ho visto diversi messaggi in ML e dato che la risposta sarebbe un po' lunga e magari puo' interessare a piu' persone ho deciso di scrivere direttamente un post qui. Ho avuto il …

Today I've passed 642-874 ARCH exam that in conjunction with CCIE and CCNP entitles to obtain the CCDP certification. To prepare the exam I've used the official study guide along with the documents in the Cisco Design Zone. The hardest part of the exam preparation was to study technologies I've never really implemented …

Quite often I have to debug a wireless client roaming across lighweight Cisco APs to confirm it moves between APs as expected in the network design. On the WLC the command is "debug client MAC". The command shows all the events related to the specific client including: Reassociation received from mobile on AP …

Got mail from Cisco:

In really enjoyed to read all the blog post of people passing the CCIE lab exam over the years. I've found the stories very inspirational so now it's time for me to give back. I started working as a system engineer in 2001 supporting Microsoft Windows 2000 client and server for a bank. I had the opportunity to work …

I noticed that not everybody knows how to download Cisco certs PDF files or order additional printed copies. Just open this link, login with your Cisco credentials and enter the menu "Certification Fulfillment". An additional CCIE plaque costs 150USD, paper certs cost 15USD. HTH

I've passed the CCIE RS lab exam yesterday in Brussels, results arrived this morning:

Cisco stopped to publish CCIE statistics some time ago but in Cisco Live presentations we can find some slides like this: A couple of days ago on twitter Bob McCouch who passed his lab on February 21st posted this: I know 14 days are not enough to make statistics, but let's play with the numbers since they're very …