Big day in the home lab…

I just spent the whole day working in my home lab in preparation for the CCNP Switch exam. I have a really versatile lab setup to work with, so it makes things a lot more fun!

I started the day by configuring the 4 switches and the router to talk to each other, setting up VLANs, interVLAN routing, etc. Afterwards,  I wanted to add a RADIUS server so I used one of the NICs on one of the vSphere servers to link up virtual servers to my lab. I deployed a Windows 2008 R2 template and configured a domain controller, with the RADIUS (NPS) service installed. Found some great information online on setting that up, it works great

But then I had the crazy idea of linking up the lab and my home network (different subnets) so I hooked up the 2651XM to the 861W and that’s when I realised I haven’t done routing in a long time! Let’s just say I had to dig a lot to get this to work. After the internal/home network and the lab network got connected, I tried going on the internet from the RADIUS server. No go.

An hour and a half later, after searching for debug commands on the router, doing traceroutes to see where everything was blocked, I realised my NAT access-lists on the 861W were the culprits. I added the lab subnets to the allowed lists and got it to work. Fun day!

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CCNA Lab Guides

Well, my CCNA guides have been very popular. ICND1 guide has over 10K downloads, and ICND2 around 8K. For all these downloads, I have received donations ranging from 5$ to 20$, for a grand total of 210$ as of december 31st 2011 (based on my Paypal account). Very disappointed in that obviously, given the number of actual downloads, I was expecting a better return. I did make them freely available, so it’s ok if people don’t donate but you know… One always hopes his efforts will be rewarded.

So I decided to no longer make them available for free. I setup a new website http://www.ccnaguides.com where you can buy the guides (12$ each or 20$ for the two guides). It’s a reasonable price and in the grand scheme of things, a very small investment for your training…

Anyway, good luck on your certifications everybody!

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CCNP Progress

I am currently going thru the material for CCNP Switch right now and loving it. Most of it feels like review however, so the exam shouldn’t be toooo hard (hopefully)!

I’ll be going thru the Cisco lab guide over the next week or two. I will also complete my Cisco infrastructure design next week when I get back to work after the holiday break, so hands-on galore Nothing beats that before taking an exam!

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Cisco…

Back in february, I mentionned going for the CCNA Security certification and that I bought the CCNP books. I started the CCNA Security and… Well, I put all that aside, as I had to focus on things I’m actually working with – which is usually anything but telecom related. But this fall I’ve been involved with a new client to redesign their entire IT infrastructure from the ground up.

• Rewiring the building (Fiber backbone and cat6 drops everywhere)
• New telecom infrastructure (Cisco 4900M and 2960S switches)
• Consolidation and virtualisation (VMware vSphere5, SRM)
• Storage (NetApp)
• Microsoft infrastructure upgrade (Active Directory, Exchange)

and later on…

• Wi-Fi
• Desktop virtualisation (VMware View)

So….  I’ll be busy for a few months!

My point in all this is, since I’ll have to do the telecom side intensively, I jumped back into my studies for the CCNP and reacquired some gear to study with (2 x 3550 and 2 x2950) and I’m loving it. First of all, it’s great to learn something new and I find the telecom world fascinating. Oh and did I ever mention how awesome a trainer CBT Nugget’s Jeremy Cioara is? That guy could read me bedtime stories and keep my attention

I will post updates on the project’s progress over the next month regarding design and configuration decisions.

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VCP-510

As mentionned in my last post, I was working on the VCP5 certification and I succesfully passed the exam today!

4th time I write this exam (VCP2, VCP3, VCP4 and VCP5). Here’s to not having to recertify next year!

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