I wanted to let everyone know about OpenDNS. They provide publicly-accessible DNS servers at the following addresses: 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220 This is a fantastic service, and leads me to a discussion on the topic of Anycast and DNS. Anycast is one of the types of traffic flows. Remember the other types: Unicast: used for peer toContinue reading “OpenDNS, DNS, and Anycast”
Author Archives: ryan niemes
MPLS notes
I took a class this past week for some more formalized MPLS training. I will be posting some notes to remind myself of key ideas. There are a few key take-aways that helped me understand the how and why of MPLS. I knew the basics, like how MPLS uses ‘tags’ instead of layer 3 addressesContinue reading “MPLS notes”
Term: Fate Sharing
The term “fate sharing” with respect to the CCDE written outline is an unfamiliar term. I’ve done a bit of research and here’s what I found. David D. Clark defines the term fate-sharing in his paper “The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols” which can be found here. It’s a short paper that isContinue reading “Term: Fate Sharing”
My Roadmap
CCDE Roadmap CCNA certification (complete) CCDA certification (complete) CCIP certification: training CTT-TAC MPLS Online bootcamp CTT-TAC QoS Online bootcamp tests 642-642 QoS 642-691 MPLS+BGP composite 642-892 Composite reading list MPLS and VPN architectures (Pepelnjak / Guichard) Routing TCP/IP volume 2 (Doyle / Carroll) Networkers presentations QoS (2007) CAC (Call Admission Control) (2007) CCDP certification: trainingContinue reading “My Roadmap”
roadmap for study
Ok, so you want to get the CCDE certification. Where to begin? Let me share with you my path, and some tips where you might begin. I’ve been involved with networking since around 1994, when we had no real network on the University of Dayton campus, and I was a student worker. I ran aroundContinue reading “roadmap for study”
Campus Design Documents
We are all familiar with (or should be) the SRND guides from Cisco. Located here: SRND I’d like to highlight one that I found particularly useful. It goes in to the concept of a routed access layer. Find it here.
MPLS and OSPF
I’m beginning to learn a bit about MPLS and have just completed some MPLS OSPF setup. I must say, it seems a bit more complicated than it’s worth. Ok, so by default, even links in the same area are advertised as type 3 summary LSAs. I’m going to work on the sham-link which is supposedContinue reading “MPLS and OSPF”
CCDE Written Outline Topic 5 : Security
Topic 5 : Security is not fleshed out as far as the other four topics, so I thought I would tackle it first. Explain the impact of security availability design in the characteristics of a network.What does this mean? Let’s dig into the subtopics and see if we can find an explanation. OOB Access –Continue reading “CCDE Written Outline Topic 5 : Security”
CCDE Written Outline.. breaking it down.
The CCDE written, as published by Cisco, contains 5 major headings for study. 1. IP Routing. Note: no IPX or Appletalk or anything else. IPv6 basics is a subtopic under ‘generic routing and addressing concepts’ Other than that, no big surprises. I suppose we’ll be concentrating on best practices rather than odd, non-obvious configurations. 2.Continue reading “CCDE Written Outline.. breaking it down.”
The Beginning…
Ok, so Cisco recently announced the CCDE certification. Those old timers out there will remember the ill-fated CCIE+Design certification that apparently NOBODY passed. I wonder if this will suffer the same fate. The problem is how does one test against something that is considered a dark art? Networking is not something that falls easily underContinue reading “The Beginning…”
security without obscurity 