Use the CCENT certification to qualify junior techs

Hi folks! It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of certification. I love it when I’m looking for new techs to hire and they have a great combination of certification and real world experience. But what do you do if you are just a budding juinor tech starting out in the network world?

Well, enter Cisco. Most people believe that the CCNA is the first level certification you can get from Cisco but that is not true. There is one certification that comes before it that might be easier for junior techs to write. It’s called the CCENT (Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician). Most people know that getting Cisco certs are a great way to break into the industry but are daunted by the difficulty of them. The CCENT is a great way to ease in and prove your basic networking skills.

Some of the topics covered are things such as IP addressing, the OSI model, and implementing small networks. A great starting point for any junior tech and it’s only one exam! You can read more about it here.

What’s the best part of all this? After getting this certification you will only have one more exam to get your CCNA!

-RP

Great SAN solution from HP for the SMB

Hi folks! So you want to implement VMware vSphere in your environment and you realize you need a SAN. What the heck do you buy? Storage has become quite affordable these days and there are a lot of options to choose from.

Well one of my favourite SANs is HP’s LeftHand P4000 series. Why you ask? Because you get a lot of bang for your buck. You get a great starter SAN for the price with iSCSI, dual controllers, thin provisioning, snapshots, remote copy and storage clustering.

Normally if you wanted to buy a SAN with all these features it would cost you an arm and a leg. The best part is that it’s from a reputable company like HP that stands behind their product. Other SANs can sometimes come in at a lower price point but then when you want to expand them and add storage, they hit you with expensive additions.

This SAN solution is a result of the HP acquisition of LeftHand. Give it a try! You can read more about it here.

-RP

Writing ISCW soon…..

Hello again folks! As you know I’ve been slowly and steadily working towards getting my CCNP certification. I had planned to have written the ISCW exam by now but just haven’t been able to do it. Why you may ask?

Well I have found most of the book extremely boring to tell you the truth. It goes over a lot of stuff I already know and it covers the SDM in great detail of which I think is a very horrible product. When you’re reading a book with uninteresting material it makes it really hard to get motivated.

But I’ve decided I have to write this exam before the end of this year no matter what. I hope for future exam writers that they pull the SDM material out of the CCNP curriculum and switch to something more relevant for this day and age.

As I’ve said before, the SDM has no place in configuring Cisco routers. I’ll stick to the CLI thank you very much.

-RP

Want a nice VoIP recording solution?

Hello again folks! In this day and age of VoIP phone service, people what every bell and whistle they can get their hands on. By going to VoIP you can get a veritable barrage of features.

One of the most common requests in the VoIP world is for access to some sort of voice recording solution. This is quite common in the legal and financial sectors. People need the ability to record what people say either for billing or contractual purposes.

So if you’re using a Cisco VoIP solution, what can you use for voice recording? Most solutions require a dedicated server on site and if you have branch offices, you might not want to deploy servers to those locations. Well Cisco partners with a product called NICE which allows you to recording at the branch office without the use of a server.

Cisco has done up a paper on VoIP recording for Financial Services Organizations that makes for a good read. You can read more about it here.

-RP

The BlackBerry Bold 9700

Hello all you BlackBerry addicts out there! The new BlackBerry Bold 9700 is here, and Bold lovers everywhere are rejoicing! You see I have a few friends with Bolds and a few friends with the Curve 8900. They are constantly bickering with each other over who has the better BlackBerry.

The Curve 8900 is the smaller and lighter version of a Bold but with better features such as a nicer screen resolution and higher MP camera. The Bold on the other hand has a larger screen and is easier to work with for people who can’t read such a small screen.

Well the new Bold 9700 has the best of both worlds, it features all the upgrades of the Curve 9700 but in a bold formfactor. To make it even better, the new Bold 9700 is lighter than it’s predecessor coming in at 4.27 ounces versus 4.8 ounces. To compare the Curve 8900 is a paltry 3.8 ounces in weight.

Will I be going to a Bold 9700? Heck no! I love my Curve 8900 for the time being. But I know of a few friends that won’t be able to resist this upgrade. Once again BlackBerry scores a home run in the business world with another great smartphone!

-RP

Tethering your BlackBerry

Hi folks, so if you’re like me, you might find yourself locked away in a high security managed data center somewhere working on a problem with limited network access and no Internet access whatsoever. You run into a problem and you want to use trusty old Google to find the answer. But with no Internet what do you do?

Well if you’re a BlackBerry user, never fear! There is an app called TetherBerry which allows you to use your BlackBerry as a modem and use your data plan for the charges. This is great because it gives you decent web browsing Internet access in a pinch. You could use it for other things but then you might find that a tad slow.

You can download a 30 day free trial from TetherBerry here. I found installation quite simple and was able to get it up and running in short order. If you’re an IT person on the go, you will definitely find this app extremely valuable!

-RP

Is your data network ready for VoIP?

Hi folks! One of the greatest things about today’s network is that it seems to be able to handle anything. It doesn’t seem to matter what you want to do on your network, there is always a technology around the corner that can make it happen for you.

Well one of the most common things happening today is the conversion of data networks to voice and data networks. With the coming of VoIP, network engineers have been put under an increasing burden to support the world of the telephone when historically data and voice have been two separate entities.

There are a lot of people that erroneously think that VoIP is all about the phones and the PBX, but in reality if you don’t have a data network that can handle the traffic, none of that is really going to matter. Some of things network administrators find out in the end is that a switch isn’t always just a switch. What I mean by this is that administrators have been forced to cut and slash budgets and buy cheaper equipment only to find out that their switch is sub-par and cannot support a voice network. They are then faced with redoing their entire data network infrastructure which makes the cost of going to VoIP prohibitively expensive.

If administrators really look at what is offered to them when they buy network equipment such as switches, they can then plan for future VoIP deployments so when the time comes their data network will be ready. Things such as QOS and POE are two items that are not paid heed to when buying switches if VoIP isn’t in the equation, but then you find out you need it when the company starts going in the VoIP direction.

What I’m trying to say here is that in the future, almost all of us will be using VoIP, so you might as well start planning for getting your data networks ready now.

-RP

Epic Technology Day a great success!

Hi folks, so as you know I work for the largest locally owned IT consulting company in Manitoba. Twice a year we hold one of the largest HP partner events in North America called Epic Technology Day. This year I did a presentation on VoIP and Wireless and I was very happy with the turnout and buzz generated by the presentation.

Well after all was said and done we broke yet another record and had our largest registration numbers yet. I just wanted to thank all of you that came out for the event and I hope to see you again in April for our next Technology Day.

If there any particular presentations you want to see at the next event, please don’t hesitate to let us know so we can help tailor the event to the needs of our customers. I hope to be presenting again at the next Tech Day and look forward to seeing you all again soon!

-RP

Cisco’s SDM, how much do you hate it?

Hi folks, so as a Cisco certified individual that works for a Cisco partner, it’s pretty easy to guess that I would like all things Cisco. Well almost all things. The one thing I hate immensley is the Cisco SDM. This is the gui software that was used to manage Cisco routers in the past.

Now lately you can use other things to manage the routers, and you can always use the trusty CLI (Command Line Interface) which is my favorite way of managing anything Cisco. But unfortunately I still see many administrators trying to use the SDM. Heck even in my CCNP training they advocate using the SDM. Talk about out of date training material.

So what I’m trying to say here is that I just want the SDM to die and go away. It hasn’t even been updated since 2007 according to the release notes. If you’re an administrator and you’re still using the SDM, please stay away from it. It will cause you more grief than good. There are a ton of bugs in it and there are better ways for you to be managing your routers.

-RP

The Cisco ESW 500 Series Switches for the SMB

Hello again folks! I wanted to talk a little bit about switching again. This time in the SMB! In the SMB space it has been historically hard to find good quality but cheap switching. Especially if you require POE switching for things such as VoIP or POE powered access points in your wireless network.

Well Cisco has a great solution for the SMB with their ESW 500 series line of switches. These switches are also from their Small Business Pro line. There are a variety of models to choose from including POE models. For those clients that just need basic switching with vlans and POE these are great switches to choose from.

Granted, Cisco has the 2960 switches with the Lan Lite images, but they aren’t at the same price point. The ESW 500 series are aggressively priced against competing brands.

-RP