Some of the important features of Cisco IOS Software Release 12.2(33)SXI4 are

• VSS Quad-Sup Uplink Forwarding help enable VSS customers to put four supervisors in the dual-chassis system to increase their uplink bandwidth.
• Cisco EnergyWise allows IT and building facilities operations to optimize and control power across a corporate infrastructure.
• Advanced Virtual Private LAN Services (A-VPLS) simplifies Data Center Interconnect deployments with rapid service provisioning.
• Multicast Service Reflection (MSR) resolves overlapping IP addresses with multicast transmission of video or other feeds.
• Service Advertisement Framework (SAF) helps you deploy and manage services across the network with greater scalability and flexibility.

6. CCNP Security ($97,539)

CCNP Security certification program is aligned specifically to the job role of the Cisco Network Security Engineer responsible for Security in Routers, Switches, Networking devices and appliances, as well as choosing, deploying, supporting and troubleshooting Firewalls, VPNS, and IDS/IPS solutions for their networking environments

7.CCNP: Cisco Certified Network Professional ($97,296)

There are two tracks available at the Associate and Professional levels – Designing and Networking. The Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) demonstrates that you have the ability to plan, implement, verify and troubleshoot local and wide-area enterprise networks. A CCNP certified individual is expected to work collaboratively with other Cisco specialists on advanced security, voice, wireless and video solutions.

8.CCNA: Voice ($92,837)

There are two tracks at the Associate and Professional levels – Designing and Networking. The Cisco Certified Network Associate Voice (CCNA Voice) demonstrates that an individual possess the required associate-level knowledge and skills to administer a voice network and validates skills in VoIP technologies such as IP PBX, IP telephony, handset, call control, and voicemail solutions.

9. Cisco ASA Specialist ($86,812)

The ASA Specialist certification identifies individuals who possess in-depth expertise with implementing security technologies using the Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) technologies, especially firewall and VPN functionality. Other topics include ACL, AAA, advanced protocol handling, remote access VPN, secure socket layer VPN, site-to-site VPNs, failover, and security appliance management. Cisco ASA Specialists possess the ability to describe, configure, verify and manage the ASA products and the Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM).

10. CCNA Security ($83,101)

Cisco Certified Network Associate Security (CCNA® Security) validates associate-level knowledge and skills required to secure Cisco networks. With a CCNA Security certification, a network professional demonstrates the skills required to develop a security infrastructure, recognize threats and vulnerabilities to networks, and mitigate security threats. The CCNA Security curriculum emphasizes core security technologies, the installation, troubleshooting and monitoring of network devices to maintain integrity, confidentiality and availability of data and devices, and competency in the technologies that Cisco uses in its security structure.

1. CCIE R&S: Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert Routing & Switching ($120,008)

Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE®) certifies the expert-level skills required of network engineers to plan, prepare, operate monitor, and troubleshoot complex, converged network infrastructure. Professionals who achieve CCIE have demonstrated their technical skills at the highest level. There are no formal prerequisites for CCIE certification. Other professional certifications or training courses are not required. Instead, candidates must first pass a written qualification exam and then the corresponding hands-on lab exam. You are expected to have an in-depth understanding of the topics in the exam blueprints and strongly encouraged to have three to five years of job experience before attempting certification.

2. CCDP: Cisco Certified Design Professional ($107,878)

There are two tracks at the Associate and Professional levels – Designing and Networking. The Cisco Certified Design Professional (CCDP) certification demonstrates that the individual who has passed the required exams possesses advanced knowledge of Cisco network design concepts and principles. The CCDP certified individual can discuss, design, and create advanced networks.

With the CCDP certification, you can plan addressing and routing schemes, security, network management, data center, and IP multicast complex multi-layered enterprise architectures that include virtual private networking and wireless domains. The CCDP curriculum includes building scalable internetworks, building multilayer switched networks, and designing network service architecture1.

3. Cisco IP Telephony Design Specialist ($105,871)

The Cisco IP Telephony Design Specialist certification was developed for those who design IP Telephony multi-service network solutions. Cisco IP Telephony Design Specialists can design a scalable, converged network using QoS, Cisco Call Manager clustering, H.323, MGCP, or SIP signaling protocols, and assess the scope of work required to integrate legacy TDM PBXs and voice mail systems into an existing data network.

4. CCNP Voice  ($98,290)

Cisco Certified Network Professional CCNP Voice validates advance knowledge and skills required to integrate into underlying network architectures. Furthermore, this certification validates a robust set of skills in implementing, operating, configuring, and troubleshooting a converged IP network. With a CCNP Voice certification, a network professional can create a collaboration solution that is transparent, scalable, and manageable. The CCNP Voice focuses on Cisco Unified Communications Manager (formerly Unified CallManager), quality of service (QoS), gateways, gatekeepers, IP phones, voice applications, and utilities on Cisco routers and Cisco Catalyst switches. Additionally, the integration and troubleshooting of Cisco Unified Communications applications are now covered in the CCNP Voice, specifically the Cisco Unity Connection and Cisco Unified Presence applications.

5. CCDA: Cisco Certified Design Associate ($97,995)

The Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA) demonstrates that the individual who has passed the required exams has the requisite knowledge, experience and understanding required to design a Cisco converged network. A CCDA certified individual has the skills to design a routed and switched network infrastructure and services involving LAN, WAN, and broadband access for businesses and organizations.

In upcoming post I will disclose rest of the five most popular Cisco Certifications.

We all know in Cisco Catalyst Multilayer Switches the matching process of the Access Control list is done at hardware level. In order to do this processing the Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM) comes into picture. Basically the Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM) is used by Cisco Catalyst switches to store information necessary for hardware processing. TCAM allows a packet to be evaluated against the entire access list in a single lookup table. Most Cisco Catalyst Switches comes with multiple TCAMs. Its utilization depends on the features supported by the platform, but the TCAM is generally partitioned into sections designated for unicast routes, multicast routes, VLANs, and entries for routed, VLAN, and QoS ACLs.

The Cisco IOS Software constitutes of two components what are part of the TCAM operation, namely Feature Manager (FD) and Switching Database Manager (SDM, when I saw SDM the first thing came to my mind was Security Device Manager Application.)

The Feature Manager merges or compiles the Access Control Entries (ACE) in the TCAM table of a Cisco Catalyst Switch, whereas the Switching Database Manager (SDM) comes handy in creating a partition of TCAM table on some of Cisco Catalyst Switches into areas of different functions. The Switching Database Manager (SDM) software can configure or tunes the TCAM partition if needed. The Cisco Catalyst 4500 and Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches cannot be repartitioned as it comes with the fixed TCAM memory.

In my previous post I was discussing about Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP), now let’s see how Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP) does load balancing?  Basically there are three different types of Load balancing algorithms applied

Round Robin:

• This method is the default method used by Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP).
• In this method the when the client sends ARP requests to resolve the MAC- address of the default gateway , the reply contains the MAC address of the next possible router in round-robin fashion

 Weighted:

•  Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP) places a weight on each device to calculate the amount of load sharing that will occur through MAC assignment
• The routers participating in GLBP will advertise its weight and AVG will act based on that value
• For example if we have two routers named ITKE-Router A and ITKE-Router B. If the ITKE-Router A has double the bandwidth capacity then the ITKE-Router B. ITKE-Router A will be configured with the double weighting value of ITKE-Router B

Host-Dependent

• Each Client will always get the same Virtual MAC address.

• The Mac-address of the host is used to determine which AVF’s mac the host is directed towards.

• This method is used when the client needs a consistent gateway MAC -address.

• Host dependent GLBP is not recommended in situation where there are small number of hosts, for example, less than 20

In upcoming posts let’s see how to configure Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP) in Cisco devices.

GLBP better known as Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GBLP) is a Cisco proprietary protocol especially designed overcome the limitations of Hot Standby Routing Protocol (HSRP) and Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP). The added feature to Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP) is it can load balance between the gateways where as in HSRP and VRRP, the standby routers are configured for redundancy and act as standby only and become active only when the active router fails.

The Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP) provides load balancing over multiple routers (gateways) using a single virtual IP address and multiple virtual MAC addresses. The forwarding load is shared among all routers in a GLBP group rather than being handled by a single router while the other routers stand idle. Each host is configured with the same virtual IP address, and all routers in the virtual router group participate in forwarding packets. GLBP members communicate between each other through hello messages sent every 3 seconds to the multicast address 224.0.0.102, User Datagram Protocol (UDP) port 3222 (source and destination).

The Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP) elects one router as active virtual gateway (AVG) based on highest priority value or highest IP address in the group, if there is no highest priority.  The active virtual gateway (AVG) to respond to ARP requests sent to the virtual gateway IP address replying different virtual MAC addresses depends on which load-balancing algorithm is configured.

All routers participating in GLBP group gets the necessary virtual MAC addresses from the active virtual gateway (AVG). Up to four virtual MAC addresses can be used in any group. Each of these routers is referred to as an active virtual forwarder (AVF), forwarding traffic received on its virtual MAC address. Other routers in the group serve as backup or secondary virtual forwarders, in case the AVF fails. The AVG also assigns secondary roles.

The Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP) is part of CCNP 642-813 Exam curriculum and you must master this protocol as you can expect few questions.

In upcoming posts I will try to highlight on load balancing techniques used and how to configure Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP) in Cisco Routers and Cisco Catalyst Switches .When it comes to Catalyst Switches GLBP is currently available with Catalyst 6500 Supervisor 2 with IOS Release 12.2(14) SY4 or later and Supervisor 720 with IOS Release 12.2(17a) SX4 switch platforms.

Starting December 13, 2010 doesn’t get shocked for not downloading IOS images for any of your Cisco Products from Cisco Website. As of today if anyone having a valid SMARTNET contract with a valid CCO id can download IOS for any Cisco Catalyst Switches, Cisco Routers , Cisco security, voice  and wireless products. It will not be same effective December 13, 2010. Cisco Systems is coming up with a new policy. All software download on Cisco.com will be verified against Products registered on your Services contract.  Attempts to download Software for Products not registered on your Services contract will not be permitted.

Cisco Systems wants improve customer experience and protect your investments in Cisco Products. The major change is Cisco Systems will ask their customers to complete the following action before December 13, 2010

• Verify all applicable Cisco Products are covered under Cisco Service contracts, and that you have a valid license for Cisco Software.
• Verify your Services contracts are accurate and make necessary corrections – serial numbers, part ID’s and locations must be accurate on each Services contract.
• Associate all Services contracts to applicable Cisco.com user ID’s
• Verify all Cisco.com user IDs for your company are valid and properly assigned to individuals in your company.

So make sure all your SMARTNET and service contract are up to date and make sure you manage all your active contacts by associating with a valid Cisco.com user ID’s via the Service Access Management Tool (SAMT). This tool enables administrators to manage which individuals are allowed to request Service from Cisco (e.g. technical support/TAC, hardware replacement/RMA).

Cisco.com users can use the Cisco.com Profile Manager to view which Services contracts are associated to their profiles.

In my previous post I was talking about the Secure Copy (SCP) what is it?  , now let’s see how to configure Secure Copy (SCP) in a Cisco Router or a Switch.

In order to configure Secure Copy (SCP) in a Cisco Router make sure the SSH is enabled and its working.

Step 1) Lets enable the SSH and AAA features in the Cisco Device

ITKE-AS1(config)#ip domain-name itke.com

ITKE-AS1(config)#crypto key generate rsa general-keys modulus 512

The name for the keys will be: ITKE-AS1.itke.com

% The key modulus size is 512 bits

% Generating 512 bit RSA keys, keys will be non-exportable…[OK]

ITKE-AS1(config)#

ITKE-AS1(config)#aaa new-model

ITKE-AS1(config)#aaa authentication login default local

ITKE-AS1(config)#aaa authentication exec default local

Step 2) In order to use the SCP feature to manage configuration we must have at least once user account with enough privilege to access it

ITKE-AS1(config)#

ITKE-AS1(config)#username itke privilege 15 password secret itkeleads

Step 3) Now you are ready to enable the SCP server on:

ITKE-AS1(config)#ip scp server enable

Just by following these 3 simple steps we can enable Secure Copy (SCP) in a Cisco router or a Switch. For any further clarifications you can always have a close look at Cisco’s document on Secure Copy (SCP). 

We are all aware of the traditional way of transferring IOS files from and to Cisco Catalyst Switches, Cisco Routers and Cisco PIX/ASA firewall devices using TFPT, FTP and lately https. However there is also one more way to copy the IOS files, which is known as Secure Copy (SCP). The Secure Copy (SCP) is a secure and authenticated method of copying a configuration file or transferring an Image files to Cisco Catalyst Switches, Cisco Routers and Cisco PIX/ASA firewall devices.

Cisco Systems introduced the Secure Copy (SCP) feature in the following IOS releases

PIX/ASA firewalls 7.1 and above, FWSM 3.1 and above.

The Secure Copy (SCP) works on SSH protocol on port 22 which is like an encrypted tunnel. This tool is very useful especially to transfer files for upgrades or to perform safe backups.

In my next post you will find the commands to configure SCP in a Cisco Router and Switch.

Cisco announces the launch of new Cisco^® Catalyst^® 4500 Supervisor Engine 6L-E optimized for high-performance enterprise access.

The new Cisco 4500 Supervisor Engine 6L-E is a high-performance, basic Layer 3 extension to the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series, enabling rich media collaboration and energy and operational efficiency in the wiring closet.

The supervisor engine extends the Cisco Catalyst 4500 E-Series facilitating performance, enabling services, and protecting investments for enterprises and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) deploying business-critical applications. The competitive pricing on the supervisor engine makes it an ideal entry-point offering.

Product Overview

The Supervisor Engine 6L-E provides a fourfold increase in per-slot switching capacity from previous-generation basic Layer 3 Cisco Catalyst 4500 supervisor engines at 24 Gbps per slot. Primary Supervisor Engine 6L-E performance features include:

• Centralized 280-Gbps switching capacity with 225 mpps of throughput

• IPv6 support in hardware, providing wire-rate forwarding for IPv6 networks

• Dynamic hardware forwarding-table allocations for easy IPv4-to-IPv6 migration

• Advanced quality of service (QoS) support with eight queues per port, dynamic queue sizing, and hierarchical policing

• Dual 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks (X2 optics)