Chesapeake NetCraftsmen

Here is a recap of articles I posted in August to my blog at Netcordia:

• "Quick Network Redundancy Test" describes why and how you should test the network redundancy that you think is in place in your network.
• "Configuration Policy Functionality" talks about necessary functions for configuration management and some deficiencies in several network configuration management systems.
• "High Availability Networking (>5-nines)" summarizes one of the best CiscoLive sessions I attended this year. It describes key factors that influence network high availability.
• "Fixing problems at the right OSI layer" looks at using OSI layers to speed up troubleshooting.
• "TCP Performance and the Mathis Equation" discusses how to include packet loss factors into TCP throughput equations using use bandwidth, delay, and window size.

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Here is a recap of articles I posted in July to my blog at Netcordia:

• "Freaky Network Outages" reviews some case of strange network outages.
• "The Importance of Good Network Hygiene" describes how clean networks have fewer problems, and how these problems can be resolved more quickly than on a messy network. I talk about my favorite network hygiene practices - doing simple things to keep a network clean.
• "Monitoring Critical Network Devices" discusses ways to configure a NMS to monitor your network devices - and brute force manual configuration is not recommended.

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I've done some articles for the CCIE Flyer, run by Emmanuel Conde.  I thought it might be useful to provide you these links in case you want to review them.

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Here is a recap of articles I posted in June to my blog at Netcordia:

• "CCIE Recert" goes over ways to prepare for the CCIE written exam for CCIE recertification.
• "Routing Loops" describes how the use of static routes can create routing loops.
• "Reachability SLA and SNMP Data Collection" looks at using SNMP data collection instead of pings to track reachability in a network.
• "The Case of the Failed PCI Audit" discusses a failed network audit where some devices were not being managed by the NMS

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Here is a recap of articles I posted in May to my blog at Netcordia:

• "How's the network running? More on SLAs" discusses Service Level Agreements (SLAs) based on network QoS.
• "Anti-spoofing filters" describes why organize should use anti-spoofing filters to exclude packets that have invalid source addresses.
• "Config Policy and Operational Data" provides another example for incorporating operational data with configurations for performing configuration compliance validation.
• "Calling All Devices - What's on the network?" looks at device discovery mechanisms.

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• "Network SLA Methodologies" discusses the the types of data needed for SLA calculations. It also discusses useful calculation methodologies.
• "Network SLAs - Which One to Use?" discusses some ways to select your network SLAs.
• "The Network Microscope" describes my vision of the ultimate network microscope. This tool would tell me who is sending how much of what data on a link.
• "Mean Time to Convince" offers some ideas about little know components of MTTR. You probably have heard of MTTR - Mean Time to Repair. But you may want to learn about some underlying MTTR components - MTTC, MTTG, and MTTI.

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• "Device and Interface Groups Aid Config Policy" discusses why to use roles to group devices and categorize interfaces. This technique will improve your ability to support configuration validation.
• "Configuration Policy Validation" looks at auditing existing configurations to make sure that they match your organization's policies. This article extends the "NANOG Posting on Configuration Analysis" article.
• "NANOG Posting on Configuration Analysis" adds to a recent exchange on the NANOG mailing list about configuration management.

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• "Network Management Sucks!!!" discusses why I think Jimmy Ray Purser, a blogger for Cisco and Network World, is right on target in his article 'Network Management Sucks!!!' about the deficiency of most network management systems.
• "Event Reporting" talks about at collecting and managing event reporting for syslog and SNMP traps.
• "VoiceCon Spring 2009 Orlando, FL" describes my plans to present a tutorial on VoIP Troubleshooting, Monitoring, and Metrics as well as lead a panel discussion on Network Management: Finding the Right Tools atVoiceCon Spring 2009.
• "Device Modeling" describes why I think that using network confiugration management systems that model network devices may not be worth the effort.

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