Blog

I’ve been testing some end-to-end VRF-Lite configurations, and I’ve been thinking about whether the customer edge (CE) device should run one or more VRFs. Like many design choices in networking, [...]

A colleague of mine asked if I would do a blog on using the AXL/SOAP interface to execute custom queries for administrative purposes.  I thought that this would be an interesting topic to cover.  Though, it isn't something that can be fully addressed in one blog.  So, I think this…

 That’s “Ethernet over MPLS” to you!  My blog from a couple of days ago mentioned that the Catalyst 6500 with Sup720 has great forwarding performance with EoMPLS, without adding any [...]

Recently I fielded a request from a customer to explain how they could restrict access to the Corporate Directory and Personal Directory from an IP phone.  I checked into it and found that CUCM 7.x introduces a few changes that actually allows administrators to properly address requests like this one.

This blog is a quick summary of some port-related tidbits I’ve run across recently.  Port Security Sticky We recently updated a Dev lab data center with new Cisco 6509 switches, [...]

I described collecting network performance data in last week’s blog Applied Infrastructure blog under

This article is triggered by some recent work I’ve been doing. We are migrating a customer with an old Nortel switching infrastructure to a high-speed Cisco 6509-based infrastructure with a lot [...]

I’ve been reviewing the VMware vSphere 4.0 architecture, and in the process put together the following introduction glossary.  Note: This includes just the terms I found useful this morning… — [...]

Comprehensive network management systems have a very difficult job.  They have to collect vast amounts of data from network interfaces and efficiently store it for rapid access.  The job is [...]

Have you ever wondered how to create background images on IP phones.  It is pretty well documented in the Cisco lore, but you have to jump around a little to pull the data together.  Here is a quick write up on the procedure with the file specifications on current phone…

Over the past year we have been helping customers upgrade or migrate from their old CallManager 4.1 system to one of the Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) appliance models.  Clearly there are various options available to people who are doing this upgrade.  For some folks, one approach is to stand…

I’ve recently been looking at BGP designs using route reflectors (RR). As a best practice for RR designs, the logical iBGP sessions should follow the physical topology. But what could [...]