Written by Alfred Lumbis who I believe is a Cisco employee it goes through step by step what you need to do to fully understand the OSPF database

Extract:

OSPF, being a link-state protocol, allows for every router in the network to know of every link and OSPF speaker in the entire network. From this picture each router independently runs the Shortest Path First (SPF) algorithm to determine the best path through the network. All of this information is stored in the “Link State Database” (LSDB). Every network engineer has seen the LSDB at some point by running show ip ospf database but few actually know how to read the details. By looking only at the LSDB we should have enough information to draw a topology diagram from scratch.
Read the full post here

Post taken from CCIE Blog Original post How to read and understand the OSPF Database

Network world report it here

Official Cisco statement

To all of our CCIE Voice professionals. Here is a statement from Fred Weiller, Director of Marketing at Learning@Cisco:

“We are listening to the feedback from our valued CCIE community, and will be adjusting the CCIE Collaboration requirements. As a quick preview of the evolution of the CCIE Collaboration certification, a current holder of the CCIE Voice designation will now be able to migrate to a CCIE Collaboration credential by taking the CCIE Collaboration written exam only. We appreciate all of the great feedback and patience of the community while we update our webpages to reflect this change. We will be communicating further details about this modification as soon as possible.”

Post taken from CCIE Blog Original post CCIE Collaboration – Current CCIE Voice only need to pass written

The bottom line is if you are a CCIE Voice you will always be a CCIE Voice.

I am not sure the CCIE Collaboration rolls of the tongue as well though?

If you feel strongly about it a petition has been setup here
www.change.org/petitions/cisco-provide-a-reasonable-transition-path-from-ccie-voice-to-ccie-collaboration

Post taken from CCIE Blog Original post CCIE Collaboration – the new CCE Voice

Post taken from CCIE Blog Original post Thought for the day #1

Simple fact I was not fast enough on the troubleshooting and I did not verify everything as I configured which caused me some issues later in the lab.

So I am booked again for August 9th and I will be spending a few solid months on my troubleshooting and improving my exam technique, getting slicker with the configuration and verification.

There will be a lot of posts coming on configuring a technology and then the commands used to verify, probably some on troubleshooting as well!

If you are interested I made a small video of my journey to Brussels from Southampton, so if you are travelling to Brussels from the UK it might help!

CCIE Lab Exam Routing & Switching Attempt #1 Brussels

Basically you need to get the Eurostar from St Pancras, and when purchasing your ticket get the extra bit that allows you travel within Brussels, however on my train nobody checked the tickets!

Once you get into Brussels Midi which is just under 2 hours from London you need to take an internal train in the direction of Louvain, after about 6 stops get off at Diegem go down the platform and go under the underpass and you will pop out in front of the NH Airport Hotel – which is only a few minutes walk to Cisco – The Video will explain it all.

Post taken from CCIE Blog Original post CCIE Lab Attempt #1 Brussels – Close no Cigar!

I will go through a few simple embedded event manager examples and step through the configuration line by line.

Embedded Event Manager Example #1

This EEM example will monitor if an interface goes down and will generate a custom syslog message.

There are three steps to creating this EEM applet.

1: Create the applet and give it a name
2: Tell the applet what to look out for
3: What do you want the router to do when it sees what you have defined in step 2 – simple!

Ok, so we are going to watch out for anybody shutting down interface f0/0

For this example I just have one router fired up in GNS3

Before you start creating the applet, you need to discover the syslog msg you are looking for, to get that just shut down the interface.

You now need to select the important info and enclose it in quotes and add .* the beginning to ignore the timestamp and a .* at the end to cover any other text that may show

“.*%LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface FastEthernet0/0, changed state to administratively down.*”

This is the syslog pattern you will be watching for copy this ready for the configuration

Step 1 – create the applet and give it a name

Step 2 – tell the router what you are looking for – event syslog pattern and the paste the line from above

Step 3 – what do you want the router to do when it sees this syslog pattern – for this example we are going to bring the interface  back up again. And generate a syslog message saying LEAVE F0/0 ALONE!

Now let’s test it

It works! – This is a very simple example but it shows the power of EEM and the possibilities are endless.

You can configure it to track config changes, routing updates, adjacencies

You can also configure the router to email you when any of these events occur.

Check out my other posts below for more examples

Post taken from CCIE Blog Original post Embedded Event Manager Examples

Thursday morning I am on the Eurostar overnight at the NH Brussels Hotel and then Friday morning 8am Lab time!

I am also going to be joined by another guy I met on the London Bootcamp who is making his second attempt – so we will be comparing study notes on the train!

Back to EEM!

Roger

Post taken from CCIE Blog Original post Thank you all for your good wishes

Jeremy got me through my CCNP and if you have not heard of him before you should check out some of his videos.

Simple video with advice on how he studied to pass his ccie lab exam

There is nothing ground breaking here – he just tells you that you need to put the work in on the CLI!

Happy Studying!!

Post taken from CCIE Blog Original post How to Study for the CCIE Lab Exam

1. First establish IGP connectivity between all the routers. 
2. Can you ping all the loopbacks?
3. Are there /32 loopbacks configured on every router and advertised into IGP?
4. Is CEF enabled?
5. Is MPLS IP enabled on the required interfaces?
6. Have the routers discovered any LDP neighbors?

I have put together this quick list of commands that I would run on each router to quicky verify that Label Distribution is working

sh run | inc ip cef
sh run | inc mpls ip
sh mpls interface
sh mpls ldp disco
sh mpls ldp neigh

When applied to a router in a working MPLS Core the output should look like below

This is build from a lab in GNS3 which I will be doing some more posts on with hopefully a video when I get time.

Post taken from CCIE Blog Original post MPLS LDP Troubleshooting

Open plan offices are great for colaboration but they do have their drawbacks with background noise.

I remember my first job in IT there was three of us who worked from the IT room which was behind a real door which we could shut and lock when we didn’t want to be disturbed. We could escape the office and the only way to contact us was with the phone.

Nowadays in the open plan office if somebody wants to come and speak to you they just come straight up to your desk, normally with a comedy “knock knock!” You have to stop what you are doing have the conversation and then re-focus on what you were doing.

A guy I used to work with had a system that if his tie was over his shoulder do not disturb him. It worked. It was understood in our office if Dave (not real name!) had his tie laid over his shoulder don’t speak to him. After an hour or so he would finish what he was working on and then make a coffee and adjust his tie.

I prefer the headphones solution. I own a pair of Bose QC15 noise cancelling headphones which are awesome. They are the best pair of headphones I have ever owned and they really do cancel the noise. originally designed to be used on a plane they work equally well in a noisy office.

The funny thing is people just think you’re listening to music and still come over and do the “knock knock” on your desk.

When I have my headphones on this is my decision for “Intentional Isolation” I’ts not rude, it’s work
“Respect the privacy zones of others”

This brings me to the amazing work of Designer Jason Franzen he has setup a site www.memorandoms.com with the slogan. Fixing the world one MEMO at a time.

Looking through his memos the headphones one struck a chord with me, but there are many more on there and some which will resonate with you. You can support his project via another great website I came across http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/291480635/memo-randoms

The kickstarter project gives anyone with an idea the chance to launch it on this site and get support via people pledging money. You get the chance to own something that is brand new and just designed and the designer / inventor gets an injection of cash to get his idea off the ground

I might be getting me a set of these! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1975231304/engrain-tactile-keys?ref=search

Post taken from CCIE Blog Original post Headphones for Intentional Isolation