In this blog I’d like to highlight the ways you can prepare yourself for the CCIE Storage. This CCIE is currently the closest to datacenter networking and if you are installing Cisco UCS systems and/or Nexus 5000s you will need Fibre Channel knowledge and even configure MDS switches or Nexus 5000s who run the exact same code as the MDS switches (NX-OS is basically a renamed SAN-OS). Apart from some Specialist (partner) certifications there is actually no resource to gain this knowledge. So everything has to come from the CCIE Storage.
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Currently I’m doing a lot of consulting for companies that are working on a Datacenter project, most times in combination with some Storage solution and probably we slip in some UCS (Unified Computing System, do NOT think of it as UC stuff).

Therefore it’s good to expand thoughts and knowledge and I bought a stack of books related to Storage and Cisco Datacenter solutions. Besides that it’s a little personal thing to see if I can combine the current studies for Security and also try to pursue the CCIE Storage as well. It’s a difficult choice, since there are quite some rumors going on the internet, that suspect a change to CCIE Datacenter and that Cisco would drop having a CCIE solely based on the MDS switches. With the current Nexus portfolio, it really removes the need for certain type of MDS switches and position the MDS line only in the Fibre Channel core of a network.
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The command line interface of the Cisco ASA security appliance is quite different than the regular IOS CLI. Still it has a lot of things that are the same. Other things are quite different and are considered harder on the ASA. In this blog post I’d like to introduce a couple tricks that make life easier on this device.

Show running-config

At first it’s not that special of course to display the current running-config of the box, but when you issue a question mark there are tons of options.

Rack1ASA1# sh run ?

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This blog post will explain you all the differences in EtherChanneling that you can get. It’s known that you can get any type of wicked configuration on the R&S lab, especially since there are 4 switches, which are probably fully meshed with multiple links.

Why?

Etherchanneling is used in networks to have both redundant links and a double (or more) bandwidth link to another Catalyst switch. It also helps in forming a loop-free path and overcomes the issue of having 1 link in blocking (as you would when using Spanning Tree). On some router platforms it’s also possible to bundle links, but most times this doesn’t really work and you could run into problems while using it on different IOS versions.
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After I passed the CCIE Security Written exam last Thursday I’d like to give a brief overview of how the exam is compiled and what you need to know for it.

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