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Kind of reminds you of Cisco's switch from their terminology for tag switching to the more common label switching, doesn't it? Check out the Cisco documentation. It's not a direct comparison, but it does "kind of" remind you.

Cisco defines MTBF as "Mean time between failure. Time at which 50% of the units of interest will have failed; used as a measure of the time a user might reasonably expect a device or system to work before a fault occurs." http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/me ls/dwdm/dwdm_gl.htm#xtocid1301111

wiki defines MTBF as the reciprocal of the Failure rate (1 failure/16 million hours -> 16 million hours until a unit fails) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_time_between_fai lure

Seagate defines MTBF as "The average time before a failure will occur. This is not a warranty measurement. It is a calculation taking into consideration the MTBF of each component in a system, as well as, the statistical average operation time between the starting lifetime of a unit and the time of a failure. After a product has been in the field for a few years, the MTBF can become a field proven statistic." http://support.seagate.com/support/glossary/terms/ mean_time_between_failure.html

Western Digital's definition is also very similar http://westerndigital.com/en/library/gloss0803.pdf

In none of the definitions I can find online have I seen the warranty time span come into play.

If this drive has a 1.6 million hour MTBF you should indeed get 1.6 million hours of use from it.

From a batch perspective, if you had 182 of these drives, after 1 year, 1 of them would have a 50% chance of failing.

-Rick

Cisco has a line of Fibre Channel switches called Cisco MDS. They are used for Storage Area Networks and provide FC, iSCSI and FCIP capabilities. The high-end series, 95xx, look pretty much like Catalysts 65xx (with FC interfaces, of course), and 92xx use 7200 chasis.

Those systems are povered by Linux, given, you have a SmartNet contract, you can download updates for them containing kernel with initd and rootfs. Moreover, by simply observing boot process, one can conclude, they are Linux-powered. However, Cisco doesn't provide a source code for them.

I've also heard (but this is not confirmed), that their main competitor in SAN market, Brocade, is also using Linux as a basis for their FabricOS. Did anyone checked that?

iPhone is now a featured product on Cisco's Website. I don't know if it was there before the iPhone was announced or before this trademark non-usage news came out, but surely it's related with Apple's iPhone.

Cisco, which owns the iPhone trademark, has announced what they want for it.

An "open approach". Interoperability.

Fundamentally we wanted an open approach. We hoped our products could interoperate in the future. In our view, the network provides the basis to make this happen--it provides the foundation of innovation that allows converged devices to deliver the services that consumers want. Our goal was to take that to the next level by facilitating collaboration with Apple. And we wanted to make sure to differentiate the brands in a way that could work for both companies and not confuse people, since our products combine both web access and voice telephony. That's it. Openness and clarity. - Cisco's general counsel.

They may have an even harder time with Cisco owning the iPhone trademark:

http://blogs.cisco.com/news/2007/01/update_on_cisc os_iphone_tradem.html

...and didn't come to an agreement.

Cisco Sues Apple for Trademark Infringement. From the article: "Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," said Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel, Cisco. "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission.

Looks like Cisco knew that had something of high value to Apple and tried to use it to leapfrog into a collaboration with them, sharing the iPhone brand. Apple (understandably) didn't want to play ball, and that's why they're at loggerheads right now.

Here's an interesting bit from archive.org's Wayback Machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060824185939/www.cisc o.com/en/US/swassets/sw293/trademark_statement.htm l
That's their archive of cisco.com back in August 24th in regards to their trademarks. No iPhone.

Now, visit the same page as it is currently:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/swassets/sw293/trademar k_statement.html
Amazingly, there's now iPhone listed. And iPhone's now featured on their front page, where before it barely had any mention other than compatibility statements.

Took them 7 years to update their trademark page. Good timing, that.

Steve, buddy, if you use this to win, I want one of each product line.

Cisco's response in plain english: http://blogs.cisco.com/news/2007/01/update_on_cisc os_iphone_tradem.html // Chris

It does seem a little suspicious

Commentary from Mark Chandler, Cisco's SVP and General Counsel, on Apple's infringement of Cisco's iPhone trademark:

"Cisco owns the iPhone trademark. We have since 2000, when we bought a company called Infogear Technology, which had developed a product that combined web access and telephone. Infogear's registrations for the mark date to 1996, before iMacs and iPods were even glimmers in Apple's eye. We shipped and/or supported that iPhone product for years. We have been shipping new, updated iPhone products since last spring, and had a formal launch late last year. Apple knows this; they approached us about the iPhone trademark as far back as 2001, and have approached us several times over the past year."

Intellectual property is the lifeblood of Silicon Valley and we all have to protect our property. As everyone now knows, the iPhone trademark is owned by Cisco. We (Cisco) had hoped to reach an agreement to share our trademark with Apple, yet they decided to use the name without our agreement, so we, unfortunately, are having to go to court to stop them from using the name. We still hope we can reach an agreement, but when your neighbor steals your property, you have no recourse other than to call the cops and file a complaint. Full Cisco statement at: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_011007.ht ml For a tick-tock and more rationale for the suit, please read our GC's blog entry here: http://blogs.cisco.com/news/2007/01/update_on_cisc os_iphone_tradem.html He states, in part, "this is not a suit against Apple's innovation, their modern design, or their cool phone. It is not a suit about money or royalties. This is a suit about trademark infringement."

Intellectual property is the lifeblood of Silicon Valley and we all have to protect our property. As everyone now knows, the iPhone trademark is owned by Cisco. We (Cisco) had hoped to reach an agreement to share our trademark with Apple, yet they decided to use the name without our agreement, so we, unfortunately, are having to go to court to stop them from using the name. We still hope we can reach an agreement, but when your neighbor steals your property, you have no recourse other than to call the cops and file a complaint. Full Cisco statement at: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_011007.ht ml For a tick-tock and more rationale for the suit, please read our GC's blog entry here: http://blogs.cisco.com/news/2007/01/update_on_cisc os_iphone_tradem.html He states, in part, "this is not a suit against Apple's innovation, their modern design, or their cool phone. It is not a suit about money or royalties. This is a suit about trademark infringement."

Apple knew http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_010907b.h tml they just chose to violate the trademark. Furthermore, Cisco is actually shipping products under that trademark. So, this is a deliberate move by Apple.

If they didn't get sued, they got the trademark.

If they did, they'd get free publicity and coverage.

Well, called Cisco - and they are upset about phonetic infringement!

Sysco had the name 'sis-co' 14 years Before Cisco attempted to take the name 'sis-co'.

Hell, if Apple music company in the UK can attack Apple computer (no relation) over the word *apple*
(prior art 4.1 million years ago - fruit evolution) ,
it seems that Sysco would have a very good case against Cisco for name dilution.

Imagine saying 'I need to pick up the new Cisco router and install it over at the Sysco Warehouse.'
Confusing?

If Apple and Cisco were indeed in negotiations, Cisco should have disclosed that by now.
You mean something like this?

They are using it, if only sort of:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/smbiz/iphone/

The lawsuit is most likely just to make sure that Apple has to follow through on signing a contract, rather than claiming dilution.

Well, need iPhone support? contact Cisco!?

>Cisco, for leading them on, only to demand something crazy at the last minute: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_010907b.h tml

Where in that linked article does it say that Cisco "leading them on, only to demanded something crazy"?

Cisco, for leading them on, only to demand something crazy at the last minute: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_010907b.h tml Or Apple, for going ahead with the name anyway, hoping to win it in court: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_011007.ht ml?sid=BAC-RelatedNews

Cisco, for leading them on, only to demand something crazy at the last minute: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_010907b.h tml Or Apple, for going ahead with the name anyway, hoping to win it in court: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_011007.ht ml?sid=BAC-RelatedNews

There was a report that Apple and Cisco were in negotiations over the use of the name until yesterday, so chances are, this is Cisco going "OMG... cash cow ahead, release the legal hounds!". They held out on agreeing to license the name to Apple because they know that they can now sue for millions.

Anyone know what the Cisco iPhone is? It's a Skype phone. That's it.

I found this on Cisco's site after searching for "iPhone" on their search engine:

http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_010907b.h tml

"News Release
Cisco's Official Comments on the Apple iPhone Announcement

SAN JOSE Calif., January 9, 2007 - Given Apple's numerous requests for permission to use Cisco's iPhone trademark over the past several years and our extensive discussions with them recently, it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final document and public statement that were distributed to them last night and that addressed a few remaining items. We expect to receive a signed agreement today."

The Linksys iPhone is also a "featured product" on Cisco's site right now, which seems like a desperate attempt to get any attention amongst the public over its own iPhone. Apple, in one day, gained more public awareness of its iPhone than Cisco or LinkSys ever did. :)

Actually Hops (or rather transit AS's) is the 3 or 4th (4th in a Cisco world) step in the actual decision tree.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk365/technologies _tech_note09186a0080094431.shtml
and you should consider what happens when your a Tier-1 provider. You may have 3,4,5 or 100 different paths to a specific subnet, all at the same as_path length at which point it doesn't matter.

BGP is an Exterior Routing protocol. Your "Sure Route IP" is extremely dependent upon BGP since its more of a load balancing protocol and doesn't have a clue about the underlying architecture. Relying on ping data is as stupid as you can get. Most ISP's worth there salt put ICMP (or the UDP equivalent) in the lowest class of service they have.

BGP also does a TON more of stuff than you give it credit for and quite frankly is way more important than your load balancing software. I would say it does MORE than "Sure Route IP" but thats like comparing apples to sidewalks.

• The first 90,000 miles are toll-free, Cisco Systems company profile (detailed), 8 September 2002.
• The first 90,000 miles are toll-free, Cisco Systems Newsroom news story (brief), as seen on Newsroom, 21 February 2001.

Articles discussing this include:

• Now that's a long distance call!, Humans in Space, NASA, 3 June 2003.
• Johnson Space Center, NASA Spinoff magazine, 2001.http://www.techbriefs.com/spinoff/spinoff2001 /johnson.html -->
• This isn't Houston, Lafe Low, CIO Magazine, 1 October 2001.
• Voice over IP takes a giant step forward, Jon William Toigo, Washington Technology vol. 16 no. 1, 2 April 2001.
• Astronauts call home via shuttle VoIP link, William Jackson, Government Computing News, vol. 20 no. 5, 5 March 2001.

• The first 90,000 miles are toll-free, Cisco Systems company profile (detailed), 8 September 2002.
• The first 90,000 miles are toll-free, Cisco Systems Newsroom news story (brief), as seen on Newsroom, 21 February 2001.

Articles discussing this include:

• Now that's a long distance call!, Humans in Space, NASA, 3 June 2003.
• Johnson Space Center, NASA Spinoff magazine, 2001.http://www.techbriefs.com/spinoff/spinoff2001 /johnson.html -->
• This isn't Houston, Lafe Low, CIO Magazine, 1 October 2001.
• Voice over IP takes a giant step forward, Jon William Toigo, Washington Technology vol. 16 no. 1, 2 April 2001.
• Astronauts call home via shuttle VoIP link, William Jackson, Government Computing News, vol. 20 no. 5, 5 March 2001.

• The first 90,000 miles are toll-free, Cisco Systems company profile (detailed), 8 September 2002.
• The first 90,000 miles are toll-free, Cisco Systems Newsroom news story (brief), as seen on Newsroom, 21 February 2001.

Articles discussing this include:

• Now that's a long distance call!, Humans in Space, NASA, 3 June 2003.
• Johnson Space Center, NASA Spinoff magazine, 2001.http://www.techbriefs.com/spinoff/spinoff2001 /johnson.html -->
• This isn't Houston, Lafe Low, CIO Magazine, 1 October 2001.
• Voice over IP takes a giant step forward, Jon William Toigo, Washington Technology vol. 16 no. 1, 2 April 2001.
• Astronauts call home via shuttle VoIP link, William Jackson, Government Computing News, vol. 20 no. 5, 5 March 2001.

I called Vancouver, B.C. Canada from Portland, OR and it was all but horrible..using Comcast Cable or Qwest DSL ... both sucked wind and echo was fairly constant.

Er, not that I'm quick to defend Skype or anything (closed applications, closed protocols), but let's look at the evidence here. You were using Comcast and Qwest, but you blame Skype for the quality issues? Sorry, but the train ride can only be as smooth as the track underneath.

Also, if you read up on the topic of VoIP echo, you'll find that it's always caused by dodgy equipment or wiring on the analog portion of the call route. Although some digital echo cancelling can be done, there's no sure way to eliminate it except by keeping the call path 100% digital. (Echo is present in analog-to-analog calls as well, but the latency is usually low enough that it's not perceptible.)

There's a specific difference. Residential ISPs are more likely to require something that is available as part of the Windows base install than something that requires proprietary software from Cisco. In addition, something from Microsoft is more likely to be used to deny Linux users the ability to connect or to require them to move up to the next tier of service at twice the monthly rate.

If I can tell my routers and switches to ignore all traffic from a MAC until it certifies I call that a good thing. I imagine MS is trying to do the same thing with AD. Even in a DHCP network I can set up ethereal and grab an IP within the network and have a hayday accessing nodes. However if your MAC is denied throughout the network....well good luck doing anything, it just became a hell of a lot harder. Of course security is always subjective as the real goal is not to make something secure, just to be more secure enough that it is not worth the effort.

You're wrong on somethings..

1) bunch of blah and stuff about memory. Since your explanation is memory->application->CPU->kernel memory->protocol stack->CPU memory->NIC driver->bus (basically, it was hard to follow with all the fud), you obviously have no idea how an OS works (I can't think of any modern, common OS's that have such a path). None of this happens as you describe, they are all parts, but the flow is nothing like you describe. See LKML for 2.6 on network programming if you want to see how this works on Linux, which is relatively transparent http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/5/17/78 also you can look at BSD.

2) The PCI Bus is irrelevant for gigabit ethernet (which is about the only network controller commonly in production, legacy stuff like 10/100 is more common- but is almost out of production) and for faster types (10GE or myrinet or infiniband), totally irrelevant. The 32bit PCI bus limit is about at gigabit speeds, and it is shared with everything else on the PCI bus- therefore suboptimal:

http://www.codepedia.com/1/PCI+BUS

PCI-X and gigabit controllers directly off the Controller chipsets is how networking is mostly done now.

3) blah blah, network slower than computers (ridiculous depends on the network and computer exclusively- in consumer computers it swings in a pendulum, when 100Mb came out most of the stuff in the PC couldn't keep up- it was faster to install over the network than from CD ROM because the CD drive was slower, it is going through that again with gigabit- most consumer PCs disk systems can't even approach filling gigabit). Then some conflation about what QoS, and policing can do... QoS only helps if the pipe is full:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service

or

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/i to_doc/qos.htm

4) ISP and stupidity. ISP's may or may not be stupid. They are driven by market forces and the market force is people don't currently want to pay for a tiered service class internet. When they do, they will offer it. Technically it has been feasible for years. Read NANOG mailing list, you will see they are not stupid, but instead are in a low margin business.

5) blah blah blah, microsecond delay, destinguishable from millisecond via a consumer computer with a common OS by a person?? hahahahah. not without a measuring device. It is possible with enough training (I suppose musicians can). Since you can buy commodity off the shelf lan gear that will turn in sub millisecond delay, I don't think spending the extra-money on low microsecond delay will help

Bunch of pseudo-science modded up on Slash again...

Oh and Jumbo FRAMES are commonly 9000B in size (although the term can refer to anything bigger than 1500B:

http://sd.wareonearth.com/~phil/net/jumbo/

or 9K on cisco:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/473/148.html

You're wrong on somethings..

1) bunch of blah and stuff about memory. Since your explanation is memory->application->CPU->kernel memory->protocol stack->CPU memory->NIC driver->bus (basically, it was hard to follow with all the fud), you obviously have no idea how an OS works (I can't think of any modern, common OS's that have such a path). None of this happens as you describe, they are all parts, but the flow is nothing like you describe. See LKML for 2.6 on network programming if you want to see how this works on Linux, which is relatively transparent http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/5/17/78 also you can look at BSD.

2) The PCI Bus is irrelevant for gigabit ethernet (which is about the only network controller commonly in production, legacy stuff like 10/100 is more common- but is almost out of production) and for faster types (10GE or myrinet or infiniband), totally irrelevant. The 32bit PCI bus limit is about at gigabit speeds, and it is shared with everything else on the PCI bus- therefore suboptimal:

http://www.codepedia.com/1/PCI+BUS

PCI-X and gigabit controllers directly off the Controller chipsets is how networking is mostly done now.

3) blah blah, network slower than computers (ridiculous depends on the network and computer exclusively- in consumer computers it swings in a pendulum, when 100Mb came out most of the stuff in the PC couldn't keep up- it was faster to install over the network than from CD ROM because the CD drive was slower, it is going through that again with gigabit- most consumer PCs disk systems can't even approach filling gigabit). Then some conflation about what QoS, and policing can do... QoS only helps if the pipe is full:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service

or

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/i to_doc/qos.htm

4) ISP and stupidity. ISP's may or may not be stupid. They are driven by market forces and the market force is people don't currently want to pay for a tiered service class internet. When they do, they will offer it. Technically it has been feasible for years. Read NANOG mailing list, you will see they are not stupid, but instead are in a low margin business.

5) blah blah blah, microsecond delay, destinguishable from millisecond via a consumer computer with a common OS by a person?? hahahahah. not without a measuring device. It is possible with enough training (I suppose musicians can). Since you can buy commodity off the shelf lan gear that will turn in sub millisecond delay, I don't think spending the extra-money on low microsecond delay will help

Bunch of pseudo-science modded up on Slash again...

Oh and Jumbo FRAMES are commonly 9000B in size (although the term can refer to anything bigger than 1500B:

http://sd.wareonearth.com/~phil/net/jumbo/

or 9K on cisco:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/473/148.html

a PIX box is a security appliance - basicly a firewall on so much crak that it doesn't let jack through.. PIX boxes arn't all that wonderful, but they are not routers they do not route anything. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/vpndevc/ps2 030/

as for the switch.. if it died i would have gotten it replaced.. that is what smartnet is for.. the fact that you replaced it with 5 netgear 48's means that more than likly you did have over kill on the switch (if you had one doing that job) and it also means you more than likly where not using it for the fetures. for basic networks yea cisco isn't the answer.. but when you need to truly manage a large network - they have the best tool set.

I am not saying cisco is the only way to go.. i just don't like when people just call them crap.

When you try and fill a 10g pipe with a single tcp session, the congestion avoidance mechanisms of tcp will prevent you from filling the pipe. Essentially the sender will ramp up the rate of packets very quickly initially until the receiver sends back a congestion notification. The sender will then cut the send rate *in half*, and climb it back up very slowly - 1 extra byte per round-trip if memory serves (don't quote me on that). This works great for 100m, but to climb from 5g to 10g takes about 30 minutes if you have a cross-US round-trip-time (RTT).

To get around this you can:
1. Patch your TCP stacks with a few high-performance modifications
2. Figure out - using the RTT, interface buffer sizes, and bandwidth - what the number of outstanding packets can be before the receiver sends back a "slow down" message. Then configure the sender to have a smaller packet queue.

Great article on this here:
http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/archive d_issues/ipj_9-2/gigabit_tcp.html

It's tough to say if that was the problem here (I'm actually assuming it was not) since after a little digging I didn't see any details on their implementation. And no, I'm not interested in truly digging (I have a pesky job thingy to get back to).

Regardless of whether M$ or Intel are the grantees of this bogus patent. VoIP and by extension a digital phone set via PC were invented by Danny Cohen in 1973 via an ARPA sponsored project involving the predecessor to VoIP - Network Voice Protocol (NVP). Read more on Wikipedia. In addition to this prior art, Cisco would probably have some disagreement with the validity of this patent as well with their Personal Communicator Application.

Why in the world would you want a router + 48 port switch all in one? so when you take the router offline the whole network crashes?

Not to be rude, but this is how it's done in the real world. The fact that a switch "routes" is merely part of its feature set. Routing is switching. It's just that canonically, it's typically associated with layer 3 switching. Some switches even switch above layer 3.

Also, these devices don't go down. It's not really acceptable. As such they are configured with multiple, redundant supervisor engines. If one dies, the other takes over. You can upgrade them separately so that the other is running during the upgrade. See here. See the box all the way to the right? The two middle most cards are the redundant supervisors. You can see similar configurations in the rest.

What fundamental principle of encryption are they breaking? If anything, a fundamental principle of encryption is that there can't be such a thing as a "secret key" if you're either putting it in the passport or if you're deploying it to everybody that needs to scan passports (remember DVD encryption?).
 
Huh, you have worked with encryption haven't you? You are supposed to use a "secret key" in 3DES encrypted communication, it's a fairly standard procedure. It's also completely useless if the "secret key" is public information as that is really the only thing protecting it. A key should have been generated using other information or even more complex to have some math depending on date or something as the key, but if the key is public, than you have eliminated the point of the 3DES encryption. This is completely standard practice on firewalls for VPN's, as you seem to not know about this deployment here is a link http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/vpndevc/ps2 030/products_configuration_example09186a008055bd85 .shtml#maintask1 and look at the pre-shared key. On top of that there is a method for deploying keys to users and having them not now what the key is, I've done it many times myself.
 
What I am actually not getting is why the hell is there 3DES on these if the info is already easily available? the 3DES implementation seems pointless at best and with the key being public info, I wouldn't even call it cracking to get the info, it's plain old decrypting with the method the maker of the card designed.

Here's Cisco's version: WAFS

E.g., Cisco's AVS (formerly Fineground): http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6492/product s_white_paper0900aecd80321a32.shtml

• implements the multiple DNS name solution suggested by Mr Hopkins
• has a clever way of eliminating browser cache validation requests
• has a mechanism to transparently measure actual (not simulated) user page load times

• Juniper's DX series (formerly Redline): http://www.juniper.net/solutions/literature/white_ papers/200142.pdf
• The same is true for F5's web accelerator (formerly Swan).: http://f5.com/solutions/technology/pdfs/smartcachi ng_wp.pdf

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps 4324/ps4321/index.html

Catalyst 4500 Series includes four chassis: Catalyst 4510R (10-slot: redundant Supervisor Engine capable), Catalyst 4507R (7-slot: redundant Supervisor Engine capable, Catalyst 4506 (6-slot), and Catalyst 4503 (3-slot).

Granted its a 4506 with two really small sups.

He took some classes. He doesn't say he ever took or passed the tests.

Secondly, the CCNA is only good for 3 years, so if he had taken and passed the CCNA test, then he's 2 years expired unless he either renewed it or went on to a Professional level certification (CCNP, CCDP, CCVP, CCSP etc.).

A CCNA would be just the first step, with the Cisco Certified Security Professional as the next logical step if he wants to stick with Cisco gear.

Cisco spells it all out on their site:
http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/learning_car eer_certifications_and_learning_paths_home.html

If you're in the US, young and the military interests you at all, consider going in with a guaranteed crypto MOS (in writing from your recruiter). IF you're worth your salt at all, you'll come out with a ton of experience, Top Secret clearance, and a long list of good references.

I know my employer doesn't want to hire anyone without a CCNP/CCVP, but even with that we find folks that are booksmart and little real experience. We still require one of those certs within the probation period, but we provide a full-blown CCIE Voice lab for new hires to study and practice in.

I have worked at employers that had partner obligations that required us to have certs. From my A+ that I had to have within 6 months for our site to continue to be an "All A+ certified" shop in 1998, my CNA (Novell) that got me into the "Network Engineering" department (vs. the desktop tech service department), my MCSE (NT) that actually got me to full-blown Network Engineer status, followed a few months later with my CCNA, and 8 months later with my CCNP, CCDA, CCDP (each a week apart), and a month later the CCNP:Security (no longer offered), and then all the Cisco voice tests that my employers relationship with Cisco required (right after they bought the Selsius CallManager and ActiveVoice's Unity), I've pretty much always had to take tests. What does that give me personally? The tests mean little, as you can memorize a bunch of Q&As, but they do filter out some folks. But between myself and my co-workers, it just kept my employer on the top of Cisco's list and the customer referals keep coming in.

I just passed the Gateway/Gatekeeper (GWGK) test for my CCVP two days ago after basically two days of study. I studied the first time the morning of the test two weeks ago and failed by 7 points. Having seen the test and knowing exactly what I needed to fill in, I spent last Thursday morning researching the stuff I needed, wrote out a 3x5 card of the exact lab-sim commands I needed, memorized them, and passed the test with 80 more points than the first time and with 30 minutes to spare. There aren't too many folks who could pass the GWGK test with basically 8 hours of study time, but anyone with enough time and drive can do it.

Our CEO is a CCIE (#14888), and I'd said that cert has the most pull of any I know about. But you don't just go and pass the CCIE. It took him 5 or 6 times.

I know a number of people who have been wanting to get their CCNA for years... the fact that they can't buckle down and study for a month and pass the test tells me they're not worth hiring. I've even given a few guys I knew that were interested in moving past the desktop tech to network engineer access to full-blown CCNP/CCVP online lab courses via Thomson NETg (each course worth $1,000+), and none of them even completed the courses.

A cert doesn't get your foot in the door, but a lack of it can keep you locked out. That's my two cents from my point of view and 8 years of Networking experience.

Case in point:

Cisco IP stolen by Huawei:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2003/0709huawei.h tml?net
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/corp_012303.html

I have an example about Cherry qq ripping off the Chevrolet Spark, I'll post it later. :)

http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2004/prod_070104.ht ml

Unfortunately some companies, such as AT&T and BellSouth (which are becoming the same soon) don't get it. They don't seem to realize that the switch to fiber will be inevitable, and they are currently falling behind in this race for speed. In its current carnation, ADSL is not capable of handling Voice, Internet, and TV service, and while I have read that they have plans to implement VDSL, it will have its limits as well. It is good to see a huge company such as Verizon understand that they will need to make a huge investment, even though they have a control over certain markets and aren't really being forced to upgrade. In my area, SureWest has been running fiber in many parts of Sacramento, and they already offer 100Mbps fiber directly to customers houses. The CEO has admitted it will cost them a lot of money, and will be a slow upgade, but they have already been successful in their attempts. If a relatively small company like SureWest can compete in a market that has been controlled by AT&T and Comcast, then I'm sure it is possible in many other big cities around the United States. I have their service, and one thing that I find amazing is they can upgade to 1Gbps to their customers relatively easy by switching out line cards in their 4500 Cisco routers when it becomes necessary to keep up with or get ahead of the competition. The same can be done by switching to 10Gbps uplink from 4500 series to 6500 series routers that are connecting neighborhoods to their backbone. Now that is building for the future.

"Not Intel CPUs. MIPS. The config dump will tell you. For a NPE400 that's a R7000 CPU running at 350MHz. R7000 refers to a MIPS design. I'm not sure who actually manufactures the CPUs.

As far as I know every Cisco router has a MIPS design processor in it. The chip may be made by TI, Broadcom or NEC, but it is a MIPS design."

IBM makes a bunch of chips for Cisco:

http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/partners/news/2004/ pr_prod_06-09.html

their million dollar badasses which they bought from another party

Huh? CRS-1 was done in-house.

Cisco does in fact have ADSL2+ WICs available:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5853/product s_data_sheet0900aecd80394b7e.html

I absolutely guarantee the 7600 series will smoke the linux box in any routing task you can imagine. ;)

I assume by 7x00 series router you mean the _7200_ series. Well, it's old, but you're right. Performance-wise, if you don't want to do anything interesting, the linux solution is superior. However, the 7200 series is designed to be reliable, feature-rich, and modular. You pay a price for those options. As you try to add features, the linux solution will fail to outperform a comparable Cisco device. Not to mention the apparent lack of modularity/hot swap capability.

The modern, low-end 28xx series is a more reasonable comparison. Again, you're trading feature set for cost -- the 28xx series starts around $2000 USD. The linux router has most of the basic functionality, and is presumably cheaper, depending on the hardware selected. It does _not_ have advanced features of a modern low-end router:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5854/product s_data_sheet0900aecd8016fa68.html

Go on ebay and look for Cisco routers with FE ports, you can find them for a few hundred dollars.

You might be able to find some Cisco routers that have FE ports for cheap, but they can't route packets anywhere near the 100Mbps speed. I got a 3620 with a NM-2FE2W module for my 20Mbps fiber connection, and the thing can barely do 15Mbps. I ended up using m0n0wall on a spare machine that can route MUCH faster than 20Mbps I currently need. I love Cisco equipment, it has great features, and very reliable, but for the performance you get with the low end stuff, the price is a joke. The 1800/2800 routers have better performance, but with all the software features they can get really expensive. Check out this document for some realistic routing performance.

I'm no lawyer, so can somebody explain to me how a court can say that Spamhaus, a service that customers voluntarily sign up for, cannot index IP addresses theat users wish to block? There is nothing Spamhaus does that a local mail server cannot do, they just already have a blacklist for you. Spamhaus is just, "Hey, don't trust these guys."

I have no problem with this is the customer is the end user, but in most cases it's not the end user who has chosen to block via Spamhaus, but an ISP. And before you say "well, choose another ISP," what if you had an email account established with an ISP for years and then the ISP suddenly decides to start using Spamhaus without consulting you? Does everyone have to host their own SMTP server on their own domain in order to insure a reasonably reliable email service? Would that even insure it, since someone else's ISP might enter a typo and inadvertently block your domain thinking it's a SPAM source? You can only guarantee that you won't bounce incoming email, you have no control over rogue entities who can block your outgoing email however they like and not be held responsible? Does it make a difference that some of these rogue entities have been given some semblance of acceptability merely because an assortment of ISPs have been convinced that using them is actually a good idea?

Suppose the US Mail service suddenly started using a blocking system to try to eliminate junk mail. Then that important letter is sent telling you that your Aunt Bessie died and left you 3.1M providing you stay overnight in her old haunted mansion on the next Halloween after her death or forfeit the whole thing. The US Mail system misrecognizes the letter as junk mail and blocks it. Would you just say "oh well, it's a reasonable sacrifice in exhange for blocking all that junk mail?"

Suppose your phone company decided that in the interest of blocking phone solicitation they would electronically block incoming calls to your number from a maintained list, and you're Aunt Bessie's lawyer's number inadvertenly and erroneously made it onto the list. Feeling better about blocking those phone solicitors?

On the other hand, if YOU ask the phone company to block calls from a list of numbers, or if YOU ask the mail service to block letters from certain addresses (and they would actually agree to it), I have no problem with it because YOU decided, not the carrier.

ISPs should be treated as common carriers (http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/archiv ed_issues/ipj_5-3/uncommon_carrier.html), IMHO, and not allowed to pick-and-choose what they will deliver and what they will not. If they'd like to see spam reduced, then they should implement blocking services that their users can choose to enable, or NOT. The shotgun approach to spam simply produces unacceptable collateral damage.