Linksprinter

Last fall I had the pleasure of winning a Fluke Networks LinkSprinter 200 network tester on Twitter.  Since then it has become my go to tool.

In my environment, I have a lot of links that are poorly labeled and that are on VLANs without DHCP.  This means having to tone out or trace cables when the desktop team or server team comes to me wanting something moved to another VLAN.  That's where the LinkSprinter has been a life saver.  Now when they come to my desk, I just hand them the LinkSprinter and tell them to press the power button once they hook up the cable and wait until it either gives them a red icon or a green solid cloud.  

When they bring it back, I plug it into my spare port and within a minute I have their port reports in my e-mail.  From those reports I can easily see the CDP information and know exactly what port on what switch needs changing.  The tool also tells me about POE, speed, duplex, dhcp and latency to a cloud target.  In the field of course, I also have made use of the wireless feature to see the results instantly on my iPhone.  

I used to carry my OneTouch AT with me a lot more, but I have found the LinkSprinter to replace the OneTouch AT for many smaller daily jobs.  Both its size and its price make it a perfect tool for every engineer and technician.  My organization is currently reviewing the idea of issuing our desktop support team with LinkSprinters to help decrease problem resolution time.

If you haven't bought one, I highly suggest you head over to Amazon and get yours today.

Panduit Blanking Curtain

Panduit dropped off a new toy... err tool today.  It's a sample of their new blanking curtain.  Instead of a slew of 1U or so panels to attach to a rack, it's 4U that expands up to 45U.  Of course it only works if you are blanking contiguous areas.

It was a breeze to install and it is supposed to work in both square and round hole racks.  Changing the size as you add servers to the bottom of the rack is a tool less 10 second procedure.  All in all, I think it's a great new product for data center air containment.

Installed!

Deployed!

Review - Fluke Network One Touch AT

Earlier this summer I had the privilege to participate in Fluke Network's beta test of their OneTouch AT Network Assistant.  Many of us have our favorite software tools on our laptops that we use for troubleshooting.  Unfortunately a lot of times, it's not convenient to lug around a laptop (not everyone gets a Macbook Air to use).  Also there are some tools like network cabling qualifying that just can't be done by a laptop.

This generally leads to one of two scenarios.  Either you have budget and you buy a bag full of tools or you don't have budget and you make do without specialized tools.  For those with budget you will generally have a list of tools something like this:

• Cable Toner and Probe Kit
• Copper Cable Qualifier
• Fiber Cable Qualifier
• Wireless Tester

With the OneTouch AT, you have all of these tools, plus some of the best software tools all in one package.

Picture (c) Fluke Networks

Picture (c) Fluke Networks

As seen in these pictures the OneTouch AT packs in two Gigabit copper ports, two SFP fiber ports and an 802.11a/b/g/n wireless antennae.  The screen is a touch interface.  It's not quite as responsive as your average iPhone or Android, but the screen looks more robust which is good in a testing tool.  In addition to the tool itself, Fluke has various accessory packages that include a directional wireless antennae, wire locators, and a USB fiber scope.

Because of the dual ports for fiber and copper, the device can (with the right license) serve as a TAP to capture traffic.  From reading the manual, I don't believe that it is capable of full line speed. However, for most applications this TAP will be useful in troubleshooting.  The captures can either be copied over the network or via USB thumb drive.

The real place that the OneTouch AT goes beyond what you would expect in a network troubleshooting tool of its size is in the software.  Fluke has provided many predefined tests that can be applied against different tiers of networks and applications.  Once a profile is setup, an engineer or help desk staffer can hook it up, press Test and have a picture of everything from the client to the services it would access.  This alone could help narrow the troubleshooting time of a problem immensely by showing what tier in a multi-tier application is slow or failing from a client's perspective.

One of the predefined tests is also rather unique.  This is called VeriFi.  It uses the wireless adapter to connect to your network and do a throughput and latency check against a defined host on your network.  This lets you confirm usability as well as coverage.

My Take


If you have the budget, get this tool.  You'll save money and space compared to buying the individual tools.  My only complaint is that I don't have one in my toolkit yet.  There have been a few times since I had to ship it back that I wish I had still had my beta unit.  Take a look at the Fluke website for more information and details because I barely scratched the surface of the "apps" on this unit.

Disclaimer


Fluke Networks sent me a free beta unit that was the basis of this review.  Because I participated in the beta and case study process I may end up receiving a OneTouch AT.  My review though is my own and what I really think.

CCDA 640-864 Official Certification Guide 4th Edition

A couple of months ago I had the privilege to read an advance e-book version of this new certification guide for the Cisco Certified Design Associate written by Anthony Bruno and Steve Jordan.  Cisco Press is bundling this e-book with a new test engine.  Unlike previous certification guides, this new test engine is not from Boson.  The test engine was very user friendly and the test material was well designed.


The book itself is very well laid out.  Although it is thick with theory about network design to meet the needs of those studying for the CCDA exam, it also has many real world examples.  These examples make the theory easier to understand and internalize.


As with most of the Cisco Press certification guides, there are plenty of questions within the chapters to help the reader self assess their progress.  My favorite feature is the memory table appendix.  These are a great way to prepare for the test.  My goal when I prepare for a test is to use the memory tables until I can accurately fill them in without the book and even produce them without the empty tables.  It's a great feeling to start an exam with a "cheat sheet" of sorts from the memory tables you can write down on your white board.

Review of Enterprise Network Testing: Testing Throughout the Network Lifecycle to Maximize Availability and Performance

I have recently finished reading the new Cisco Press book Enterprise Network Testing: Testing Throughout the Network Lifecycle to Maximize Availability and Performance by Andy Sholomon and Tom Kunath.  Prior to reading this book I will admit that my only experience with network testing has been much more adhoc than the structure they present.


The first section of the book is devoted to learning about the methodologies, tools and types of network testing.  This section discusses how to test networks and where in the lifecycle testing should take place.  It also builds a case for why network testing is important and how to get funding and management support for testing.  If you don't get anything else from this book, that chapter is probably the most important.  Getting budgets for testing capital expenses (lab gear, space, testing tools) and operational expenses (labor, power, cooling) require showing the return on investment that can be had from preventing downtimes later.


The second section of the book looks at how testing of various types has helped real world businesses.  These case studies give the reader a good idea of tangible benefits of network testing.  Most of this section reads more like a business textbook than a technical guide which should help network engineers bridge the gap to the holders of the purse strings.  As network engineers, we have to come out of our geek world and explain to non-geeks why what we do matters to them and to them business matters.


Finally in the last section the authors explore various network projects and the test plans used to verify their operation.  For someone like me with no formal network testing training or experience, this section is an invaluable resource.  The test plan examples are very thorough and will be a great reference for building your on test plans.


I highly recommend this book, although it may not be as sexy as say a book on the Nexus 7000 or FCoTR it provides useful skills for a network engineer to improve their network.

Review of IPv6 for Enterprise Networks

IPv6 for Enterprise Networks by Shannon McFarland, Muninder Sambi, Nikhil Sharma, and Sanjay Hooda is a timely new book that helps network engineers plan for the upcoming switch from IPv4 to IPv6.  The authors start with a quick review of CCDA/CCDP topics relating to networking models that they then use throughout the book to compare IPv4 deployments to IPv6 deployments. The one thing that I found lacking in the review was a quick overview of IPv6 itself.  Especially since Cisco Self-Study: Implementing IPv6 is nearly 8 years old and a lot has changed in that time.


The next part of the book explores the process of migrating from IPv4 to IPv6 in an enterprise.  It looks at justifications, education and planning the migration.  There is a very useful section that discusses the challenges to expect from internal and external applications.  


Finally the last part of the book is dedicated to examining the differences in implementation between IPv4 and IPv6.  The authors do a wonderful job of using real world examples from various routing protocols to pinpoint the similarities and differences with lots of screen shots.


This book will definitely be a great resource for any network engineer that will be going through the IPv4 to IPv6 transition.  That would be any network engineer not retiring in the next year.  I hope that Cisco Press will be forthcoming soon of an updated version of Cisco Self-Study: Implementing Cisco IPv6 Networks (IPV6).


Do you have a favorite learning resource for IPv6?  Please share it in the comments section.  It's going to take a lot of effort for network engineers to stay up to date during the shift since we'll be basically relearning everything we know in a new way.  Sort of like someone that knows English learning Old English.

PKI Uncovered Book Review

I have recently had the chance to read the new Cisco Press book PKI Uncovered: Certificate-Based Security Solutions for Next-Generation Networks  by Andrew Karamanian, Srinivas Tenneti, and Francois Dessart.  I will admit that Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) has been something of a double sided sword for me for some time.  I know that PKI is important for securing network resources, but I have also had the belief that certificate based security was a royal pain to implement.


This book took me through the basics of PKI in a manner that made a lot of concepts seem less complicated than I had made them out to be.  The step by step explanations of setting up PKI in a Cisco IOS world were well designed and presented.  Later on in the book the authors proceeded into more complex real world examples of VPNs and 802.1x scenarios based on the building blocks from the beginning of the book.  I am definitely going to keep this book on my quick reference shelf as I move forward with 802.1x and WPA2-Enterprise in my network.