From the monthly archives: May 2009

CRS-1: Cisco’s huge router reaches five-year milestone

By On May 29, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Cisco introduced the CRS-1 (Carrier Routing System) on May 25, 2004, as its first multichassis core router platform. The numbers were impressive: Fully configured, the system would have 72 racks of network interface modules and eight racks of interconnecting “fabric” modules, all acting as a single router with 92Tb per second (Tbps) of capacity. In the four-year development of the CRS-1, Cisco even created a new version of its IOS (Internetwork Operating System) software, called IOS XR. The new OS shared elements with the traditional [...]

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Sprint’s MiFi

By On May 28, 2009 · 1 Comment

You’re on the road and want to create a hot spot for you and coworkers, quick and without to much efforts. Well Sprint offers you this with their new launch MiFi device which combines 3G Wireless connection with a Wi-Fi router:

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Cisco releases patch for critical flaw in CiscoWorks

By On May 26, 2009 · 1 Comment

Cisco has released a patch that fixes a vulnerability in CiscoWorks Common Services that could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to access application and host operating system files. The exploitability of this flaw is rated as high. Note that only CiscoWorks Common Services systems that run on Microsoft Windows are vulnerable. The Solaris version is not affected.

Specifically the following Cisco products that use CiscoWorks Common Services as their base are affected by this vulnerability.

* Cisco Unified Service Monitor versions 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, and [...]

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Nortel continues the enterprise fight

By On May 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Even though it filed Chapter 11 and is reportedly looking to sell off huge chunks of its business, Nortel is not giving up the enterprise fight.

The company this week will unveil its next generation large enterprise core/data center aggregation switch. The Virtual Service Platform 9000 is Nortel’s entry into the increasingly crowded core data center switch field, which has seen numerous announcements of late from Nortel’s competitors: Force10, Extreme, Juniper and even 3Com, which is re-entering the battle to provide a lower cost alternative [...]

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Cisco: DoS protection using TCP Intercept

By On May 19, 2009 · 2 Comments

Every now and then, all network engineers have to deal with some kind of network attack.  Usually, the attack does not target the network devices, but the machines that provide services (e.g. www, database hosting…), because it’s more easy to find on the Internet a script that is probing port 80 for example, which by the way any kiddie can use, than to corrupt BGP in order to act as man-in-the-middle. Anyway, in front on the machine being attacked, there is a network device and [...]

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Two CCIE R&S Certification Webinars

By On May 11, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Source: https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/docs/DOC-4862

Cisco will conduct two webinar events on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 to describe recent enhancements to CCIE R&S certification and Cisco 360 Learning Program for CCIE R&S.
Attendees can choose from calls at 8:00 am and 7:00 pm PST.
Participants need only attend one event as content will be identical.

Registration information is as follows:

MEETING DETAILS

Meeting Name: CCIE R&S Refresh Date/Time: 5/20/2009 [...]

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Encryption and decryption half century ago

By On May 7, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I know that it’s not the latest discovery in cryptography area, but still this device amazed me with it’s ingenious construction and way of utilization.

An Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. The first Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I. This model and its variants were used commercially from the early 1920s, and adopted by military and government services of several [...]

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Category 6 UTP

By On May 6, 2009 · 2 Comments

Category 6 cable, usually Cat-6, is a cable standard for Gigabit Ethernet and other network protocols that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards. The main difference between Cat-6 and it’s previous versions is that CAT-6 fully utilizes all four pairs. Cat-6 features more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise. The cable standard provides performance of up to 250 MHz and is suitable for 10BASE-T / 100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-T / 1000BASE-TX (Gigabit Ethernet). It is expected to suit the [...]

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Cisco Revising CCIE R&S Certification

By On May 5, 2009 · 2 Comments

Source: https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/docs/DOC-4605

Cisco Revising CCIE R&S Certification
The upcoming Version 4.0 of Cisco CCIE® Routing and Switching certification will test hands-on troubleshooting, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), and VPN networking

To reflect the growth of the network as a service platform, Cisco is revising the certification requirements for CCIE Routing & Switching (CCIE R&S)–the expert level certification for network engineers. The new requirements were developed with assistance from Cisco enterprise customers and reflect the expectations of employers across industries.

The competencies required [...]

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Is it time to cut the Ethernet access cable?

By On May 3, 2009 · 1 Comment

A range of companies with wireless LANs are discovering that 50% to 90% or more of Ethernet ports now go unused, because Wi-Fi has become so prevalent.

They look at racks of unused switches, ports, Ethernet wall jacks, the cabling that connects them all, the yearly maintenance charges for unused switches, electrical charges and cooling costs. So why not formally drop what many end users have already discarded — the Ethernet cable?

“There’s definitely a rightsizing going on,” says Michael King, research director, mobile and [...]

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