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Upgrading from IOS-XE to SD-WAN Code
Recently I was building out a lab to iron out a migration onto the Cisco SD-WAN (Viptela) solution. As part of that process existing ISR 4k routers were going to be used at the edge devices. This process, while fairly straight forward, came with a few “gotchas” and “snags” that I had to work through. In this post I will cover the upgrade of the ISR onto SD-WAN code. In the next post I will cover the bootstrap process as well as a couple of caveats related to vManage and the ISR4k routers.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/cisco-sd-wan-isr-4k-getting-started-part-1-upgrading-code/
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I’ve been lucky enough to attend Cisco Live twice with both instances being on the full conference pass. This year, due to out of pocket expenses and the overall higher cost of San Diego I am attending on the lower cost Explorer Pass. In years past I purely interacted with Cisco Live remotely. This guide is intended to combine the best of both to assist in making the most of the Explorer pass. With that in mind, lets get some housekeeping out of the way.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/cisco-live-us-2019-explorer-guide/
Reading Time: 5 minutesLast year I was involved in assisting a datacenter core and access-layer refresh. In this case the IDF’s were reusing existing fiber patches and the run to the datacenter stayed in place. however, within the datacenter core equipment was placed across the room required new cross connects to be ran to the new core cabinet. When the cutovers began to take place the IDF’s were spread out over a large campus. Meaning troubleshooting by walking back and forth to check cabling was extremely time consuming and inefficient. Since all the IDF’s were connected via port channels I was able to figure out which runs were crossed and go fix them all at once using only the ether channel show output. I’ll walk you through the process now.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/remote-troubleshooting-crossed-fiber-using-port-channels/
Reading Time: 5 minutesThe time for applications to the Cisco Champion 2019 program are fast approaching. As I learned this it caused me to reflect on the privilege I have had for the last two years of being part of it. I’d rather tell you about my experience and why you might want to join in on the fun. In those two years, I have seen it from two different views. My first year was 100% remote as I was unable to make it to Cisco Live. Last year I got to experience all of the greatness of some of the in-person events.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/cisco-champions-an-amazing-place-to-be/
Reading Time: 3 minutesAs it turns out, albeit I don’t do voice as my career focus, I decided to help out a team member and took ownership of an issue that came up. It was a phone that wasn’t working, one that was attached to an ATA 190. After I tracked down the device I typed it’s IP address into my web browser and found it in a Recovery Firmware state. What us traditional Cisco route/switch guys would consider “ROMMON” as a loose equivalent. In this case it is important to note, since the device wasn’t function on proper firmware and was in recovery mode, the IP address of the ATA is actually in the Data VLAN at this point, NOT the Voice VLAN.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/ata-190-recovery-firmware-page-ata-190-will-not-register/
Reading Time: 4 minutesThis year I was unable to make it to Cisco Live U.S. for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the stars don’t align and you can’t make logistics work, or maybe financials just fall short. That doesn’t mean you can’t “go” to CLUS even if it may be remotely and in spirit. Trust me, if the spirits right it’s an exhausting week even when you aren’t there.
I dedicated a lot of effort this year into “attending” even though I was remote just shy of a couple thousand miles away. Here’s how I did it!
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/clus-2017-a-remote-view/
Reading Time: 14 minutesSay you have a network that currently has an MPLS WAN from your HQ to all of your Branches. You want to migrate these MPLS connections into a DMVPN design and in doing that, you would like to move the MPLS links into a Front Door VRF. There comes a challenge with this move in regards to the routing tables and when to move the headend.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/mpls-headend-fvrf-migration-strategy/
Reading Time: 8 minutesFirst of all a disclaimer. I am NOT a programer. I promise this could probably be cleaned up considerably by someone that actually does programming. Also, It may require some tweaking to work on your system. This is tested on Mac 10.12.3 and SecureCRT 8.1*
I’ve always loved using SecureCRT. I often find myself needing to add anywhere from a small to a large number of sessions to my list. Especially in my current role. I had remembered in my past at an old roll where I used Windows as my primary OS (work issued) that I had discovered a forum that had a python and VBS script to import sessions out of a CSV. Now that I am running on Apple I sought out that old forum and grabbed the python script. Drats!!! The python script doesn’t work on my new version of SecureCRT for Mac (8.1). Then I started thinking. Most of the time clients give me a nice spreadsheet of IP addresses. This got me thinking, why not write my own that uses Excel. So here it is!
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/python-xlrd-securecrt-import/
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tl;dr – THANK YOU ALL!
Yesterday morning I opened up my Spark app and was surprised to see I was added to the Cisco Champions room. I checked my e-mail and saw nothing. I knew it was being announced soon do to some twitter chatter. After validating with members it was true. I was selected as a 2017 member of Cisco Champions. I’m going to say I’m blown away even still today. I am absolutely honored to be part of such an amazing group of individuals. It has caused me to sit back and think about how I even came to know the people I look up to. So how did it start?
Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/cisco-champions-2017-a-reason-to-reflect/
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe new year just sprung upon us. This is usually when I go through my bag and reorganize. I figured hey why not post what I carry. I know, it’s nothing new nor original. I’m surely not the first person to do this post. I always find it interesting though to see what others carry so maybe someone is interested in my daily carry.
So, here we go. Lets start with the top left and move through from there.
- Super Glue
- I always end up ripping a finger or knuckle home on something. Super glue it the go to fix
- Pain Reliever
- Extra Pair of Contacts
- Hey, I’ve lost one before and it isn’t fun being half blind
- Visine
- Again, contacts…they tend to dry out in datacenters
- Bose Soundsport bluetooth headphones
- For conference calls, general listening. Paired with laptop and phone
- Laptop Charger
- Kobalt 6x speed driver and bits
- Seriously the coolest and most efficient screwdriver. Each turn and back cycle = 6 spins.
- Small LED flashlight
- Old Wacom Tablet for drawing diagrams on projectors when whiteboards aren’t available
- Fluke Networks rollup pouch
- Holds misc cables and adapters
- The original Air Console.
- Stock iPhone headphones and charger
- No I haven’t upgraded to the 7
- Thumb Drive and SD card
- Whiteboard Markers
- Console Cable
- Battery Pack
- Metallic Sharpie
- Ever need to take notes about cables on a black network rack?
- Pen and Pad of paper
- Sometimes you just have to write analog style
- Laptop
- Bose QC 15 cans
- Again, haven’t had a reason to upgrade but love noise canceling when necessary
So where does it all go? It seems like a lot listed out but to be honest it barely fills up the backpack I carry. I currently carry an OGIO Renegade RSS. Plenty of room for more than you need. Also, before anyone asks “what? No box cutter?!”. Daily carry is a Gerber Paraframe of sorts on my person.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/2017-whats-in-my-bag/
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