Cisco Interactive Technology Workshop: Video Collaboration

Today, I’ve got an invitation from Cisco to attend their webcast regarding First Steps in Video Collaboration. I believe all of you out there who have a subscription to Cisco.com, got this invitation, but just in case you didn’t, here are the details.

Don’t ask me if this is just a marketing or real technical stuff, but as long as it is free I think it worth spending some time to check this webcast.

This session will help you understand how Cisco Video Collaboration solutions make your working environment more flexible and agile by integrating the different Cisco Video Solutions available at your disposal today. The session will guide you in taking your first steps in experiencing an effective collaborative environment to increase employee productivity, and focus on building the knowledge organization.

Topics include:

Introducing Cisco CIUS

Interactive Video Integration Across Endpoints

Sharing Video

Short Demonstration

Live Q&A

If you have questions about Unified Communication you’ll have the opportunity to do it through live Q&A section.

Join here

If it’s possible let me know, in Comments if you found this session interesting.

Petition for Educational Cisco IOS emulator

The Cisco IOS Emulator Petition

We the undersigned ask Cisco to consider our petition for an open and usable IOS Emulator for learning, study and training.

We are the people who are learning about Data networking and Cisco IOS software. As students and practitioners, we need to learn theory and knowledge and then to take that knowledge and practice on Cisco IOS software.

We want to be able to practice that knowledge, and demonstrate our competence. We know that you are considering the value. This petition is to show our need for this solution. Wendel Odom discusses the possibility Cisco Considers IOS for Certifcation Self Study and we are calling for Cisco to make an option available.

This experience and knowledge we gain gives us the capability to make the most of Cisco equipment for our employers, your customers. We help drive the best return on investment, and keep the network performing in the way that your customers expect.

We can test configurations prior to making and be better prepared. We can develop more complex configurations than would otherwise be possible, and not blame the equipment afterwards.

We resolve problems more quickly, we make better designs and we have greater confidence in our work. We raise less support cases (and reduce your costs) by being to perform our own testing and validation.

Whether we are resellers, consultants, students or just interested in learning, we all need an practical method to access IOS and practice.

Therefore, we are asking Cisco Systems to make a version of IOS available for educational and testing purposes.

by Greg Ferro at Etherealmind

Please sign this petition. Together we can be strong!

Cisco VNI: Mobile Data Traffic Forecast 2011

26X. That’s the amount of increase in traffic the global mobile internet is going to have over a 5 year span from 2010 to 2015, as forecast by the latest iteration of the Cisco Visual Networking Index.

The next lines and video do not belong to me, but they exist thanks to Cisco VNI. Interesting forecast. Who is too bored to read this, check the video at the end.

VNI Global Mobile Data Forecast Growth

As many of you long time readers know there are few things that get me as excited as this data because:

1. While we read about point announcements here or new services there, this gives context to us all and allows us to look at the “forest” vs. just the “trees”.
2. Our customers really, really (is it overdoing it to say “really” again) like this data, which gives us an opportunity to showcase just one of the ways that we strive to be not just a vendor but a partner to them, and it’s always great to spend more time with them.
3. The data is the result of a great team that I am proud to be a part of as well as data feeds from not just third party industry analysts whose forecasts we incorporate, but also that of contributions of over 390,000 people worldwide feeding us their unique, primary data about their network experience directly from their devices.
4. I think big numbers are simply cool.

And big numbers these indeed are. A twenty-six fold increase traffic is staggering, with the global loads increasing from 0.24 exabytes a month in 2010 (an exabyte is a 10 to the 18th power bytes…or a billion gigabytes…not to mention, a fun word to say in its own right) to 6.3 exabytes per month in 2015. On an annual basis, 6.3 exabytes is 75 exabytes a year, which is equivalent to 75 times more traffic all the global mobile and fixed IP traffic in 2000 when anything and everything possible was going on the internet.

75 exabytes is equal to…

75 exabytes is also the equivalent of 536 quadrillion SMS text messages — but it’s not going to be driven by text.

Rather, video is going to be the main driver. In 2011, we forecast that video will pass the tipping point and be responsible for more than 50% of the global mobile IP traffic…in 2015, it will be 66%.

Seem far fetched?

Let’s look at the underlying trends:
* More devices — we forecast by 2015, there will be 5.6 billion personal devices on the mobile internet, plus more than 1.5 billion machine-to-machine connections. Think about your own household. Any new devices connected to the mobile internet? We had 3…and it’s not even getting to our birthday season yet. And all of them featured a lot of screen space just calling out more use of rich media and video. (the bigger the screen size, the higher the resolution of video needed, and the more bandwidth consumed) * Enhanced computing — those newer devices are also packing some punch. Whether it’s smartphones or tablets (the fastest growing device type in our forecast), they are increasingly getting stronger chipsets which make them able to do more, such as running multiple bandwidth consuming applications at once.
* Faster mobile speeds — the mobile network is getting faster and faster (worldwide it more than doubled last year and we forecast it will increase another ten-fold in the next 5 years) and, as history has proven, the faster the network, the more we can do with it…the more we do with it. My sister and brother in-law have fully gone down the path of mobile broadband substitution. With their 4G service, watching a show on their TV connected to their laptop is a breeze. With a smoking fast mobile connection, why wouldn’t we use more video?

By Cisco VNI

Thanks to CiscoSP360

ACS 5.1 integration with Active Directory [Part 1]

If sometime you need to test a configuration regarding ACS integration with Microsoft Active Directory, or if you think that this is something that you want to try, then continue reading:

Part 1 – Active Directory installation

Part 2 – ACS 5.1 integration with AD

Part 3 – Some basic testing to prove that everything is working

I really hope that I’ll have sufficient time to complete this tutorial in the next weeks. As you probably saw already, in last months there were just some articles posted here due to the fact I’m very busy (daily business, CCIE learning, some new projects…). Anyway, let’s proceed….

My scenario is based on 2 virtual machines (VirtualBox) and 2 switches (C3560) for testing. I’ll add a topology design in Part 2 of this tutorial. One of the virtual machines is hosting the ACS system and the other one a Windows server (2003 / 2008) with Active Directory.

Let’s start with Active Directory installation. You need a Windows 2003 or 2008 system installed on one virtual machine, or if you afford physical hardware then you can use one. Windows 2003 / 2008 can be a trial from Microsoft website, as you can use that trial up to 240 days. Much more than the ACS trial (90 days). I have a 2003 distribution and I really recommend it because you need less resources than with Win 2008. Be aware that latest version of 2008, called R2 support only 64 bit processor. If you have an older machine, just stick with Win 2003 or some early version of 2008 than R2 release.

After you have a fresh machine with Windows 2003 / 2008 installation, please follow the next steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type dcpromo.exe, and then click OK. You should see something like this:

2. Click Next and you can start the Active Directory installation

3. Choose Domain controller for a new domain. I assume, that you will not try this in a productive AD environment, as it can break things. Just resume to your virtual machines or close test environment and everything will be fine

4. Pick Domain in a new forest.

5. This domain can be whatever you want. Really! Just remember what you type in there. I have there testdomain.local

6. The NetBIOS field will be automatically completed. If for some reason it is empty, add there whatever you have in from of your . (dot) in the FQDN. I have here TESTDOMAIN

7. The location where AD will be install on your hard drive. It is automatically completed and for this test I think is the best to let it default

8.Again, a default location that you better not touch

9. If you really want to test something, you can choose a different option below, but again for this test is the best to let AD Wizard to install the DNS server also. The best thing here is that if you let the Wizard install it then you don’t have to worry that you are missing some entries there, as everything will be in place.

10. I’m using in the example below a Windows 2003 distribution. If you have a 2008 one, then the next screen might look different. Just keep in mind to choose the highest possible option. Anyway you will not need backward compatibility with older systems.

11. Choose a password and remember it

12. You have a summary there. Check it to see that everything is as you want.

13. Let it work for some minutes and you’re done.

You’re done setting up the Active Directory. Come back for Part 2 where we will connect ACS 5.1 to AD and for Part 3 where we will add some users on AD and do a little testing.

Cisco 2900 – Interface related chassis modification

The Cisco Enhanced EtherSwitch Service Modules seen above, expands the router’s capabilities by integrating Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching feature sets identical to those found in the Cisco Catalyst 3560-E and Catalyst 2960 Series Switches.

The new Cisco Enhanced EtherSwitch Service Modules are the first modules to take advantage of the increased capabilities on the Cisco 3900 and 2900 Series Integrated Services Routers. Additionally, these service modules enable Cisco’s industry-leading power initiatives, Cisco EnergyWise®, Cisco Enhanced Power over Ethernet (ePoE), and per-port PoE power monitoring-all of which enhance the ability of the branch office to scale to next-generation requirements and still meet important initiatives for IT teams to operate a power efficient network.

Furthermore, the Cisco Enhanced EtherSwitch Service Modules not only perform local line-rate switching and routing but also support direct service module-to-service module communication through the Integrated Services Router Generation 2 multigigabit fabric (MGF) which separates LAN traffic from WAN resources.

Below, you have a hands on demonstration how to add, remove or replace a module in the new Cisco 2900 chassis and what to is recommended to do or avoid during this operations. This is nothing new for the engineers that have to change modules everyday in chassis like 6500 or 7600 platform, but may be very useful for the beginners.

Enjoy!