The Auto Smartports feature available on Cisco Catalyst switches allows a port to automatically detect that you’ve attached a device it can recognize (e.g. a Cisco IP Phone, wireless access point, video surveillance camera, etc.)

Then, it runs a macro on that port to apply a "best practice configuration," including QoS, STP, and security settings.

This video introduces you to this exciting feature and gives you a configuration demonstration.

For scaling automatic configurations beyond a single switch, check out Cisco’s Software Defined Networking (SDN) solutions. In fact, you can sign up for my Free SDN Mini-Course by clicking HERE.

Kevin Wallace, CCIEx2 (R/S and Collaboration) #7945

Some of my blog posts (most of them, in fact) focus on teaching you some technical content or offer career advice. But, sometimes, I just need to share a major milestone with you. That’s what I’m doing in this post (actually, a couple of major milestones), and I hope you can (virtually) celebrate with me.

The first milestone is my 3-year anniversary of being in business full-time as Kevin Wallace Training, LLC. Specifically, on Sept. 26, 2014, I walked away from my 14-year position as an instructor for a Cisco Learning Partner (CLP) to run my own business.

During the past three years, I’ve released a ton of training videos. However, I hadn’t actually taught a live online class, allowing me to interact with participants. That all changed this month, which brings us to the second milestone.

Earlier this week (I’m writing this on 9/15/17), I wrapped up my first live-online training class in about three years. I was given the opportunity to...

Software Defined Networking (SDN) can use a network controller to help orchestrate the monitoring and configuration of multiple network devices, allowing for faster configuration and more scalability. While these controllers have graphic user interfaces (GUIs), allowing them to be individually configured by an administrator, they can also be controlled with programs (typically written in Python).

Fortunately, network administrators don't have to create all of their Python programs from scratch. Instead, they can download sample code (which they can then modify for their needs) from other programmers. They can also share their own code. GitHub is a very popular way to share such code samples. This video will introduce you the the fundamentals of GitHub and show you how to get started with your own free GitHub account.

This video is a sample from my new Fundamentals of Network Programmability course.

You can get more of my FREE network programmability training videos sent to you by...

Before Cisco had a Collaboration track, they had a Voice track. One of the courses in that track’s curriculum was the CVOICE course, and it really got into the configuration of H.323 gateways. I actually loved that course. I write three versions of the CVOICE book for Cisco Press and taught the CVOICE course for many years.

Sadly (for me anyway), the CVOICE course went away when Cisco moved to the Collaboration track. One of the main topics in that CVOICE course was the configuration of H.323 gateways.

Although, H.323 gateways are still touched on in the Collaboration curriculum, it doesn’t receive the attention it used to receive. Yet, it’s still a critical technology to master.

So, this video seeks to demystify how to configure a Cisco IOS router to act as an H.323 gateway. 

Enjoy the video!

Kevin Wallace, CCIEx2 (R/S and Collaboration) #7945

Many people ask me what technology (e.g. route/switch, collaboration, data center, etc.) they should pursue, based on industry demand. For years, my response has been, “There’s demand in all of those areas. Just pick the one you’re most interested in, because you’re going to spend a lot of time studying and working with that technology.” While I still contend that’s sound advice, I’ve got to admit there is one technology forecasted to be disproportionately in demand. That technology is cybersecurity.

It was a recurring theme at Cisco Live this year (Las Vegas, 2017); the demand for cybersecurity professionals is massive. Former Symantec CEO Michael Brown projected 6 million cybersecurity jobs by 2019, with a whopping 1.5 million of those jobs being unfilled. In the United States, the average salary for a cybersecurity professional is $67,000. However, with a few years of experience, cybersecurity professionals in the aerospace, defense,...

A BGP-speaking router, by default, will not advertise an Internal BGP (iBGP) route to an iBGP neighbor. One solution for this issue is to create a full mesh of neighborships within an Autonomous System (AS). However, that approach doesn’t scale well.

A more scalable solution is to use a BGP Route Reflector. That’s the focus of this new video I created for you. You’ll see the issue BGP has with iBGP-learned routes and how to overcome that issue with a BGP Route Reflector configuration.

Enjoy the video!

Kevin

Kevin Wallace, CCIEx2 (R/S and Collaboration) #7945

We’ve all heard the saying, “Hindsight is 20/20.” However, a lack of clairvoyance about the future shouldn’t prevent us from boldly taking our next career step.

Steve Jobs told us, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

Looking back on the dots of my career (thus far), I feel blessed that they have connected as they have. Of course, I made (and learned from) many mistakes along the way. In this blog post, I want to share three of my biggest mistakes in the hopes that my cautionary tale will help you avoid similar missteps.

Mistake #1: Not Getting Experience Early

I attended the University of Kentucky and earned my Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) degree. As I went through my college career, my assumption was that after earning my degree I would have my pick from...

In June of 2017, I had the honor of presenting at CiscoLive for the first time. It was a great experience, and I thought you might enjoy checking it out. The session is on a Collaboration topic and is entitled Number Globalization and Localization for CCIE Collaboration Candidates. However, please don't let CCIE in the title keep you from watching if you don't happen to be at that level yet. Anyone studying the Collaboration track (at any level) can benefit from the presentation.

The amazing thing about the CiscoLive site is that you can watch previous presentations for free. You just need to setup a free account if you don't already have one.

Just visit my session's page by clicking HERE, and then click Session Video.

I hope you enjoy the session!

Kevin Wallace, CCIEx2 (R/S and Collaboration) #7945

Cisco recently introduced their Catalyst 9000 Series switches. One unique feature of these switches is their ability to support containers. This podcast episode explains the concept of containers and how they can be more efficient that virtual machines (VMs).

This podcast episode is from The Broadcast Storm podcast. Following are the links you can use to subscribe to the podcast, so you don't miss an episode:

Subscribe via iTunes: http://kwtrain.com/podcast

Subscribe to RSS Feed: http://kwtrain.com/rss

Malware poses an increasing threat to network devices. Recently, malware has been used to install ransomware on computers, which encrypts data on the computers' hard drives and demands money for the data to be decrypted (essentially holding a computer’s data hostage and demanding a ransom). A logical response to help mitigate such threats is to have a network-based device analyze traffic flows for those offending packets.

However, what if the malware concealed itself to avoid detection? For example, some malware uses TLS-based encryption (where TLS stands for Transport Layer Security), thus preventing traditional network-based threat scanners from inspecting it. Interestingly, malware’s use of TLS-based encryption is growing rapidly. Consider that in August 2015, only 2.21 percent of malware attacks used TLS, while the percentage of malware attacks using TLS in May 2017 had grown to 21.44 percent.

This increasing threat begs the question, “How do we protected...