The Evolution of Cisco Switching

January 30, 2013 Joe Rinehart Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

Cisco Systems was founded in 1984 by Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a husband and wife team, along with other associates, while working on the network staff of Stanford University. The early Cisco team saw a tremendous commercial application for a multiprotocol router, and literally assembled the devices in their home. While the router was the flagship product, Cisco eventually ventured into other network technology areas, such as Local Area Network (LAN) switches, which it developed through acquisition of existing companies. Here we will examine both the historical and modern methods employed by Cisco switches.

Using Tunneling to Transition to IPv6

January 15, 2013 Joe Rinehart Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

One of the many useful features of tunneling is to carry non-IP traffic across an IP network, and this is still the case when dealing with IPv6 traffic. This transition mechanism makes use of a configured tunnel to transport IPv6 over a native IPv4 network, which may consist of two sites or more. Unlike the previous transition mechanisms, tunneling is not monolithic; while the basic principles may be similar, the operations are different. The following chart gives a breakdown of the current, major tunneling types in use, particularly in a Cisco environment:

How to Transition to IPv6

January 8, 2013 Joe Rinehart Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

Many events take place during the summer Olympic Games, which happened in London during the late summer of 2012. Even the most casual observer of the competition would notice the intense effort involved, particularly in the team-oriented events such as track and field. Critical to the success of the relay race is the passing of the baton, in which the racer for a specific leg of the race finishes their segment and transfers ownership of the race to the next participant of their team. The world of information technology is experiencing this exact type of shift as it moves from the familiar comfort of IP Version 4 into the “brave, new world” of IP Version 6.

Data Center Basics: IPv6 Address Representation

November 14, 2012 Joe Rinehart Cisco, Technology, Training in Business

One of the first things you will notice about IPv6 addresses is that they are always written using hexadecimal characters. Network engineers certainly have become accustomed to seeing and using this numbering system, especially with regard to hardware or MAC addresses. Since the reason for using it with IPv6 addresses may seem less clear, let’s […]