Change was in the air, and Bob knew it.   Bob had simply been ignoring the fact that the existing IPSec site to site tunnels that he inherited at his company were old school, and there were better options, especially when plans included bringing up dozens of new sites.   Since his company was going to be purchasing MPLS services, Bob was open to learning better ways of implementing secure tunnels.    In Bob’s studies, he read a article written by Petr Lapukhov on DMVPN and was very interested.    Bob’s glee was short lived when he learned that when the spokes of DMVPN had to build tunnels to other spokes, it was not quick enought for voice traffic.   Bob learned that the latency happens when setting up the IKE phase 1 and 2 tunnels between the spokes.    Then Bob chanced upon one of Anthony Sequeira’s blog posts regarding GET VPN, and learned that with GET (Group Encrypted Transport), there was no need to build the tunnels between spokes, and therefore less latency.   This would solve the latency issue for time sensitive traffic, and still have the benefits of encryption!  It sounded almost too good to be true.

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After the huge popularity of our CCIE 3.X Expanded Blueprint here on the blog, I am going to put extra effort in the next two weeks for the new CCIE 4.X R&S Expanded Blueprint. Adding links for Core Knowledge (Tier 1) study should help in that section, as well as Configuration and Troubleshooting. I hope you enjoy and thanks as always for choosing INE.

A few minor issues have been updated for our Dynamips topology, as follows:

- VLAN database issue fixed with v5.0 Dynagen topology (no flash memory was allocated)

- Old v3.0 and v4.1 .net file mappings re-added

Hi Everyone,

We’ve just posted more updates to our renowned IEWB-RS VOL1 – Technology focused labs. The MPLS section is now complete (well maybe just a couple more tasks coming) resulting in 16 new scenarios. In addition to that, the Security section of VOL1 has been updated as well, featuring another 10 labs. That makes a total of 26 more new scenarios with breakdowns, solutions, and verifications! Here is the list of the new topics added:

MPLS VPN:

VRF Lite
MPLS LDP
MPLS Label Filtering
MP-BGP VPNv4
MP-BGP Prefix Filtering
PE-CE Routing with RIP
PE-CE Routing with OSPF
OSPF Sham-Link
PE-CE Routing with EIGRP
EIGRP SOO and Cost Community
PE-CE Routing with BGP
BGP SOO
BGP AS Override
Internet Access
AToM
L2TPv3
MPLS VPN Performance Tuning

Security
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Hi Everyone,

we’ve got a fresh list of the folks (eigth people) who got their numbers last week! Here we go, hope their stories are inspiring!

• Mihai Grigore CCIE# 25510 (R&S)
• Daniel Koto CCIE# 25514 (R&S)
• Jon Harald Bovre CCIE #25493 (Service Provider)
• Rodolfo Beltran CCIE #25482 (R&S)
• Mohamed El Henawy CCIE #25453 (R&S)
• Chris Gray CCIE# 25527 (R&S)
• Naga Sayeenathan CCIE# 25532 (R&S)
• Prasanna Ramachandran CCIE# 25551 (Service Provider)

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After returning from vacation, Bob (the optimistic firewall technician) decided that he wanted to take some time and get a little bit more familiar with firewall configuration. He was able to get permission to use some spare equipment for practice.

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No jokes here folks – just the Top Ten Qualities for a Successful Lab Attempt! Did I miss any? Let me know in the Comments below! I know many of you will take care of the jokes for me.

10. Effective use of the proctors – for more information, see Tips for Working with the Proctors.

9. Proper diet – be sure to bring your own lunch and snacks.

8. Attention to the Core Knowledge Section – do not rush this section, and once complete, do not think about it again.

7. Use of the DOC-CD – knowing when to use it and how is critical.

6. Effective diagramming techniques – for more information, see May I Have a Diagram with that Please.

5. Positive mindset – no thoughts of failure, only thoughts of success.

4. Effective disaster management techniques – how quickly and effectively you react to a major issues is critical.

3. Precise and accurate verifications.

2. Precise and accurate troubleshooting.

And the Number 1 Quality for a Successful Lab Attempt:

1. Time management and overall lab strategy.

Hello Everyone!

For those of you preparing for the updated CCIE R&S exam – half of our Full-Scale Labs workbook (10 labs) have been fully updated to match the requirements of the new, CCIE R&S v4.0 blueprint. The full-scale scenarios have been significantly changed and a lot of new tasks added. You will find such exciting topics as MPLS VPN, Zone Based Firewall, EEM, and many others. Like mentioned in previous posts, the new labs do not include the basic configuration requirements, but rather ask you to deal with advanced scenarios, having a lot of things already pre-configured. The remaining ten full-scale labs we expect to complete in October. Of course, every existing owner of VOL2 gets these updates absolutely FREE!

Now for those of you who want more advanced technology mini-scenarios: we posted the initial version of the new MPLS VPN section for our IEWB-RS VOL1 workbook. It includes the initial 7 minilabs out of the following list of the labs for the new section:

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Here is the latest (and previous) lessons of our upcoming CCNA course. Enjoy!

Module 1 Lesson 1 Advanced Switching Technology

Module 1 Lesson 2 VLANs

Module 1 Lesson 3 VLAN Configuration

Module 1 Lesson 4 VLAN Trunking

Module 1 Lesson 5 VTP

As Petr mentioned the other day, we have updated our .net file mappings to correspond with the new blueprint update for CCIE R&S v4.  Please refer to his previous post here.

If you are new to dynamips, view the tutorial Using Dynamips for CCIE Lab Preparation on a PC (How To Run Cisco IOS On Your PC)

The updated .net files can be downloaded here.  Like the previous version, the BackBone router configs are included and should automatically load when you run the .net files.

The major changes are as follows:

• Separate .net files for Dynagen and GNS3
• Platforms upgraded to all 3725s
• Interface numbering now matches more closely on R1 – R6
• Minor performance enhancements

These files were written with MacOS in mind, but can be easily modified to run on Windows and/or Linux.  From my personal experience it is very unlikely that you will get the entire topology to boot on Windows without a massive amount of hardware to back it up.

Happy Labbing!