BGP theory

We use the BGP version 4.

BGP is in fact a TCP application that uses port 179.

iBGP (BGP inside the same AS).

eBGP (BGP between different AS).

The best choice is the shortest AS-PATH (by default).

Routing policies are present in BGP attributes.

BGP is a very slow protocol; we have a 5-sec interval update for iBGP and a 30-sec interval update for eBGP.

Authentication is possible with BGP (md5 auth).

Synchronization rule: a route learned by BGP must be present in the IGP routing table before being transmitted to any other BGP peers.

Split horizon rule: a route learned by iBGP must never be announced to another iBGP peer. This is why we always try to have a full meshed iBGP topology. In order to bypass this rule we must use Route Reflectors.

My Birthday

Today May 25th is my birthday. I am 30 years old and for me, that’s too much.

Indeed, I feel like my life is not what I thought it would be when I was young (10 years back). At that time, I thought I would be very rich because I'm smart and the internet boom in the U.S. and Europe made me think I would be able to open my own business in the internet/web industry. But the reality today is I am just working for an IT services company in Côte d’Ivoire :-(.
I do not have that much money although I make much more than a lot people in my country. However, I tend to see myself as competing against the entire world, not just people in Côte d'Ivoire.

Since I am an employee, we can deduce that I still haven’t created my own business.

Here is my current situation :

- My name is Yann N'GUESSAN-AGADA aka Rainman, Jammers
- I am an engineer in Computer Sciences since 2005
- My car is a  Volkswagen Jetta V
- I have joined COMAFRIQUE TECHNOLOGIES in Abidjan as a Network and Telecom Engineer in November 2007 
- I have previously worked for COMETE from October 2006 to October 2007, a former ISP company (now part of AFNET/MTN Group) as a Principal GNU/Linux System Admin
- Before COMETE  I have worked for NET4WORK (a startup ) from January 2005 to September 2006 as a System Engineer, Network Engineer, PHP Apps developer (startup spirit)

I also hold some certifications :

- Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP)
- Alcatel-Lucent Certified Swicth Expert Data Networks (ACSE) : The highest Alcatel-Lucent certification for their data networks products
-  Alcatel-Lucent Certified Field Engineer Wlan : Mid level Alcatel-Lucent certification for wlan products
- Alcatel-Lucent Certified Switch Specialist : Mid-level Alcatel-Lucent certification for their data networks
- Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA)
- Alcatel-Lucent Certified Sales Representative : Alcatel-Lucent commercial certification
- Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)


I humbly believe that I deserve a better salary, even three times more than what I am making today; but the reality is far from my expectations.

In my opinion, the only way to prove that you need much more than what you have is to get it. But how do you do it?

Sometimes when I look at my resume, I feel comfortable although I am aware that I am still far from the level of guys like Scott Morris, Anthony Sequoia, Himawan Nugroho and many others in the world.

The only way for me to have a better salary now and really consider myself as a "little" expert is to get my CCIE number. I am focus; I breathe for that number and even dream about it.
I plan to take the lab exam between Dec. 2K11 and Jan. 2K12. I am currently waiting for my IPEXPERT books and plan to get a new laptop with at least 4 GB of RAM.

PS: This post was written on Notepad on May 25th, but due to some internet access problem in my hotel room in N’Djamena, Chad, I am only able to post it today.

Travel / Ipexpert / Archos

I will go to Tchad tomorrow, in order to finalize a voip network between multiple Alcatel-Lucent Pbx (ABC network over IP). I have already done it for Benin, Equatorial guinea, DR Congo.
It will be a very long trip : Abidjan -> Ouagadougou -> Addis Abeba -> Ndjamena.

I also purchase the IPEXPERT BLS Printed book for CCIE RS v4.0 this morning and the Archos 101 Internet Tablet.

Why the Archos 101 ? : I like their products, I like linux and all open source stuff (so i'm an android fan), I'm a guy who travel not a lot but often, I think this tablet will be my favourite travel companion (good bye ipod), but the last and for me the only valid reason this archos is my birthday gift :-) the 25th May is my birthday.

HSRP Notes

For me, Hot Standby Routing Protocol (HSRP) is very easy to configure and remember. For some reason, I have never forgotten how to configure it since the first time I have read about this technology.

HSRP tries to provide a virtual IP address in order to offer a First Hop Redundancy (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol -VRRP is the open standard from IETF)

HSRP routers use the multicast addresses 224.0.0.2 (v1) and 224.0.0.102 (v2) to communicate between them. 

0000.0c07.acXX is the virtual Mac address of a HSRP router and XX is the HSRP group number.

rter#conf t
rter(conf)#interface fa0/0
rter(conf)#standby 1 ip 192.168.100.1 // instructs the router to use the virtual IP 192.168.100.1
rter(conf)#standby 1 priority 150 // sets the priority of this HSRP group to 150 (the highest being the highest priority)
rter(conf)#standby 1 preempt delay 2 // allows the router to switch automatically to the active state after 2 seconds if he has the highest priority
rter(conf)#standby 1 track s0/0 25 // the router will decrease its priority level by 25 if the s0/0 interface goes down
rter(conf)#standby 1 timers 4 10 // adjusts the timers
rter(conf)#standby 1 authentication md5 key-chain roadexpert // sets roadexpert as the md5 authentication key-chain for this HSRP group

Do not forget the option “use-bia” (use Burn In Address); this option can be very cute in the case of switchport security

Saturday and Sunday Movies

This week-end i saw 4 movies (i know for a guy who is preparing an CCIE exam, may be is a huge wasting time).
1/The Social Network
2/Iron Man 2
3/Tron Legacy
4/Love and Other Drugs

Now let's go back to a little bit of HSRP, SNMP and NTP

Qos Mechanisms

>>Queuing Management (they appear when we encouter congestion in our network, so if our network doesn’t face congestion these queues aren’t use)

- Legacy Queuing methods

FIFO: First In First Out

Priority Queuing  : Here we have priority class organized from high priority to low priority,  the priority are dequeue until they become empty then we move to the next inferior queue, if after after dequeing  a queue , a queue with the more priority have packets we go to dequeue this queue.

Custom Queuing   : Like priority queuing but we have how many packet we have to dequeue from one queue before moving to the next inferior queue

Weighted Fair Queuing   : the router try to identify applications who use more bandwidth and those who use less, and try everytime to give access to the applications that use less bandwidth when these applications want to access the network

-Modern or new Queuing methods

CBWFQ = Custom Queuing + Weighted Fair Queuing (the unmanaged traffic often use WFQ)

LLQ = Priority Queuing + Custom Queuing + Weighted Fair Queuing (we have one and only one queue choose as a priority queue, this priority queue can have strict bandwidth limitation)

>>Congestion Avoidance (they appear before the congestion appear in our network)

WRED (Weighted Random Early Detection): Fight against TCP Synchronization
Drop packets before the congestion, as the router « think » that congestion may appear

Amazon.com

For my studies i just buy on amazon.com the CISCO CCIE Routing and Switching Certification Guide 4th Edition.

I will use this book to prepare my written exam, and also have an other official cisco book.

I have already the cisco switch book.I used this book for my ccnp studies.

I will receive the book in 4 day, i hope to pass my written exam the second week of june.

Written Exam Simulation

Yesterday night i use a software that simulate the written exam, and  my score was 577/1000 in order to get the written exam you need to get 800/1000.

The result doesn't scare me, i know all the stuff but about 25% of failed questions
were due to the fact that i don't read all the question (i want to answer just reading the first lines).

For the other 25% we can say 10% is due to the fact sometimes i don't want to do some simple calcul (eigrp metric, binary conversion, etc ...) for the rest
i need to make some revisions :
-going deeper in ospf make me forget some simple stuff (loop guard, vtp, root guard : L2 things)
-going deeper ipv6
-going deeper in multicast (pim-sm, pim-dm, msdp, auto-rp)

The 3%

3% is the percentage of Cisco certified people who have the CCIE.
This one more reason to go throught this exam i want to be part of the 3% of Cisco certified peole, and 1% of the IT certifications in general.
Never Give Up

Some multicast infos

> Multicast is a class D address from 224-239
> Multicast address from 224.0.0.0 - 224.0.0.255 are for local network use (ttl=1) they can't pass through routers (think 224.0.0.9 rip, 224.0.0.10 eigrp, 224.0.0.5 ospf allrouter, 224.0.0.6 dr and bdr ospf router, 224.0.0.2/12 hsrp, 224.0.0.18 vrrp, etc)
> Range 239.0.0.0/8 is private multicast address
> Pim-dm (pim dense mode): for the small network
> Pim-sm (pim sparse mode): for the big network
> Some commands on ios: ip pim send-rp-announce, ip pim send-rp-discovery, ip pim dense-mode, ip pim sparse-mode, ip pim accept-rp auto-rp, and many others ..

Multicast is a great topic, but due to the fact that we don't encouter multicast in everyday network i will need more times to really master this topic.
I want to become a ccie, a true expert so i need to master not to know (theory, concepts, and config on cisco routers)
In my future post, i'm sure we gonna find some multicast, but know is enough for multicast today.