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Below are the recent postings made by
Suresh on the CCNP discussion forums of Examnotes.net
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Questions:
2. hello guys....i have a basic question, why should i
go for frame-relay rather than normal wan links using ppp etc.
3. Has anybody taken any of the Beta Exams that are
running right now? What I want to ask, if someone passes a beta exam does he
receive credit toward the appropriate certification?
6. I want to know the difference between E1 and Pri....
8. What is X-Modem file transfer?
9. Can someone tell me what is the effect of the implicit deny in the end of route map?
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Hello all
I would like to know the difference bet cascading switches & stacking switches.
What exactly is the difference bet the two? Also pl let me know the difference
bet ring topology connection of switches & star topology
Hi!
The GBIC stack ports as wells as any of the switch ports can be made as a trunk
to carry multiple VLANs. On the other hand as you said they can also be
configured as access links to carry one single VLAN.
The point here is if you connect them as stack it would mean you are effectively
using the GBIC stack ports of the switches which gives a 1Gig uplink speed and
if you make the last switch connected back to the first switch you now
effectively increased this backplane capacity to 2G. This is called
stacking/daisy-chaining.
The disadvantage here is that they need to be in the same or adjacent wiring
closet there is a restriction can not run the interconnecting GBIC stack cables
more than 1-2mts. This is a special cable shipped along with a GBIC while
ordering.
The other way is just using any of the switch ports that are normally used for
connecting the PCs that are now used for inter-connecting the switches. This way
you would get a 100Meg uplink. The variation to this is if you use an
Etherchannel to bundle the individual ports to increase the uplink capacity.
Remember if you do not use Etherchannel all the parallel links would be blocked
except one single link due to Spanning tree protocol.
Back to the point, this cross-over cable cascading increase collisions in case
if they are used as access link. Because you are sharing one single collision
domain (each sw port is a collision domain) with over 24/48 ports belongs to
another cascaded switch. If its made as a trunk link no worries at all but
restrictions apply on the uplink speed.
The advantage of using x-over is that the cascaded switch can be anywhere
reachable by Ethernet technology could be sitting on the next floor or on any
other building provided fiber (using media converters) is used between them.
Hope this would help…!Thanks...Suresh
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hello guys....i have a basic question, why should i
go for frame-relay rather than normal wan links using ppp etc.
Guys,
think of the situation, an organisation which has got 8 remote sites and 1
central head office site.
Assuming you want to have star topology ie., connecting all routers to every
other router.
Think about the hardware needed at each remote site as you would need a Router
with 8 Serial interfaces plus atleast 1 Comms link to each site.
If you got Frame Relay, all you need at each site is one single router with one
single Serial interface connected to the FR cloud provided by your service
provider.
Once FR is estabilished all you need is to buy a PVC from the provider to
connect individual sites.
Eg., Central site would have a 2 Meg bearer pipe to Service Provider. And one
PVC each to remote sites. You create logical interfaces for each site attaching
these PVC.
Remote sites would need a single PVC to connect to Central site.
Now you reached the required star connection at a lower cost.
Also the service providers do not use the cisco routers turned into FR switches.
This si good for lab purposes. In reality they use Cisco Stratacom MGX & BPX
8200 series switches. These are high end FR ATM switches to provide FR cloud
also known as Edge Concentrators. Cisco acquired these products and the company
who invented it called stratacom years ago. Remember the Cisco's content
switching technology is from the company called arrowpoint. There is a big story
how cisco acquired PIX, 1600 routers, 800 series, cat 5000 series ...etc.
Sometime ago cisco used to have the MGX and BPX exams in the old CCNP curriculum
under the title WAN Switching, heard that they got removed or replaced couple of
years ago. Thanks...Suresh
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Has anybody taken any of the Beta Exams that are
running right now? What I want to ask, if someone passes a beta exam does he
receive credit toward the appropriate certification?
Some thoughts on the beta exams.
1. Candidates who takes and passes a beta exam, receives credit toward the
appropriate certification track.
2. Beta exams are offered for a short period of time say 2-3 months available in
all Sylvan/VUE centers.
3. They normally cost 50% of the original exam fee, this time Cisco fixed it at
$50.
4. Number of questions is used to be around 300 and the exam duration would
normally be 3 hrs. This may vary slightly for individual exams. I am quoting
from my past experience with MS/Cisco exams.
5. In my experience, not more than 10 - 20 questions from these beta exams are
repeated in the regular non-beta exams later.
6. Cisco generally takes 2-3 months after the release of the beta exams to
release the regular exams. Cisco SAFE 2.0 exam is due for anytime during next
month. Be alert!
7. Exam pass or failure information would not be available immediately soon
after the exams but takes 3 months approximately.
8. Sylvan/VUE would inform the candidates of the exam results through telephone
(in US) or surface mail (rest of the world).
Please someone correct me if I am wrong. Thanks...Suresh
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Hi All,
If you look at my previous post regarding the CCNP certfications i have asked
the cisco support people and here is what they had to say -
"Any exams that have already been completed, such as the 640-604, will remain
applicable to the CCNP certification track. Candidates will be required to take
the new version of the remaining exams to achieve certification."
My query to the CISCO support people:
Hi,
Although there is a post about the mixing of ccnp certfications. It is not very
clear.
Is it possible to mix the old ccnp pattern(ie.640-xxx) with the newly announced
one.
For example if i take the existing 640-604 Switching exam now and mix it with
the new pattern by taking 643-801,643-821,643-831.
would that be acceptable?
Kindly clarify in this regard.
Thank you Ravindra
Hi,
Don't worry. No exam you passed go wasted. You need not to appear again.
You can very well mix-match the new as well as the old exams. Cisco normally
gives you a stipulated time of approximately 1 year to complete this
mix-n-matching practice. After this period you are no logner eligible for
claiming credits for the old exams you have passed. You need to get into the new
versions completely forgetting the old exams you passed.
So don't panic! But beware the new exams might cover new topics end up in
re-reading the whole syllabus again! Also they migt change the certification
titles like CSS1 turned into CCSP recently. Thanks...Suresh
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My CCNA title expires in 1 Week. I can probably
manage to take one CCNP exam by next week. My question is would i still be able
to take the rest 3 of the exams after my CCNA expires in a week? Thanks
Hi,
If you have started the CCNP process before the your old CCNA title expires, you
are safe.
Take atleast one exam and pass before the CCNA expiration date. This would show
that you are well in the process of acquiring a CCNP title.
Thanks...Suresh
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Guys i really need help on this....i want to know
the diference between E1 and Pri....i know the basic differnces like line
coding, framing, speed, timeslots but thats basically a difference between T1
and E1(flavors of Pri)...my senior says that there is a difference between E1
and Pri...my senior was saying something like when they were setting up an ISP,
they were asked by the exchange people about the Pri and then about E1...i dunno
what they asked them....if there's someone who can answer this query which
sounds a bit stupid i'd really be grateful to him/her....desperately waiting for
a reply....Regards Kumar
Hi,
E1 and PRI are totally different things, coming together.
E1 is just a 2 Mbps line, just like a T1 line which is 1.5 Mbps.
Your normal E1 line, that is what we call a 2 Mbps Leased Line right?, is
actually a DSL line, it uses DSL tech to deliver a 2 Mbps or a 64 Kbps digital
connection. So it should be E1 DSL line, okay.
An E1 PRI is a 2 Mbps line which has 32 channels of 64 Kbps bandwidth. We
normally connect a RAS to it, usually used at a central site , so that all
remote offices can connect through ISDN or Analog lines to the central
Application Server, using the RAS.
We can also use it for giving 30 Telephone lines to a call centre, that is
Telephone Dept gives us a number say 500, all customers can dial 500 and get
connected to 500 through 529, so 30 customers at a time in a single line , Got
it.
E1 PRI supports both analog as well as Digital, so we can use 56 Kbps analog
modem, 64/128 Kbps ISDN modem also.
Next time i tell u what happens at TELCO for E1-PRI, ISDN and E1-DSL
Answer Courtesy: wirelessboy
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In configuring OSPF and I have a
Loopback interface, can that interface have a regular subnet mask or does it
need to have a 32-bit subnet mask(255.255.255.255). And would it be advantageous
to include the loopback interface in the network commands.
The purpose of using the loopback interfaces is to have a firm and strong
router-id. Why?
This router-id is a component of every ospf exchange including Hello packets and
LSA advertisements. Also it plays an important role in the DR election. Now it
becomes highly desirable to have a router id that does NOT change. Loopbacks are
the best choice here.
OSPF automatically takes the numerically highest IP address of any loopbacks
configured on a router as their choice for a router-id if you don't specify one.
Its subnet mask can be anything including the 32 bit mask as you mentioned
here. Absolutely no hassles at all.
If you have used a non-32 bit mask but for some reasons you expect a 32-bit mask
to appear on the routing table, just use the command "ip ospf network
point-to-point" on the LOOPBACKs. This command would change it and make it
appear as a 32-bit host id immaterial of the mask you used. Thanks...Suresh
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What is X-Modem file transfer?
Here you go...."rmon" mode is a mode a router defaults to when it fails to
load the IOS from the flash. This could be due to many reasons to name
few....unable to locate the IOS, wrong IOS versions, corrupted Flash or IOS,
irrelevant config register values, etc...
In these situations the data ports would not be active. Running a TFTP server
trying to load the IOS is not a good idea. Router somehow become a dead animal
now. However remember your 'console' connection is still alive! You still got
access to the dead animal! You can make use of this console. How?...just as
simple as the X-Modem way!
You can now load the IOS into your router using the 'console port' at a speed of
9Kbps. It would be painful sometimes as it might take 1-3 hours to complete
loading the IOS because of the low speed.
Hope this would help! Thanks Suresh!
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Can someone tell me what is the effect of the implicit deny in the end of route map?
Hi,
Route maps are used(called?) in conjunction with policy routing commands and
redistribution commands.
Routemaps with policy routing deals with just packets whereas redistribution
influences the 'routes'.
As you guys are aware, policy routes are nothing but static routes with a
difference is that static routes forward packets based on the [B]destination
address[/B] of the packet whereas the policy routes forward a packet based on
the [B]source address[/B] of a packet.
If a route map is being called by a redistribution command and a routing matches
a statement with deny action, the route will not be redistributed. On the other
hand if a route map is being called by a policy routing command and a packet
matches a statement with deny action, the packet will be forwarded as normal
using the normal routing process.
Coming to your question, an implicit deny exists at the end of every route map.
Routes that passes through a redistribution-route-map with no match are not
redistributed. But packets that pass through policy-route-map with no match are
sent to the normal routing process.
Hope this would help.
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