This post was inspired by Turgon from the techexam board about change control. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of bringing down a few offices sharing a connection across a SIP trunk. So how could a guy who likes to brag about being a network ninja be so dumb? hmmm. So what went wrong? I changed the duplex setting on a router without even checking to make sure the guy on the other side was even making sense (we'll come back to this later). I had a customer who had incoming calls over a SIP trunk that would have random errors. Sometimes the call would just drop. Other times it wouldn’t take DTMF, and other times if the call was transferring to an outbound call, the VOIP gateway wouldn’t make it. Add in a furious customer yelling at you over the past few days and we have a recipe for trouble. So lets get started!!!!!!
SIP appeared to be working correctly. The dial-peers where correct, SIP settings were correct and the numbers were registered. Debugs showed nothing out of the ordinary. "Stretching my head". Lets setup a syslog server and see if anything weird pops up over the next few hours in the debugs. BAM!!!!!! Here it is. I see late collisions popping up then they go away. I'm speaking to a Tier 1 NOC operator and he suggests changing the duplex settings. I ask him what is he set at. He's at auto and I'm at auto. He suggests going to 100 full. Now we are talking about Ethernet right? No time during this evolution did I think to question him on this SIP trunk since they give us 2 hand off's(once for voice and one for data). I assumed he was talking about the side for voice. We go to a 100 full I'm locked out, and I go to "OH SHIT". I'm not getting any response from the router. A reload in 10 would have saved me, but I didn't do it. MESSAGE on Playing with connectivity interfaces!!!! He still had access to his gear, I asked him to change the settings back to where they were (still haven't gotten to this story yet), and I had to call someone at the building to go reboot the gear, since they still had PHONES. Nobody answered cause they weren't in yet, so I'm assuming I may be driving out there. I finally get someone next door at the other company who goes and reboots the device for me. Back to normal and in time we make the correct changes.
Now where did I go wrong? Why didn't I ask these questions before hand? The young engineer changed the port settings on his Edge Juniper router. This wasn't the device I was connected to. I was actually connected to his Cisco IAD device so they could hand me a voice and data line. Why was he in his Juniper router instead of the IAD??? Never got around to asking him that, maybe he thought it was our equipment? The world will never know. In the end don't move to fast it can be costly. I got lucky this time. I had a buddy's bring down 10,000 call center agents, another black hole a entire section of a network, and another Reset BGP, and so on. I haven't seen anyone loose there jobs over these incidents, but we all have heard the stories. Happy Networking.
Update. I wrote this post a while back and never posted it This week I was working with a TAC engineer, we brought down a call center. Hence I'm up at 11pm doing troubleshooting at low call volume time. Once again this could have been solved with some pre planning, but I guess you learn by making mistakes.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
I can't stop dialing 911
911. Its a number we often need in times of emergency as I have dialed this year when a man had a seizure in a office I was working at, at the time. But what about those other times when people dial it. What do they usually do? Most hang up right away then the boys in blue show up, sometimes they can be a little unhappy. Well today a customer of mines made that mistake and they got a fine as they have made the mistake several times recently. I guess nobody told them not to hang up when they call. We went over a few options on how they couldn't dial 911 and the best option was for them to change there outside dial to a 8. This was a CME system so it was done on the command line, but we can make some route patterns on a CUCM if there is interest. First thing we do is edit the dial peers. I have a few sample's below.
dial-peer voice 2004 pots
corlist outgoing call-local
description ** local dialing dial peer **
destination-pattern 8[2-9]..[2-9]......
port 0/3/0:23
forward-digits 10
!
dial-peer voice 2005 pots
corlist outgoing call-national
description ** long distance dialing dial peer **
destination-pattern 81[2-9]..[2-9]......
port 0/3/0:23
forward-digits 11
!
dial-peer voice 2006 pots
corlist outgoing call-international
description ** international dialing dial peer **
destination-pattern 8011T
port 0/3/0:23
forward-digits 10
prefix 011
Where the 8's where at were previously 9's. That was easy. We made a few outbound test calls they worked perfectly.
Now onto some telephony-service changes
call-forward pattern 8..........
call-forward pattern 81..........
transfer-pattern 8..........
transfer-pattern 81..........
secondary-dialtone 8
Yeah I realize this wasn't exciting as I thought it would be for a blog post. This is pretty straight forward stuff. In the end we made updated around 7-8 dial peers. We strip off the 8 with the correct forwarding digits and we sent calls to the PTSN. Give it a try one day!!!! Happy Networking
dial-peer voice 2004 pots
corlist outgoing call-local
description ** local dialing dial peer **
destination-pattern 8[2-9]..[2-9]......
port 0/3/0:23
forward-digits 10
!
dial-peer voice 2005 pots
corlist outgoing call-national
description ** long distance dialing dial peer **
destination-pattern 81[2-9]..[2-9]......
port 0/3/0:23
forward-digits 11
!
dial-peer voice 2006 pots
corlist outgoing call-international
description ** international dialing dial peer **
destination-pattern 8011T
port 0/3/0:23
forward-digits 10
prefix 011
Where the 8's where at were previously 9's. That was easy. We made a few outbound test calls they worked perfectly.
Now onto some telephony-service changes
call-forward pattern 8..........
call-forward pattern 81..........
transfer-pattern 8..........
transfer-pattern 81..........
secondary-dialtone 8
Yeah I realize this wasn't exciting as I thought it would be for a blog post. This is pretty straight forward stuff. In the end we made updated around 7-8 dial peers. We strip off the 8 with the correct forwarding digits and we sent calls to the PTSN. Give it a try one day!!!! Happy Networking
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Voice Translation Madness
Voice Translations
Ahhh the world of VOIP has finally come back to me, I'm adjusting to the new life, but I love being back in the technology. A few days back I received an interesting ticket on some voice translations that needed to be done for a customer. This was on a CME so using called and calling number translations weren't available to me as they would be in CUCM. There is an interesting story about that, that will be saved for another post later. So pretty much this customer wanted all inbound numbers to have a 9(off net call local) or a 91(off net long distance) added to them, so when a customer went into their directory, they don't have to edit the number to make a call, they can just dial it. Also when certain extensions dial out they wanted a few of the users DID to show instead of the main line number. Easy day, Well obviously if I'm writing a post this wasn't an easy ticket. First a quote that I follow. "Before we design a solution, it's often useful to define the problem to be solved" That is from the famous Radia Perlman. I had the problem in right? Well yes I needed to punch some code down and move on to the next ticket, but my approach was a little shaky. What I actually did is below and experienced guys will see the mistake.
1st thing I did was jump straight to the translations. I added my forward slashed and added the numbers to catch. I added my forward slashed put in the extensions to have their DID and then in the next set added the first numbers and \0/ at the end it to go back to set 0. EASY. Hell I even tested it out
router#test voice translation-rule 1 4127
Matched with rule 1
Original number: 4127 Translated number: 2025304127
Ok onto the next one
Rule was a carryover from the previous config so I left it in place. Next one are the area codes that need to get a 9 added. We live in a large area so we have several local area codes
/^302/ That means begins with so I can have a 302 later in the set, but it won't mach cause it has to begin with 302.
/\(.*\)9302\1/ This gets a little funky we have the first forward slash to indicate start of a match, but then we add a back slash "\" and it indicates a number slice the "(" indicates match numbers to keep, the "." indicates any digit, and the "*" indicates match none more numbers, which pretty much means everything we add in a ")". We add the translation to prepend a "9302" and we close it all then we add a "\1/" to indicate match set 1 which is ".*". So with all that anyone that dials in with a 302 number the number will show as a 9302 number in the directory of inbound calls. Even ran a test on this
router#test voice translation-rule 2 3025128425
Matched with rule 1
Original number: 3025128425 Translated number: 93025128425
The one for long distance numbers is pretty much the same. We are doing a catch all in the 1st match adding a "91" and matching the inbound number with set 0. So what did I do wrong? I tested it right. Well I tested it on the command line and not with a inbound call or having the customer make a outbound call based on me calling in. That's the clue I'll give. The config and where I applied it is all below.
voice translation-profile inbound
translate called 2
!
voice translation-profile outbound
translate calling 1
!
voice translation-rule 1
rule 1 /4127/ /202530\0/
rule 2 /4153/ /202530\0/
rule 3 /4151/ /202530\0/
rule 4 /4156/ /202530\0/
rule 5 /4160/ /202530\0/
rule 6 /4161/ /202530\0/
rule 7 /^.*/ /2025303180/
voice translation-rule 2
rule 1 /5858/ /5002/
rule 2 /^302/ /\(.*\)9302\1/
rule 3 /^401\(.*\)/ /9401\1/
rule 4 /^671\(.*\)/ /9671\1/
rule 5 /^803\(.*\)/ /9803\1/
rule 6 /^340\(.*\)/ /9340\1/
rule 7 /^.*/ /91\0/
Ahhh the world of VOIP has finally come back to me, I'm adjusting to the new life, but I love being back in the technology. A few days back I received an interesting ticket on some voice translations that needed to be done for a customer. This was on a CME so using called and calling number translations weren't available to me as they would be in CUCM. There is an interesting story about that, that will be saved for another post later. So pretty much this customer wanted all inbound numbers to have a 9(off net call local) or a 91(off net long distance) added to them, so when a customer went into their directory, they don't have to edit the number to make a call, they can just dial it. Also when certain extensions dial out they wanted a few of the users DID to show instead of the main line number. Easy day, Well obviously if I'm writing a post this wasn't an easy ticket. First a quote that I follow. "Before we design a solution, it's often useful to define the problem to be solved" That is from the famous Radia Perlman. I had the problem in right? Well yes I needed to punch some code down and move on to the next ticket, but my approach was a little shaky. What I actually did is below and experienced guys will see the mistake.
1st thing I did was jump straight to the translations. I added my forward slashed and added the numbers to catch. I added my forward slashed put in the extensions to have their DID and then in the next set added the first numbers and \0/ at the end it to go back to set 0. EASY. Hell I even tested it out
router#test voice translation-rule 1 4127
Matched with rule 1
Original number: 4127 Translated number: 2025304127
Ok onto the next one
Rule was a carryover from the previous config so I left it in place. Next one are the area codes that need to get a 9 added. We live in a large area so we have several local area codes
/^302/ That means begins with so I can have a 302 later in the set, but it won't mach cause it has to begin with 302.
/\(.*\)9302\1/ This gets a little funky we have the first forward slash to indicate start of a match, but then we add a back slash "\" and it indicates a number slice the "(" indicates match numbers to keep, the "." indicates any digit, and the "*" indicates match none more numbers, which pretty much means everything we add in a ")". We add the translation to prepend a "9302" and we close it all then we add a "\1/" to indicate match set 1 which is ".*". So with all that anyone that dials in with a 302 number the number will show as a 9302 number in the directory of inbound calls. Even ran a test on this
router#test voice translation-rule 2 3025128425
Matched with rule 1
Original number: 3025128425 Translated number: 93025128425
The one for long distance numbers is pretty much the same. We are doing a catch all in the 1st match adding a "91" and matching the inbound number with set 0. So what did I do wrong? I tested it right. Well I tested it on the command line and not with a inbound call or having the customer make a outbound call based on me calling in. That's the clue I'll give. The config and where I applied it is all below.
voice translation-profile inbound
translate called 2
!
voice translation-profile outbound
translate calling 1
!
voice translation-rule 1
rule 1 /4127/ /202530\0/
rule 2 /4153/ /202530\0/
rule 3 /4151/ /202530\0/
rule 4 /4156/ /202530\0/
rule 5 /4160/ /202530\0/
rule 6 /4161/ /202530\0/
rule 7 /^.*/ /2025303180/
voice translation-rule 2
rule 1 /5858/ /5002/
rule 2 /^302/ /\(.*\)9302\1/
rule 3 /^401\(.*\)/ /9401\1/
rule 4 /^671\(.*\)/ /9671\1/
rule 5 /^803\(.*\)/ /9803\1/
rule 6 /^340\(.*\)/ /9340\1/
rule 7 /^.*/ /91\0/
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
The 5 W's
Most of the time when working the help desk we find that we often may have issues with getting all of the information we need with the ticketing systems that are in place. Some companies have painful prompts that have a predetermined scripts that employees go through which often times leads to frustration with customers and less trained staff. I have worked at a NOC or 2 in my lifetime and it seems that only a few people have developed simple common sense when dealing with customers. One NOC I worked at employed the 5W’s system of what to find out when a problem arises. If you employ this system you will learn to create a good baseline of what to ask and further this will help you develop sound T/S skills as you learn where to probe a customer when they are giving you information. I’ll give an example of a situation today.
• Who? Company X, Employee SUE ext 1234
• What? I can’t get Voice mail on my phone
• Where? Office
• When? Just Happened now
• Why? I’m not sure, (this is a place where you can ask has anyone been on the phone system, or where those pesky IT guys playing around again or was the user themselves in there phone settings.
• How? Sometimes they will tell you, other times they really don’t know. Now you have a baseline of types of follow up questions to ask or you can give her a ticket number if you have to escalate to another user.
This simple user today didn’t have the caller search space for her voice mail set correctly. I’m sure only the IT admins at her job had access to this. That was an easy one. Now Imagine getting a ticket that just says “user can’t log into voice mail at company X”. Those are the types of tickets that make people upset. A person who is assigned the ticket doesn’t’ even know where to go. Who the person is, the extension number or where to even start looking. This would require a call back to the customer find out who’s voice mail isn’t working, how long its been and several other things that could have impact on the problem. All in all this will require some support from management on getting everybody on board, but if you could ask yourself those questions as you write a ticket you will save you and your coworkers some sanity as you have tighter tickets for someone to pick up.
Thanks
Happy Networking.
• Who? Company X, Employee SUE ext 1234
• What? I can’t get Voice mail on my phone
• Where? Office
• When? Just Happened now
• Why? I’m not sure, (this is a place where you can ask has anyone been on the phone system, or where those pesky IT guys playing around again or was the user themselves in there phone settings.
• How? Sometimes they will tell you, other times they really don’t know. Now you have a baseline of types of follow up questions to ask or you can give her a ticket number if you have to escalate to another user.
This simple user today didn’t have the caller search space for her voice mail set correctly. I’m sure only the IT admins at her job had access to this. That was an easy one. Now Imagine getting a ticket that just says “user can’t log into voice mail at company X”. Those are the types of tickets that make people upset. A person who is assigned the ticket doesn’t’ even know where to go. Who the person is, the extension number or where to even start looking. This would require a call back to the customer find out who’s voice mail isn’t working, how long its been and several other things that could have impact on the problem. All in all this will require some support from management on getting everybody on board, but if you could ask yourself those questions as you write a ticket you will save you and your coworkers some sanity as you have tighter tickets for someone to pick up.
Thanks
Happy Networking.
Monday, November 8, 2010
New Job
Well as things have been going all over the place for me. I stumbled onto a job with a partner in the area. I will be moving on from the Routing/Switching world and moving back into Voice. Voice is where I had my real break through and its the most fun for me to work on. I haven't decided which IE track I will peruse that will all be determined in the future, but I hope the road comes up soon. Happy Networking!!!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Changes and more Changes
Things go weird sometimes. As you may have known in my post about management things haven't been working out the best. I found out that they actually mean well, but they maybe in over there head. As the rumor mill turns I have found some info from "insiders" about on going developments. So more than likely its time to jump ship. I have one job that I had a while back, but had to pass due to medical issues. I contacted them and they are looking to see if the position is still open. Its a large Campus netwok with BGP/MPLS/OSPF. Sounds like good technology hopefully it still open.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Where have I been???
I haven't posted in a while, I've Been busy with work, life, girlfriend and CCIE studies. I haven't covered as much ground on the CCIE as I had hoped. This is a different beast. For study materials, I have used INE CCIE COD, CCIE written exam book and boson netsim, and I have Narbik gap from CCNP to CCIE lab book to work through as I need to back up some areas of my study with labs. I did put together a quick vid of my lab. My gear list will be below. I have some exciting projects coming up with work. My VOIP deployment was completed. It turned out to only be a small installation. There will be others completing the entire deployment. We have been doing a lot of multicast and QOS work in prep for video and VOIP service been deployed enterprise wide for a customer.
3 3725
3 2651xm
3 2610 Frame relay and BB routers
4 3550
1 MRV console server.
3 3725
3 2651xm
3 2610 Frame relay and BB routers
4 3550
1 MRV console server.
Friday, September 3, 2010
TSHOOT Passed
Well the Journey is over. I'm finally a CCNP. When this exam was 1st announced a lot of people cringed about what they would or could ask you. I can say that they can't ask you much since they are running with a limited sim. The best advice I can give you is come up with a lab and get down a structured troubleshooting approach. We have 3 main ones that are discusssed in the exam. TOP DOWN, BOTTOM UP, and DIVIDE and CONQUER. Well TOP down kinda doesn't work here since we are only dealing with Layers 1-3. Divide and conquer and bottom up work great for the exam. If you haven't already you can get the exam topology.
So you already know what to build and what to look at. Next is how we approach it. I'm sure there are several methods and I will share mine. 1st thing I do is go to the Client PC and run a IPCONFIG. I see if there is a IP address and there is a default gateway. If there is one I ping it. If I don't get a reply then I know its a problem between the PC and the Distro Switch. If I do get a reply I know the problem is further up the topology. So lets say I got a reply I go the default gateway and I ping the Sever on the other side of the topology. Then if no reply I run a traceroute. That can usually get me to where the device is having issues. Once I'm at the device in Question I start the process over again with layer 1. Do a sh ip int br check to see if the interfaces are up. if they are move on to layer 3. Check to see if the neighbor relations have formed. If not find out why. If they have why aren't we passing routes. This is just a quick Idea into how I navigated the exam. I did pretty much the same 3-4 commands for every ticket which lead me to solving the majority of the problems. Happy Networking!!!!
So you already know what to build and what to look at. Next is how we approach it. I'm sure there are several methods and I will share mine. 1st thing I do is go to the Client PC and run a IPCONFIG. I see if there is a IP address and there is a default gateway. If there is one I ping it. If I don't get a reply then I know its a problem between the PC and the Distro Switch. If I do get a reply I know the problem is further up the topology. So lets say I got a reply I go the default gateway and I ping the Sever on the other side of the topology. Then if no reply I run a traceroute. That can usually get me to where the device is having issues. Once I'm at the device in Question I start the process over again with layer 1. Do a sh ip int br check to see if the interfaces are up. if they are move on to layer 3. Check to see if the neighbor relations have formed. If not find out why. If they have why aren't we passing routes. This is just a quick Idea into how I navigated the exam. I did pretty much the same 3-4 commands for every ticket which lead me to solving the majority of the problems. Happy Networking!!!!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
World of Telco Part 2
So did we get a happy ending? Check the break down
Day 2. I got one the national providers to get a local provider on the phone. They actually came out to site and check the smart jack. No problems found. They then did some smoke and mirrors in telco world and cleared the loop. So now we don't see a loop but no circuit. We then looped from the smart jack back to the other site I knew was good before I came out here. UP/UP. Ran a loop from the the providers near me to my equipment across campus. Down/Down, but this time we we are getting AIS errors. More than likely the circuit has not been crosed, or it has been crossed 2 times and canceled out. No time to try to figure out who had a cross and who didn't. The guys in the demark room crossed it from the smart jack to the repeater. UP/UP. Removed the loop from the cloud back to the router UP/UP. OH YEAH!!!! Direct connection. After that turned on Crypto Maps, Up/DOWN to UP/UP. Setup OSPF UP/UP/FULL Came back to my hotel room.
I get to do this in another city after the holiday. FUN FUN FUN.
Day 2. I got one the national providers to get a local provider on the phone. They actually came out to site and check the smart jack. No problems found. They then did some smoke and mirrors in telco world and cleared the loop. So now we don't see a loop but no circuit. We then looped from the smart jack back to the other site I knew was good before I came out here. UP/UP. Ran a loop from the the providers near me to my equipment across campus. Down/Down, but this time we we are getting AIS errors. More than likely the circuit has not been crosed, or it has been crossed 2 times and canceled out. No time to try to figure out who had a cross and who didn't. The guys in the demark room crossed it from the smart jack to the repeater. UP/UP. Removed the loop from the cloud back to the router UP/UP. OH YEAH!!!! Direct connection. After that turned on Crypto Maps, Up/DOWN to UP/UP. Setup OSPF UP/UP/FULL Came back to my hotel room.
I get to do this in another city after the holiday. FUN FUN FUN.
The world of Telco
The world of telco. It seems so simple to us, but at times it can be hair pulling and mind numbing. To most people it just seems like smoke and mirrors on how they get their connections, to us who provide network services it’s a never ending battle of proving who’s right and who’s gear it is. Lets start with todays example. I have been hooking up a series of sites for a client. They are on a quest to get all of there sites off random cable/sat modems to 1 unifed network. By the way hats off to the guy who got the initial setup done, some fancy tricks done with IOS firewall that I will be borrowing from you ☺. The site in particular I had the circuit delivered to one site much earlier so I took advantage and got loops up from the telco’s gear on the other site. UP/UP. I’m thinking this is going to be easy turn up. WRONG. 1st problem. On the other side the circuit was finally delivered, the problem was that the circuit delivery point and my facility had some distance between them. Those guys just extended the circuit not even thinking about that a T1 signal can’t go that far. To be fair this was a free service. I guess paid service they would have thought about that. So I had to rush out and get repeaters(not really rush I just grabbed them off the shelf and get them shipped). Ok done that simple. Site turn up day. The guys had the circuit patched wrong. That took a few min to fix. Then I stripped down a pair got them to the 66 block and Repeater. Got the repeater to the other side and do the same process. Repeaters sink up. Easy day. Nope. After on the phone with the Telco they are telling me we have a pair flipped wrong. Now the guys I were working with where some country bumpkins, but I had a strong feeling they knew what they were doing and the telco’s history has been shaky. So what I do is run back to my equipment use a female loopback and look the circuit back to the telco. They see it up., I unplug it and they see it UP!!!! Power down the Repeater they see it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Pull the cable from the smart jack and guess what it was UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those bastards have a loop in the circuit after insisting is was our end. I don’t have a happy ending to this story just more of a rant of my world of telco’s. Happy Networking!!!!!!!!
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Tools of the Trade
Tools of the Trade
We use a variety of tools to perform different jobs on a daily basis. The IT world is no different. We are tradesmen just like any other person who performs task. While we do carry tool bags depending on the job a lot of our tools just happen to be on the computers that we use on a day to day basis. This is were a lot of conflict comes in. Just like a electrician has his/her favorite tool, we in the IT field have ours. IT environments shun on everyone doing this, but if you had a electrician you wouldn't tell him to use your meter so why can't we use our tools once they have been approved?????? Today I want to talk about some of mine and I hope to hear back about some of yours. Traditional hardware tools such as crimps, screwdrivers and punch down cables will not be covered. I will be focusing on softtools that we use to perform the job.
1st up is a text editor. Notepad++ is excellent for this type of work. This is a source code editor, but I use it in in a cisco environment for saving configs and I like to load up configs and do compares, and just have numbers on the side to keep track of where I'm at for long configs. This works better than notepad and its free for use. I highly recommend you trying this out if you are coming from a notepad or wordpad environment. There is no MAC version, but I run this on vmware on windows 7 and I have also been able to ge this up and running on linux using wine.
Next program
SecureCRT
This is the high end of the food chain for serious admins who manage hundreds of devices. If you only have a few you can still benefit from this feature rich program. SSH1 and 2 are supported as well as COM ports. Lots of task can be automated such as logons and pulling down information. Also the most important feature. TAB WINDOWS. You can have several devices you are working on tab so you can jump back and forth or even have them side by side. To do this on putty requires PuttyCM which is not bad, its just that I like the way secureCRT works for me. I have mine customized for different. sessions having different colors so I don't get confused and it works great. I highly recommend you give this the 30 day trial. The only bad side of this is that it cost 100 bucks. Most people who have made the jump say its money well spent and I can only agree. Give it a 30 day try if your a putty or tera term user and if your still using Hyperterminal shame on you.
Last on the list today is TFTP32. Why this program. This is the only 1 that I have found that can load the larger router IOS. I like pumpkin, but it fails on this side of the house. Due to the limitations of TFTP we have a max file size of 16 meg. Most of the time I will just try to load the flash card and stick it in, but some times we are thousands of miles away from a device and hats not possible. Until I find a better one this is what I'm stuck with.
All in all we will find the tools that we fill most comfortable with. I have happened to find these and I recommend you give me a try. There are also some VNC viewers I like and a few other tools that we will talk about next time.
We use a variety of tools to perform different jobs on a daily basis. The IT world is no different. We are tradesmen just like any other person who performs task. While we do carry tool bags depending on the job a lot of our tools just happen to be on the computers that we use on a day to day basis. This is were a lot of conflict comes in. Just like a electrician has his/her favorite tool, we in the IT field have ours. IT environments shun on everyone doing this, but if you had a electrician you wouldn't tell him to use your meter so why can't we use our tools once they have been approved?????? Today I want to talk about some of mine and I hope to hear back about some of yours. Traditional hardware tools such as crimps, screwdrivers and punch down cables will not be covered. I will be focusing on softtools that we use to perform the job.
1st up is a text editor. Notepad++ is excellent for this type of work. This is a source code editor, but I use it in in a cisco environment for saving configs and I like to load up configs and do compares, and just have numbers on the side to keep track of where I'm at for long configs. This works better than notepad and its free for use. I highly recommend you trying this out if you are coming from a notepad or wordpad environment. There is no MAC version, but I run this on vmware on windows 7 and I have also been able to ge this up and running on linux using wine.
Next program
SecureCRT
This is the high end of the food chain for serious admins who manage hundreds of devices. If you only have a few you can still benefit from this feature rich program. SSH1 and 2 are supported as well as COM ports. Lots of task can be automated such as logons and pulling down information. Also the most important feature. TAB WINDOWS. You can have several devices you are working on tab so you can jump back and forth or even have them side by side. To do this on putty requires PuttyCM which is not bad, its just that I like the way secureCRT works for me. I have mine customized for different. sessions having different colors so I don't get confused and it works great. I highly recommend you give this the 30 day trial. The only bad side of this is that it cost 100 bucks. Most people who have made the jump say its money well spent and I can only agree. Give it a 30 day try if your a putty or tera term user and if your still using Hyperterminal shame on you.
Last on the list today is TFTP32. Why this program. This is the only 1 that I have found that can load the larger router IOS. I like pumpkin, but it fails on this side of the house. Due to the limitations of TFTP we have a max file size of 16 meg. Most of the time I will just try to load the flash card and stick it in, but some times we are thousands of miles away from a device and hats not possible. Until I find a better one this is what I'm stuck with.
All in all we will find the tools that we fill most comfortable with. I have happened to find these and I recommend you give me a try. There are also some VNC viewers I like and a few other tools that we will talk about next time.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Cutomer service in the IT field
Customer service in the IT field.
This is one of the most missed skills that I see in our industry. Traditionally we were a culture of nerds and brains. Times have changed for a lot of us in this profession and from now on if we hope to be successful, we need to pick up this valuable skill of CUSTOMER SERVICE. I have been on several interviews and have been told by every hiring manager that they would hire a decent skill wise likable person over a 50 pound know it all Brain everyday. The goals of this blog is towards IT workers who are customer facing. I’m going to go over a few key points on the basics and we will build on these as time goes on. I’ll start with talking to others on the phone.
1. A phone call from a customer (notice I’m not using END USER) is not a disruption of your daily duties. If they weren’t calling you wouldn’t have a job. How you deal with people here is key. Feel genuinely concerned about their issue. Even if you don’t have time to address you can open up a ticket if you have a ticketing system or tell them a time you can schedule it on your calendar. Tell them there problem is important and we will jump right on it. Do not give out times to get their problem fixed unless it’s a scheduled time to meet up. If they ask what causing the problem tell them you are investigating. Keep them informed through IM’s emails or simple courtesy call. The phone call is not about solving the problem or showing off how smart you are, Its to get the customer to feel warm about the service you are providing and them not being afraid to call in or open a ticket. This was focused more towards help desk and NOC types, but lets talk about the advanced workers of this field who are some of the worse offenders
2. When you are calling out trying to find information please introduce yourself who you work for, and why you are calling. Give the customer time to digest that all. Don’t assume the person on the other end has any clue about the IT world. Ask them who can you talk to that would know the information your asking or requesting. Now their lot of times you would be faced with another IT guy/gal on the other end of the phone. This is where a lot of conflict can start. Be the nicest person you can be and address them with respect. This goes a long way. There was a time that I was taking over routers from one network to ours. Those people were scared that they would be loosing their jobs. You should expect to be met with hostility in these types of situations. Let them know you are just here to do a job and that they should talk to management if they have a problem with what’s going on. Sometimes you talk to these people on the phone and other times its our 3rd topic on site.
3. When you work on a customer’s site, there are all types of situations that you can deal with and encounters you have to be able to overcome. Hopefully your employer screened you well prior too you going on site, or they are just setting you up for failure. Some basic quick rules. 1. Be on time. Be on time. Be on time. If you have a set time that you are suppose to be at work be their 15 min prior too. If you walk in at 8:00 and you are suppose to start at 8:00 you are late. Make an effort to be there 15 min prior.
- Personal appearance. You don’t have to be Mr GQ, but you have to present yourself as neat and clean. For those on a budget Old Navy and Tjmaxx are good places to start. Make sure you have a haircut and a decent shave no matter what type of hairstyle, even if it’s a Mohawk, braids, dreads, or an Afro. Clip your nails and brush your teeth. These may seem so simple, but I see this everyday and its gross.
- Clean your work area. Make sure there is no old food or napkins laying around. Keep them tucked away and if you don’t’ have storage bring one in. Keep clutter on your desk to a minimum. People don’t go to the guy with the messy desk.
All and all these are just some of the basic things that will give you an edge from the other guys you work with. Being a person people won’t be afraid of or scared to call will take you further than the brain nobody wants to speak too. I can follow these up with detail later on if there’s interest.
This is one of the most missed skills that I see in our industry. Traditionally we were a culture of nerds and brains. Times have changed for a lot of us in this profession and from now on if we hope to be successful, we need to pick up this valuable skill of CUSTOMER SERVICE. I have been on several interviews and have been told by every hiring manager that they would hire a decent skill wise likable person over a 50 pound know it all Brain everyday. The goals of this blog is towards IT workers who are customer facing. I’m going to go over a few key points on the basics and we will build on these as time goes on. I’ll start with talking to others on the phone.
1. A phone call from a customer (notice I’m not using END USER) is not a disruption of your daily duties. If they weren’t calling you wouldn’t have a job. How you deal with people here is key. Feel genuinely concerned about their issue. Even if you don’t have time to address you can open up a ticket if you have a ticketing system or tell them a time you can schedule it on your calendar. Tell them there problem is important and we will jump right on it. Do not give out times to get their problem fixed unless it’s a scheduled time to meet up. If they ask what causing the problem tell them you are investigating. Keep them informed through IM’s emails or simple courtesy call. The phone call is not about solving the problem or showing off how smart you are, Its to get the customer to feel warm about the service you are providing and them not being afraid to call in or open a ticket. This was focused more towards help desk and NOC types, but lets talk about the advanced workers of this field who are some of the worse offenders
2. When you are calling out trying to find information please introduce yourself who you work for, and why you are calling. Give the customer time to digest that all. Don’t assume the person on the other end has any clue about the IT world. Ask them who can you talk to that would know the information your asking or requesting. Now their lot of times you would be faced with another IT guy/gal on the other end of the phone. This is where a lot of conflict can start. Be the nicest person you can be and address them with respect. This goes a long way. There was a time that I was taking over routers from one network to ours. Those people were scared that they would be loosing their jobs. You should expect to be met with hostility in these types of situations. Let them know you are just here to do a job and that they should talk to management if they have a problem with what’s going on. Sometimes you talk to these people on the phone and other times its our 3rd topic on site.
3. When you work on a customer’s site, there are all types of situations that you can deal with and encounters you have to be able to overcome. Hopefully your employer screened you well prior too you going on site, or they are just setting you up for failure. Some basic quick rules. 1. Be on time. Be on time. Be on time. If you have a set time that you are suppose to be at work be their 15 min prior too. If you walk in at 8:00 and you are suppose to start at 8:00 you are late. Make an effort to be there 15 min prior.
- Personal appearance. You don’t have to be Mr GQ, but you have to present yourself as neat and clean. For those on a budget Old Navy and Tjmaxx are good places to start. Make sure you have a haircut and a decent shave no matter what type of hairstyle, even if it’s a Mohawk, braids, dreads, or an Afro. Clip your nails and brush your teeth. These may seem so simple, but I see this everyday and its gross.
- Clean your work area. Make sure there is no old food or napkins laying around. Keep them tucked away and if you don’t’ have storage bring one in. Keep clutter on your desk to a minimum. People don’t go to the guy with the messy desk.
All and all these are just some of the basic things that will give you an edge from the other guys you work with. Being a person people won’t be afraid of or scared to call will take you further than the brain nobody wants to speak too. I can follow these up with detail later on if there’s interest.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Boson Netsim Tshoot Review
I seen this product and decided to give it a go. You get 3 exams each with around 8 questions and question 9 is the troubleshooting portion. You launch questions 9 and it has 12 trouble tickets each with 3 question a piece. So lets get started.
Installation was the usual purchase, download and verification. I installed it on windows 7 inside VMware on a MacBook Pro with no problems. For the review I will only go over 1 of the exams I took. The first 8 questions were about the covered exam topics as far as what the console errors mean, some NTP, and a few drag and drops that should be pretty easy for most engineers. Now onto the SIMs
When you launch the T/S portion the topology is very similar to the current Tshoot Topology that you have access to on cisco's website. You have several Vlans and a frame switch for layer 2. OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, are thrown in there for layer 3 all make there appearances for layer 3. IPV6, as well as Nat, HSRP, are well represented.
So when I 1st got to the sims I was upset that a lot of commands that I have become use to aren't' represented like using the | commands to get to what you really need. Traceroute seems to be hit or miss depending on the device and sim. Also I did get a lot of errors when I 1st purchased the test. Through a lot of the updates those seem to have been Ironed out. The trouble ticket themselves are very good. You get the report of what the problem should be and you use your knowledge of Routing and switching and IOS to find the problem. What I find the best about this setup is getting down a good T/S methods. I have only taken one of the exams, but I assault each ticket the same way. I start with the PC. Check setting and move on. If the trace route is working I go as far as I can or work my way back from the last device that has connectivity. I do the basic checking of layer 1 move up to 2 and onto 3. Using the top down method here really doesn't work since we have no access to the higher levels so I find bottom up the be the way to go. Also no real layer 1 issues found in my tickets so far, but that could change in other exams.
Over all would I purchase this? Yes I do recommend it cause it gets you familiar with how to take on each problem. A structured approach is the best way to solve this beast. With that knowledge ingrained in your head you should be able to do pretty well on the exam even possible answer some questions correctly without true knowledge of the real problem.
Installation was the usual purchase, download and verification. I installed it on windows 7 inside VMware on a MacBook Pro with no problems. For the review I will only go over 1 of the exams I took. The first 8 questions were about the covered exam topics as far as what the console errors mean, some NTP, and a few drag and drops that should be pretty easy for most engineers. Now onto the SIMs
When you launch the T/S portion the topology is very similar to the current Tshoot Topology that you have access to on cisco's website. You have several Vlans and a frame switch for layer 2. OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, are thrown in there for layer 3 all make there appearances for layer 3. IPV6, as well as Nat, HSRP, are well represented.
So when I 1st got to the sims I was upset that a lot of commands that I have become use to aren't' represented like using the | commands to get to what you really need. Traceroute seems to be hit or miss depending on the device and sim. Also I did get a lot of errors when I 1st purchased the test. Through a lot of the updates those seem to have been Ironed out. The trouble ticket themselves are very good. You get the report of what the problem should be and you use your knowledge of Routing and switching and IOS to find the problem. What I find the best about this setup is getting down a good T/S methods. I have only taken one of the exams, but I assault each ticket the same way. I start with the PC. Check setting and move on. If the trace route is working I go as far as I can or work my way back from the last device that has connectivity. I do the basic checking of layer 1 move up to 2 and onto 3. Using the top down method here really doesn't work since we have no access to the higher levels so I find bottom up the be the way to go. Also no real layer 1 issues found in my tickets so far, but that could change in other exams.
Over all would I purchase this? Yes I do recommend it cause it gets you familiar with how to take on each problem. A structured approach is the best way to solve this beast. With that knowledge ingrained in your head you should be able to do pretty well on the exam even possible answer some questions correctly without true knowledge of the real problem.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Just a Rant about being a MAC user in a PC world
In today's world we have a lot of options when it comes to owning computers. We have PC, MAC's and Linux users. All have there advantages, but sometimes people just make some things hard. I was able to get a legit copy of Office for my MAC for 10 dollars. However if I purchased the PC version I could get a upgrade to Visio for 5 extra bucks. WHERE IS THE DAMN MAC VERSION. A large number of us have bee switching to MAC's for quite a while and we still don't have VISIO, we still dont' have SECURE CRT, or Even PUTTY. we are left with Iterm, ZTERM and several 3 party clones of software we really need. Most of you are saying "just use VMWARE and get a copy of the software you need there" Thats insane. Thats too much money spent on software. Companies should just make the software we need and port it over if there is enough interest.
IPV6 in 2010
As most of us already know IPV6 is here. I passed the BSCI with only a few basic IPV6 questions, I didn't even have to lab anything up. Now in the TSHOOT world you can expect a few labs from it.
So what have I been doing?
I have been following cisco's guides to setting up IPV6 in a few of the operating modes? I worked basic connectivity between 2 routers then moved onto some of the tunneling methods and just getting a general understanding of it all. Below is the link that I used to setup some tunnels over RIP/OSPF and BGP. It all works in GNS3. I will post a .net file if there is any interest.
It all works pretty simple. I think the biggest hurdle is getting understanding of how the addressing works. All of our favorite IGP's have showed up in new form so get use to them all. Not too many major changes, What I like is that you have to enable them on the interfaces now. This saves a ton of confusion I think.
So far so good. I imagine that I will have to spend a good week getting a decent understanding and then another few days of labbing and I will be good to go for this section of the Tshoot exam. There is a decent amount of IPV6 in the CCIE, so its either study now or study later
So what have I been doing?
I have been following cisco's guides to setting up IPV6 in a few of the operating modes? I worked basic connectivity between 2 routers then moved onto some of the tunneling methods and just getting a general understanding of it all. Below is the link that I used to setup some tunnels over RIP/OSPF and BGP. It all works in GNS3. I will post a .net file if there is any interest.
It all works pretty simple. I think the biggest hurdle is getting understanding of how the addressing works. All of our favorite IGP's have showed up in new form so get use to them all. Not too many major changes, What I like is that you have to enable them on the interfaces now. This saves a ton of confusion I think.
So far so good. I imagine that I will have to spend a good week getting a decent understanding and then another few days of labbing and I will be good to go for this section of the Tshoot exam. There is a decent amount of IPV6 in the CCIE, so its either study now or study later
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Welcome
This is another blog about the day and life of a cisco engineer.
Why the name Urban Cisco Engineer?
I happen to work in the Washington DC area and deal with a lot of urban networking issues/
Current job?
I work as a WAN engineer on a decent size network in the city.
My past?
Served several years in the navy as a fire controlman. I have no idea how I got into being a network engineer. Since the navy I did my time at the NOC and moved on quickly to what I consider to be a dream job and I'm loving 95 percent of the days.
What to expect here?
I will write about new technologies as I learn about them and my work towards certification goals. I usually learn something new everyday and even if its something I should know at this level when the light bulb starts going crazy its a since of understanding and being able to apply that knowledge and I hope to share those experiences with you.
Current Projects
I'm currently doing the usual network engineer stuff. Turning up sites, invesitgating problems and providing Tier 3 support for the NOC. I do have a huge voip project cooking up and we already have 2 sites up. I hope to share some of the up's and downs with you.
Current certification goals
Finishing up my TSHOOT exam which will make me a CCNP.
Why the name Urban Cisco Engineer?
I happen to work in the Washington DC area and deal with a lot of urban networking issues/
Current job?
I work as a WAN engineer on a decent size network in the city.
My past?
Served several years in the navy as a fire controlman. I have no idea how I got into being a network engineer. Since the navy I did my time at the NOC and moved on quickly to what I consider to be a dream job and I'm loving 95 percent of the days.
What to expect here?
I will write about new technologies as I learn about them and my work towards certification goals. I usually learn something new everyday and even if its something I should know at this level when the light bulb starts going crazy its a since of understanding and being able to apply that knowledge and I hope to share those experiences with you.
Current Projects
I'm currently doing the usual network engineer stuff. Turning up sites, invesitgating problems and providing Tier 3 support for the NOC. I do have a huge voip project cooking up and we already have 2 sites up. I hope to share some of the up's and downs with you.
Current certification goals
Finishing up my TSHOOT exam which will make me a CCNP.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)