How many Static routes are too many

Recently in my new position I have started to work in the small medium business arena. One of the biggest challenges in coming from the enterprise environment is the lack of routing protocols. Some of it is due to knowledge of the internal IT staff, some of it is due to the VAR's that provide service, and other times its politics. This shouldn't seem like a big deal, but I get a few calls every week of something that isn't reachable in some way shape or form. 99 percent of the time when the routing was updated someone forgot to save the changes then "power" happens and routes are lost. This customer in particular has 3 sites over MPLS VPN, and a few more sites that come in site to site VPN's over ASA's. When I pull the configs for the devices I see pages of static routes to get to locations. I have asked them several times why don't they run OSPF or EIGRP, and they always say "we like things with static routes". Well if you like them you shouldn't call me ever few weeks cause you can't get somewhere. So how do we fix these problems. We usually just go right up the OSI model. Start with the device that can't talk to the far end, trace route to where it gets suck and check the control and data plane's on that device. All and all this doesn't seem to be a big deal, but at times it can take hours when firewalls, and DMZ's and undocumented configs are into play. This brings me back to my point OSPF, EIGRP will detect link failure quickly and the packets will either find a way or if syslog is setup correctly we will get alerts of link failure. This is just another rant of the day in the life of a network engineer.

Change in Direction

I have to get a few certs for the job, so I'm going to be not doing as much VOIP unless I get some crazy issue that comes in that just needs addressing. I will be getting some specialist certs for the job that focus on route/switch, so I will be posting about those topics. I do have my CCNP, but I'm starting fresh from ground zero and working my way back up to fill in holes and see what I learned new when going over basic material. From there we will go into Layer 2 topics such as STP, etherchannels, and Vlans, and then move onto layer 3 topics such as OSPF, EIGRP, BGP,MPLS, and then add on some trimmings such as IPV6, Multicast and WAAS. Stay Tuned.

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.