Welcome

First of all, may I welcome you to my site. My name is Chris and I'm from the UK and work as a Systems Engineer for Cisco. This blog was initially created to post up my subnetting technique but has now got more stuff to do with attaining Cisco certifications. Either way I really hope that the content is sufficent for your needs and I look forward to hearing your feedback. If you find that the content really helps you please feel free to donate using the PayPal link on the right.

To view the index of all my articles please click here.

CCNP Training in the UK with Networks Inc

Guys,


As I obviously have oodles of time on my hands I have become a Senior Instructor at Networks Inc here in the UK. We offer weekend CCNP courses from the new v6 track with the emphasis very much on hands-on practice. There is no equipment sharing - you will have your own kit to work on exclusively!

And do you know what really rocks? You'll get to meet me of course! :-B

For further details please see http://www.networksinc.co.uk/CCNP_boot_camp.htm

I look forward to meeting some of you!

Chris

Posted byChris Bloomfield at 13:11 0 comments  

QoS - Bandwidth, Bandwidth Percent, Bandwidth Remaining Percent

OK, I need to get this firmly lodged in my brain. What exactly are the differences in all of the bandwidth statements when using Modular QoS CLI (MQC)?


Let's start with two values:

The actual total bandwidth of the interface which we'll call int-bw.

The maximum bandwidth that can be reserved on an interface (default 75%) which we'll call max-resv-bw.

There are 3 bandwidth statements that can be used in MQC but note that you must only use one type of bandwidth statement per policy map (e.g. you cannot use bandwidth and bandwidth percent in the same policy map).

The first statement is simply bandwidth [kbps] which reserves the value specified from the actual total bandwidth, int-bw. Remember that the total value of all of the bandwidth statements cannot exceed the maximum bandwidth that can be reserved max-resv-bw.

The second statement is bandwidth percent [percent] which reserves the specified percentage of the actual total bandwidth, int-bw. Remember that the total value of all of the bandwidth percent statements cannot exceed the maximum bandwidth that can be reserved max-resv-bw.

The third statement is bandwidth remaining percent [percent] which reserves the specified percentage of the remaining maximum reservable bandwidth. Remember that the total value of all of the bandwidth remaining percent statements cannot exceed the maximum bandwidth that can be reserved max-resv-bw.

This is probably all better served with an example. Let's say that we have a policy-map with two classes in there, class1 and class2, applied to an interface whose bandwidth is 256kbps. We have the following two values:

int-bw = 256kbps
max-resv-bw = 256kbps * 0.75 = 192kbps

Note 0.75 in the max-resv-bw calculation as by default max-resv-bw is 75% of int-bw.

Let's see how the bandwidth statement affects the policy map:

class class1
bandwidth 64
class class2
bandwidth 32

Quite simply, class1 will be reserved a minimum of 64kbps and class2 will be reserved a minimum of 32kbps. However, if the total of all of the bandwidth statements exceeded the max-resv-bw of the interface (192kbps in this case) Cisco IOS would not allow the policy-map to be applied to the interface. In the example above the total of all of the bandwidth statements is 96kbps which is less than the max-resv-bw of 192kbps.

Let's see how the bandwidth percent statement affects the policy map:

class class1
bandwidth percent 20
class class2
bandwidth percent 10

In this case, class1 will be reserved a minimum of 20% of int-bw which is 52kbps in this example and class2 will be reserved a minimum of 10% of int-bw which is 25.6kbps. However, if the total of all of the bandwidth percent statements exceeded the max-resv-bw of the interface (192kbps in this case) Cisco IOS would not allow the policy-map to be applied to the interface. In the example above the total of all of the bandwidth statements is 77.6kbps which is less than the max-resv-bw of 192kbps.

Let's see how the bandwidth remaining percent statement affects the policy map:

class class1
bandwidth remaining percent 20
class class2
bandwidth remaining percent 10

In this case, class1 will be reserved a minimum of 20% of max-resv-bw which is 38.4kbps in this example and class2 will be reserved a minimum of 10% of max-resv-bw which is 19.2kbps. However, if the total of all of the bandwidth remaining percent statements exceeded the max-resv-bw of the interface (192kbps in this case) Cisco IOS would not allow the policy-map to be applied to the interface. In the example above the total of all of the bandwidth statements is 57.6kbps which is less than the max-resv-bw of 192kbps.

In essence the following formulas hold true:

Bandwidth - Reserves value specified. Total of all statements in same policy map cannot exceed max-resv-bw.

Bandwidth Percent - Reserves specified percentage of int-bw. Total of all statements in same policy-map cannot exceed max-resv-bw.

Bandwidth Remaining Percent - Reserves specified percentage of max-resv-bw. Total of all statements in same policy-map cannot exceed max-resv-bw.

Finally, you can change the value of max-resv-bw at the interface level. However, Cisco does not recommend that you do this as to allow for control traffic. To do this use the max-reserved-bandwidth [percent] command. For example, if I wanted to be able to reserve 85% of Serial 0/0 bandwidth I would do the following:

interface Serial0/0
max-reserved-bandwidth 85

I hope this has helped you as much as it has helped me bt typing it out.

Good luck with your studies!

Posted byChris Bloomfield at 09:34 0 comments  

MPLS Command Memorizer Review

Some time ago I purchased the CCIE Command Memorizer from http://www.configureterminal.com which bundled in the MPLS Command Memorizer. For those of you that give a damn, I am currently taking my CCIP due to the CCIE v4 blueprint change which focuses more on MPLS. I'm halfway there with MPLS slated for 18th May leaving QoS which I aim to complete by the Summer.

UPDATE: Passed with 987 in no small part to the MPLS Command Memorizer :-)

I've played a lot with the MPLS Command Memoriser and have found it to be a wonderful tool to exercise fingers and mind and a couple of typos in the correct answers actually showed me that I knew more about the commands than I thought. Perhaps this has deliberately been put in by David ;-)

It covers a wide range of topics including basic setting up of an MPLS network through to the various IGPs that can be used between CE and PE. There were also some useful exercises on those commands that may slip out of your mind such as "no ip mpls propagate-ttl forwarded" and conditional label advertisement. You have to type the commands in full as well so for me that is a great way of remembering the commands.

My only recommendation for this product would be to include an AToM link and most definitely for me a section on MPLS Traffic Engineering - that would be real boon.

Overall though I cannot recommend the Command Memorisers highly enough and would like to thank David Bombal for a terrific application which is not only a great standalone product but perfectly complements all other training materials such as books and labbing. I would also like to thank David for his support while I have been going through PCs like no tomorrow :-)

Posted byChris Bloomfield at 10:23 0 comments