Cisco swicthport statistics

While diagnosing your network because of performance issues, if you do determine that the network is not meeting technical expectations, you should isolate the source of the problem and diagnose the problem on that device. Whireshark is a cool tool to find out the root cause of a network performance issue. So, if i were to answer to the following question : which tool among many comes into your mind to pinpoint the root cause of a network performance issues ? I would have given the following answer : WIRESHARK.

Cisco Features navigator

Hi,

Have you ever asked yourself the following question : how could i know if my Cisco device can support a certain specific feature ?

Let say it this way : if you are given a Cisco device that you are not familiar with, how will you know which features does it support ? OR, if you are about to deploy a certain IT solution, how would you know which Cisco device you should buy to accomplish your deployment tasks and more ?

Check out the following video to learn what you should use and how you should use it before ordering a Cisco device :

Main steps of troubleshooting network issues

The main steps of troubleshooting are :

• problem report (the first step is receiving the complaint from a user or from a monitoring tool (using a monitoring tool, we may detect a situation that could become a tshoot issue and resolve that situation before it impacts users : that is called proactive maintenance))
• diagnosis
•  resolve the problem

The first step toward resolving an issue after it's reported, is : clearly define the issue. Diagnosing the reported problem allows to clearly define it. Note that we have to diagnose because most often the end user's report may not have enough information to allow us to resolve the issue.

Right way to configure default route in a router

The process of sending a lot of ARP requests can consume a big percentage of  a router's CPU resources. 

One Configuration that cause a router to send a lot of ARP requests is having a default-route configured that points to an ethernet interface ((config)#ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 f0/1) instead of the next hop address ((config)#ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 20.1.1.1).

 When configured with an exit interface, the router instead of sending ARP request for MAC address of a next-hop address, it will send ARP request for the MAC address of the destination IP address
in each packet. That result in an excessive number of ARP requests which will cause a spike of the CPU.

Before jumping into a router and start troubleshooting it, we need to know that it's the router that is causing a poor network performance. Click here to read our blog post on how to detect the root cause of a network performance issues.

A router could be the root cause of your network performance. That is a fact. But we should not ignore that applications, servers, user's client can also be the root cause of our network performance. Click here to learn how to identify the source of your network performance.

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Detect the source of your network performace issues

A network performance might be operating at a level that is disturbing productivity and at a level
that is bellow its normal level of operation. As a network administrator, you need to determine
what is the origine of the performance issue or what is network component causing the the poor performance. It could be a switch, a router, the user's client, the server or the application.

How will you know the root cause of your network performace issue ? The answer is by using : WIRESHARK.

With WIRESHARK, you can look into what is really happeing in the wire.
With the help of WIRESHARK you can analyse protocols and identify exactly the root cause of you network performance issues. Don't hesitate to contact us, we offer training on how to set and use WIRESHARK and how to analyse prorocols  >> Here is our contacts if you wish to be part of our next WIRESHARK class

CCNP-TSHOOT teaches how to diagnose/troubleshoot Cisco routers and switches. Of course,  before jumping into your Cisco routers or switches, you should first of all know the root cause of the poor performance issues of your network.

>> Here is our contacts if you wish to be part of our next WIRESHARK class
>> Here is our contact if you wish to attend CCNP-tshoot class

How to configure NIC TEAMING in a system having Windows server 2008

Hi 

NIC teaming is not something included with Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2. However, even if it can not be configured using server 2008 operating system, you can still take advantage of this feature if the network adapter supports it. Network adapters built by vendors such as Intel, Broadcom and HP can support it (please consult your network adapter documentation)

The following link redirects to a youtube video of "Rob Waggoner", showing how to configure an INTEL network adapter that supports NIC TEAMING >> Video Right here

Note that NIC teaming is supported on Windows server 2012. To know How to configure it, check it out  >> right here

------------------------------Please feel free to leave an honest comment. It will be appreciated. Thanks.

how to : Cisco ASA same security level + ACLs

By default, interfaces on the same security level can not communicate with each other. Allowing communication between same security interfaces let's traffic flow freely between all same security interface without access-lists.

To enable interfaces on the same-security level so that they can communicate with each  other, enter the following command :
(config)#same-security-traffic permit inter-interface

But the question i have nerver asked myself is : what if we have 2 interfaces with the same security level and each having ACLs applied to each? Will the traffic still flow freely after typing the above command ? The answer is :

If you have "same-security-traffic permit inter-interface" configured and have 2 interfaces with same
"security-level" value and you have "access-list" configured on both interfaces then the ACLs will handle the decision of what traffic is allowed and what is not.

I found this answer right here, when i got this challenge of same-security level and ACLs.

Hope this will also help you.