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In this post I am going to focus on the Queuing and Policing aspects of QoS.  To reiterate the scenario I started with in the first part, we will focus on a very common deployment of QoS; support of end to end voice and video deployments.  Additionally, I will focus on Cisco's newer MQC way of deploying QoS rather than the older MLS QoS.

Thanks to Cisco’s push to deploy more Thousand Eyes agents, the Catalyst team has given us an easy button for deploying agents to the Catalyst 9300 and 9400 switches using Catalyst Center, formally DNA Center. The agent is deployed as a docker container using the App-hosing framework built natively into the 9300 and 9400 series platforms. Catalyst Center streamlines the deployment of the...

My latest project has been a switch refresh and a deployment of a Catalyst Center with Assurance only for a customer across all of their sites. Now the task I had at hand was how can I use Catalyst Center to automate as much configuration on the switches as possible. Because we were only licensed for Assurance we did not have access to use any of the SD-Access fabric automation that Catalyst...

In my seemingly endless quest for the CCIE, I have learned about two decently powerful tools that together make an incredibly powerful and custom solution for modern DevOps/DevNet network; Embedded Event Manager (EEM) scripting, and Guestshell in IOS-XE devices. EEM scripting is far from new in the world of Cisco networks, it is a custom event driven scripting tool that executes custom...

Using DNA Center (Catalyst Center) LAN Automation to make your life easier.

I am currently deploying an SD-Access fabric using Cisco's DNA Center, now rebranded as Catalyst Center. As part of this project we used the LAN automation process to build the network to all of the access switches. We had about 15 different switches in 15 different IDFs so using this process made quick work of...

Starting with Firepower 7.2, Cisco announced the ability to manage these firewalls using a Cisco hosted Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center (cdFMC). I recently had a project setting up cdFMC for the first time so I figure I would go over what I learned and show how to access cdFMC, how to import policies, and join your first Firepower firewall.

This post is the second post in a three-part series on QoS.  If you haven't read the first blog post, I highly recommend reading the first part here.

I just completed a Quality of Service, or QoS, assessment for a customer. While I was writing the assessment, I decided to brush up on my knowledge of QoS best practice to better serve the customer. While it's still fresh in my brain I figure I will...

Network documentation is arguably both the most important and most over looked tasked a network administrator does. A good network diagram is invaluable for understanding how a network is working, for troubleshooting when its not working, and a great source of information when onboarding new employees to the network team or, more important to me, getting vendors and partners up to speed on how...

Cisco SD-WAN (formally Viptela) is quickly becoming the go to WAN solution for Cisco customers. As companies are looking to replace their aging DMVPN solution, Cisco SD-WAN has become the logical choice. Companies can stick with the same ISR platform running IOS-XE that they already know, and in some cases can upgrade their existing routers to work with SD-WAN. But this blog isn’t a sales pitch...

You read that right! At Cisco Live this year they introduced the ability to add Catalyst switches to the Meraki dashboard. Finally a use for the unused DNA licenses! The switches are monitored in read-only mode, so you still need to manage the switches the old fashioned way, however Meraki's traffic analysis and troubleshooting tools are available for use. This is great for Catalyst owners who do...