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got a good blog? Run it by me! I might just post it for you!

Passed VCAP6-NV - Now vcix-nv certified!

11/30/2017

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I sat and passed the 3.5 hour VCAP6-NV exam today, and wanted to document my experience in the exam. As anyone preparing for the exam knows, its a 3.5 hour lab exam, roughly using what VMware refers too as its HOL (Hands on Lab) platform. Overall let me say this....after YEARS of taking Cisco exams and being utterly frustrated with their trickery, and general douchebaggery, this VMware exam was extremely refreshing! The blueprint was SPOT ON, the questions were pretty straightforward, and the topology was not so confusing that it took away from the technologies that you were to be tested on. Overall...testing-wise, VMware gets a *gold star* for actually testing us on the technology!

Lab Experience:
I tested at my local Pearson Vue, and this one (its a high school), has a decent internet connection and nice equipment (not CRT's).  I, unlike a lot of overseas folks, did not experience too much lag.  You definitely are contending for screen real-estate, and if there is one thing I think DOES take away from the testing, its that. Right off the bat I had to reboot my control VM, as the desktop didn't show up. After the reboot I was off to the races. I tried floating the desktop box, and positioning stuff 'just so,' but no other screen resolution looked good, so I stuck with the default of 1024x768, and simply adjusted my browser down to 75% magnification. Even with this setting, it was still utterly frustrating to say the least. The manual tab (with the instructions) was huge, and ALWAYS took up about half my screen. So I had to read, an then minimize the manual in order to work on the desktop.  This was the most frustrating aspect of it all.

Exam:
Like I mentioned, the exam is very doable. All of the technology is on the blueprint, and the questions are not out of line. There is some integrated troubleshooting, and some things that require you to actually think like an engineer (like with naming your own objects, etc...), but for the most part you just build out the lab! You get a certain number of questions, and I'm not sure if I am able to disclose how many, but more than likely you won't finish all of them. I think I left like 6 on the table when all was said and done. Some questions are super short and easy, and other are long and more complex. I wouldn't recommend cherry-picking tasks, as a lot of the work seems to build upon one of the earlier tasks (though you can go back and work on old problems).  I feel like if I had not gotten hung up on 1 or 2 of them, that I might have been able to almost finish....but maybe not...if only I had/had multiple monitors to do all this on, I may have!

Results:
VMware actually was really quick with the results. I think I had them about an hour and a half after leaving the test center. The exam, when you run out of time, ends quite abruptly back to a login screen....so don't be jaded when you don't see results right away.  They send you an email with a PDF score report. 
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DNS and DHCP services with nsx 6.2(4)

9/25/2017

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In this video I cover an objective in blueprint section 3.3, and look through what DNS and DHCP services look like from an Edge Gateway. Take a look!

​-Jason
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NSX Site-to-site vpn with certificate-based authentication

9/21/2017

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So I wanted to setup certificate-based authentication for my testing of site-to-site VLANs within NSX 6.2.4. What I found was that the naming format for DN's was reversed from what I believed it should be. I had tried everything, and until I saw the error message that I show you in the video, I was stumped! Watch the video blog for more details!
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Adding public cert to nsx edge - win 2k12 Ca server

9/19/2017

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In this short 14 minute video, I generate some public (that word is use loosely here) SSL certificate from our in-house Windows 2K12 CA server.  The link I put in the video to direct you to the VMware KB article I reference didn't work properly, so here is the LINK in case you want to take a look for yourself (Im too lazy to redo the video!).
-Jason
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ACI Simulator - devnet

8/12/2016

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Well, this is news to me, but DevNet currently has the ACI simulator available for download! Its in 4 parts, and is about 20GB in size, but this gives everyone an AMAZING opportunity to get their hands on ACI, and play with it a bit.  You can download it here. Ill post some updates once I get it installed, and can play with it!

https://developer.cisco.com/site/aci/docs/downloads/aci-simulator/

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ACI 1.2 & Win2k12 LDAP Authentication

8/5/2016

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ACI 1.1 upgrade to 1.3

6/11/2016

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So last week I spent quite a bit of time trying to upgrade ACI 1.1 to the latest version of 1.3 with no success. Luckily, I was in the initial stages of building out the initial fabric, because the failure that I incurred forced me to 'setup-clean-config.sh <filename>' on the leaf and spines, and 'erase-config setup' on the APICs.  This forced me to go back through the bootstrapping process on the APICs, and a rediscovery of the fabric. I did this 3x, until I finally punted, and tried to upgrade to 1.2 (which was successful). 

I wish now, that I would have recorded the error I was getting, but what would happen is the first APIC would try to upgrade, and simply fail. It was hung, and none of the others would start the upgrade as the 'token' was not being passed to them.  I tried to reload the failed APIC, but with no success. After the reboot the 'controller level' was set to 1.3, and that APIC was still at 1.1, so it would not join the cluster, and the only message I got from it was 'the messaging layer was unable to deliver the stimulus (rejected, peer is not ready).'  This brought me to the Cisco community article: https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12984291/messaging-layer-was-unable-deliver-stimulus-rejected-peer-not-ready and my ultimate conclusion..that I was stuck!
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1000v videos in progress!

6/2/2016

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Currently in the process of recording and editing some 1000v VoD's. I don't have a firm price point, or date in mind, but stay tuned to the website for details that are sure to come!

​-Jason
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    Author

    Jason Lunde, CCIE# 29431 R/S, DC

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