Living in the underlay

For those attending to my CCIE DC v2 bootcamp next week, here is the updated outline, I will be posting updated diagram in few (remember this course is not based in any rack rental so interface numbering is up to that :) )

Introduction

Exam Considerations / Oveview / Strategy


Section 1 – Cisco Data Center Layer 2/Layer 3 Technologies

1.1 – Configure VDC Resources
1.2 – Configure NXOS multicast
1.3- Understanding VxLAN
1.4 – Configure vPC & Deployment options
1.5 – Configure FEX & Deployment options
1.6- Configure VxLAN L2/L3 GW (EVPN | F&L)
1.7 – Configure NXOS Security
1.8 – Configure& Troubleshoot Spanning Tree Protocol
1.9 – Configure & Troubleshoot OTV


Section 2 – Cisco Data Center Network Services

2.1- ACI Service Graph
2.2 – RISE
2.3 – Unmanaged devices in ACI
2.4 –Configure Shared L3 Services


Section 3 – Data Center Storage Networking and Compute

3.1 – Configure FCoE
3.2 – Cisco UCS Connectivity
3.3 – UCS QoS
3.4 – Service Profiles
3.5 – Configure advanced policies
3.6 – Configure Cisco UCS Authentication
3.7 – Configure Call Home Monitoring
3.8 – Troubleshoot SAN Boot
3.9 – UCS Central Basics
3.10 – UCS Central Advanced configuration & tshoot


Section 4 – Data Center Automation and Orchestration

4.1 – Introduction to scripting in Python / cobra SDK
4.2 – Python Programming with ACI Advanced
4.3 – UCS Director Basics
4.4 – UCSD Advanced Workflows Design


Section 5 – ACI

5.1 – Understanding ACI Fabric Policies
5.2 –Understanding ACI Access policies
5.3 – ACI external L3 connectivity in shared resources
5.4 – ACI L2 bridge / L2out
5.5 – ACI VMM integration

Finally, after a tough work done by me and the CCIE HOME team, we ended creating ie-bootcamps, the first expert level training company based in Latin America that will deliver courses and bootcamps for the most challenging tracks. We plan to cover America completely, and as a start point we introduce the CCIE DC v2 Lab Bootcamp that would be held at Buenos Aires, Argentina in May 22-26th. I will be delivering the course, so you are all invited :)

More info at: http://ie-bootcamps.com/course/ccie-dc-v2-0-lab-bootcamp/
Or reach me directly

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Finalmente tras un largo trabajo de parte del equipo de CCIE HOME y mio, hemos dado a luz a la primer empresa encargada de dar capacitaciones de nivel experto en habla hispana: ie-bootcamps.
Como primer medida, hemos arrancado con la coordinacion del bootcamp de CCIE DC v2.0 a darse en Buenos Aires, Argentina el 22 al 26 de Mayo.

As many of you already know me I'm not a man who can be relaxed after reaching a goal, I really enjoy chasing new stuff and for this year I 've set up several goals:

• CCDE (Passed my written past year, going for lab soon...)
• CCIE RnS or SP, I have a story behind this, early last year I've started my RnS trip but people of my team telled me that I've to chase DC and they convinced me, after achieving that goal now is time to back to basics SP and RnS can do that for me.
• VCDX-NV, working actively to get it, lot of time consuming but really like it, hope to find time to end with this
• VCIX-DCV
• JNCIE, I owe juniper the chance to delight me with a lab and hopefully i can find a timeslot at the end of this year to go out for lab (I'm already a JNCIP-ENT just have to take the courage and set up a lab for hands on practice)

As you may also know, I've recently passed my CCIE DC v2 and i really want to thanks again CCIE-HOME team. If you have read my first post about this track, i do not work for any of them, so comments are on my own.

 Being said that I want to start a discussion, and I'm open to comments, about level of bootcamps / training provided for this tracks. Specifically for DC when I start my journey to v2 I feel "alone". No info for any training partners, no bootcamps offering, no twitter posts of people passing...

Also and added to that, I'm based on Argentina, here and I will not miss if I say in whole Latin America, the level of training is so poor... we're used to reach INE or other companies outside of our region to get trained. Based on that I was able to reach CCIE HOME and saw that they we're starting this track and need people interested in join and test the level of their new bootcamp.

After that, and now being passed this track and being also certified as VCIX-NV, JNCIP-ENT and several other certs I've started the path to build my own training company, based only on IE level for all the major vendors (Cisco, Juniper, VMware), being in technology for so many years made me reach a real network of expert professionals in different subjects. Im also instructor for majority of this tracks and being able to know a lot of people trained and capable of deliver a real IE level training, so I've decided to start with a new offering for bootcamps, based in Latin America and for Latin America mostly (I really want to give a Spanish based offering, I know that we need English to learn this track that's for sure but for training we have very well trained people that can deliver the training in our native tongue :) ). I will keep you posted about this, I'm actually training a few guys in VMware and Cisco DC track, after that I will focus 100% on this and hope you joined me :)

Well, I think that if you are in an IE track you probably read a lot about this day and prep prior to it. I will not bore you with all the same stuff and I will only summarize few steps that I took.

• Lab Day

All that you have read still applies, be familiar with lab location, have a good meal and arrive early, I will add also "be confident" probably you where working on this track for a the past months so this day you will transfer all that knowledge that you gather into the lab

• Lab Experience

For v2 there are some changes, first of all is the introduction of a DIAG section. DIAG is composed of a series of scenarios in which you got some input from client and need to diagnose the issue. It's really no complex at all, if you have some prior experience in show commands you should not face any issue. Also is good to know that *based on all the output provided* only one question is correct. You're granted of one hour to end DIAG, notice that if you end early you will not have access to the lab, after one hour the lab would be started for you and you will get access to devices and questions.

In lab there's not much to say, use your own strategy, read carefully (I really encourage you to read all the questions first, at least once) and do only what is asked. Lab is hard, I will not lie to you, but if you train well and have practice you will find it possible :), remember be confident, avoid getting stuck with a question if you feel that something is taking you so much time just make a note and go ahead. Other really useful recommendation, and related to ACI, is to take snapshots, I found it very useful when I was making changes in ACI to have some snaps to quickly come back after modifying stuff that hurt my tenants :)

After the exam, relax, watch Vikings and release anger/stress/anxiety or whatever you feel, news will come (in my case it took up like almost 48hs....)

Well I think that here things get more exciting, lets talk about preparation that I face for CCIE DC, v1 and also v2.

As you may notice I've failed v1, it was in April of this year, and fail by so little (literally, doing maths it was about 2 points..,), for that (v1) my prep was based on:

• INE CCIE v1 bootcamp (Nexus Switching)
• Lot of knowledge of Nexus / UCS
• Minimal rack lab practice...

As you may notice, being confident could be one of your biggest enemy, so instead of thinking that you may know something is better if you can practice (a lot) to get faster and confident for real lab.

So lets forget v1 and start talking of v2, lot of new stuff: UCS Central, UCS Director, VXLAN, Cisco AVS and, as you may know, ACI.

Lets summarize:

• UCS Central / UCS Director

For this Cisco community and particularly DevNet workflows was the best, also I practice a lot basic tasks like creating pools, tshooting pool asignments (from UCS C) and from Director side I created basic workflows like configure vlans, service profiles and some ACI workflows.

• VXLAN

Also to tackle VXLAN I followed this:

- Understand control plane options: Flood and Learn & BGP EVPN

- Understand how to configure in the different nexus families: Nexus 5K & Nexus 7K, Cisco documentation is good for N5K but not so good for 7K, let say that scenarios presented are not complete at all and are so different from a real case, I made a review of those documents but didn't get a reply from cisco yet. A workaround that I've found for such poor doc at 7K was using 9K documentation in NX-OS mode, configuration is pretty much the same :)
Those are the docs I've used:

VXLAN @7K: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/sw/nx-os/vxlan/configuration/guide/b_NX-OS_VXLAN_Configuration_Guide/overview.html

VXLAN @5K: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5600/sw/layer2/7x/b_5600_Layer2_Config_7x/b_5600_Layer2_Config_7x_chapter_010010.html

VXLAN @9K: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/nexus-9000-series-switches/118978-config-vxlan-00.html

• Programmability

One of the interesting topics was about programmability in ACI, I really love Python and this point wasn't a headache to me,  if it is to you you will be able to find great tutorials on the web (I will also write down some in a few days), if you have some knowledge and you are familiar with data model of ACI and terminology you can go directly to Cisco Developers page, amazing doc there: https://developer.cisco.com/media/apicDcPythonAPI_v0.1/install.html

• ACI

In all of this process I've spend like three months, practicing every day with CCIE HOME guys and mock lab scenarios, I can tell for sure that I've tested much more that what I've found on real lab so when I saw real scenario I didn't feel scared (well just a little). In next posts I will write down about overall lab experience and recommendations, hope this would be helpful for all aspirants for this AMAZING TRACK.