Red Hat & Cisco Certifications top IDC Analysis

In the 'Worldwide IT Education and Training 2011 Vendor Analysis' conducted by IDC, Red Hat & Cisco Certifications have been ranked in the 'leader category'. International Data Corporation (IDC) is a top rated global provider of market intelligence and advisory services across various verticals.

IDC’s study had assessed 11 vendors in the IT training market, offering various certifications. The study and evaluations were based on various parameters that were expected to make the candidates successful in a given market during the short and long term. Red Hat, Cisco, Lawson and HP were placed in the "Leader" category.

IPSR is elated on this occasion, since we are the only training organization in India, which offers apex certifications in two of the highly ranked certification streams - Red Hat and Cisco. Any aspiring student who come to us shall have the opportunity to pursue their training uptil they reach RHCA and CCIE.

We take this opportunity to congratulate Red Hat and Cisco, for maintaining high standards in their certifications and never compromising on quality.
  

Announcement: CCVP is now CCNP Voice

CCVP, which is an advanced level certification from Cisco has been renamed as CCNP Voice. The name change assigns a separation between Cisco professionals and unified IT professionals doing Cisco certification program. CCNP Voice validates skills and knowledge to combine collaboration and voice application into underlying computer network architectures.  Professionals with CCNP voice certification can create collaboration solutions that are scalable, manageable and transparent. Cisco has also changed this new edition to cover all the objectives for the latest version of CCNP Voice.
        
The CCNP Voice certification includes the following modules:

CVOICE - Cisco Voice over IP and QoS v8.0 (CVOICE v8.0)
CIPT1 - Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Part 1 v8.0 (CIPT1 v8.0)   
CIPT2 - Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Manager Part 2, v8.0 (CIPT2 v8.0)
TVOICE - Troubleshooting Cisco Unified Communications Systems v8.0 (TVOICE v8.0)
CAPPS - Integrating Cisco Unified Communications Applications v8.0 (CAPPS v8.0)  

Let’s move on to the changes in modules of CCNP Voice from CCVP. CVOICE is now changed to as CVOICE version 8 (v8). The new version covers most of the topics that was covered in the previous one. Introduction of Quality of Service (QoS) is replaced by CAPPS, but a lot of content from the QoS has been added to CVOICE. CAPPS covers Cisco Unity Connection (CUC), Cisco Unity Express (CUE), and Cisco Unified Presence (CUP). There are not much changes for CIPT1 and CIPT2 modules, except contents are typically moved between them. TVOICE is the new version of CCVPv6 TUC (Troubleshooting Unified Communications) course.  The version is modified so as to reflect troubleshooting of various new features along with maintaining signaling and media challenges in the older version. 

Now training for latest version of Cisco certification CCNP Voice is offered at IPSR. From October 19, 2010 onwards those writing CCVP or CCNP Voice exam, get CCNP Voice certification. The last date to write exam on CCVP is 28 February 2011. So those who have started CCVP training have to take exam on or before 28 February 2011.

Click here to view our course schedule

Live Problem and Solution

Yesterday one of my old students now working in Bangalore called me for a help. The problem is this. He needs to backup the configuration of a voice gateway router situated in UK to the PC in Bangalore. He started TFTP server in his PC accessed the router via telnet. While issuing the “copy running-config tftp” he got the error message says router 'can’t access the tftp server.'

See the mailed result

2851BR5A_01#copy running-config tftp:Address or name of remote host []? 25.91.170.125Destination filename [2851br5a_01-confg]?Writing 2851br5a_01-confg%Error writing tftp://10.91.170.157/2851br5a_01-confg

Here the problem is in his path to TFTP server there may some firewalls blocking his TFTP traffic. Most of firewalls will block TFTP traffic (port 69) but allow FTP traffic. To confirm the problem we can traceroute to the TFTP port for that issue the command from privilege mode.

2851BR5A_01#traceroute 25.91.170.125 port 69

Traceroute result of TFTP

2851BR5A_01#traceroute 25.91.170.125 port 69
Type escape sequence to abort.Tracing the route to 25.91.170.125
1 25.255.120.19 0 msec 0 msec 0 msec 2 25.255.127.75 0 msec 0 msec 0 msec 3 25.216.58.89 4 msec 0 msec 0 msec 4 25.212.37.93 204 msec 204 msec 200 msec
*
*

Traceroute result of ftp

2851BR5A_01#traceroute 25.91.170.125 port 20
Type escape sequence to abort.Tracing the route to 25.91.170.125
1 25.255.120.19 0 msec 0 msec 0 msec 2 25.255.127.75 0 msec 0 msec 0 msec 3 25.216.58.89 4 msec 0 msec 0 msec 4 25.212.37.93 204 msec 204 msec 200 msec 5 25.212.37.94 244 msec 296 msec 204 msec 6 25.91.160.5 296 msec 232 msec 296 msec 7 25.91.170.125 264 msec 348 msec 312 msec

(NOTE here tftp traffic is being dropped while ftp traffic is permitted by firewalls)


If we got message form the same ip like “25.91.170.125 264 msec 348 msec 312 msec” there is no filtration. But in this case the problem is with firewall.

The solution

There may be many solutions to this problem. Some solutions came into my mind I told him.

call his top level administrator and tell him to allow his TFPT traffic. (its not a good solutions since TFTP is not a secure protocol unlike FTP)
Use a FTP server instead of TFTP server
Use a TFTP server in the same LAN of the voice gateway or before the firewall.
Back up the Startup configuration file from NVRAM to Flash memory of the same router.

Solution 1 &3 doesn’t need much explanation

Explanation of solution 2

Down load and install a ftp server in local LAN in Chennai. Create one user in ftp application for example username is cisco with password cisco

In router create the same ftp user using the command

ip ftp username ciscoip ftp password 0 cisco

then issue the command “copy running-config ftp”
OR “copy running-config ftp://cisco:cisco@10.91.170.157/”

Explanation solution 4
If we have enough flash size we can backup configuration in flash itself. In copy command if we didn’t specify destination location the default location is in flash.
We can use command “copy run configbackup” for this solution.
He used the second solution and now he using ftp instead of TFTP. Remember even if TFTP is faster than FTP its not secure.


Reneesh A
CICSO Faculty
IPSR Kochi

FDP for CISCO Team@ipsr

The Faculty Development Programme for the CISCO Team will be held at IPSR Kottayam today. The day-long session will be engaged by Winny Thomas, our Routerdome Consultant who is a reputed Security Expert.

Why CISCO Certification?

Here are a few reasons:

* Cisco Certification gives you a better pay.
* Cisco Professionals rank as highest paid employers
* Cisco Certified is a respectable position in the Networking industry.
* In case you are already in the industry, Cisco Certification gives you 15% to 20% increase in salary and other benefits.
* Surveys speak for themselves. Average incomes of CCNA- $45,000; CCIE- $60,000; CCNP-$55,000

Level of Expertise
Cisco Certifications are offered in an increasing level of expertise

* Associate level is the apprenticeship or foundation level. The corresponding certification is CCNA-Cisco Certified Network Associate
* Professional level certifications are for those who have passed out the foundation level and have enough of experience in the industry. The corresponding certifications are CCNP-Cisco Certified Network Professional, CCDP- Cisco Certified Design Professional, CCIP-Cisco Certified Internet work Professional, CCSP- Cisco Certified Security Professional
* Expert level is the highest category of certification; the corresponding certification is CCIE- Cisco Certified Internet work Expert.