Jordan Migration Finished

Finished Jordan migration over the weekend. Went pretty smoothly. Flew from Jordan to London just to get one day of rest as i am flying off tommorrow to Dubai for the migration over the weekend. But there is light at the end of the tunnel as once i finish the migration in Dubai i have a weeks off and go to India for holidays to see my Parents. So tired today as had lots to do ...Loads of washing to do ... Oh Yes i also forgot that yesterday it was my birthday as well. Felt so lonely as there was no body at house to greet me. But few friends made the evening Fantastic. Right off to Dubai tommorrow. Will post how it goes. Not a big site Few 3560's, couple of Citrix WAN repeaters and two routers ( i dont know what exactly has been shipped). Will see once i am there.

Abu Dhabi finished

Reached home yesterday after 7 hour journey from Abu Dhabi to Heathrow. Finished the migration in Abu Dhabi. Was very quick and never expected that to be quick. Next i am off to Amman, Jordan for the next migration and then back in Dubai for two weeks for the migrations in Dubai. Have this week so expecting to do some reading on my CCIP exam.

Migration in Abu Dhabi

Off to Abu Dhabi tommorrow morning for another migration. Not a big site this one !!! 2 WAN repeaters and few 3560 switches with one 6509 switch. Hopefully should have no problems....

Will keep you posted !!!

CCIP Study Started

Got my books for CCIP today. So the countdown has begun. Have been reading BGP, QOS and MPLS for a while but now its time to put the real experience to test. Got my two books

1) CISCO QOS --Exam Certification Guide (Second Edition)
2) Internet Routing Architectures -- Second Edition

Will give my first composite exam .. BGP + MPLS within next 15 days. Will keep you updated...

LAN Migration Done

Last week was busy migrating a site in Austria and preparing it so that it is ready for this week for the WAN migration. Site wasnt that big but configuring 1 x 6500 swtich, 22 x 3560 switches and migrating the users from the OLD entrasys switch in two days was tiring. But i am glad all of that worked without much of problems. Only one small problem which nearly brought the whole site down. I stil dont understand the real problem but if someone can shed some light on why this happened then that will be great.

What happened was that i had configured port channel on port 49 and 50 . Ports 51-52 were empty. By mistake the Fibre SFP was connected on port 51. We never noticed that while racking the switch and connected the fibre on that. We kept on racking the switches but after around 10-15 minutes users started complaining that they are not getting any IP from the DHCP and within 10 more minutes everyone in the office was complaining. I was quick to find the problem as i worked my way backwards and within 5-7 minutes i traced back to the switch where the SFP was plugged in wrong. Plugged it back into the righ port and .......it worked.

I still dont know how can SFP plugged into a wrong port can cause loop and bring the whole network down. Your comments !!!!!

4 Months into the new job

Its been 4 months into this job and i am enjoying it quite a lot. During this 4 month period i have travelled to about 20-25 countries so far. It has been an incredible experience.

I completed my CCDP during this time as well. It has been a great experience in terms of culture as well. First month i travelled to the Istanbul and then travelled all the way to Middle East. Spent the whole month in Middle East and travelled to Customer sites in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain, Muscat. Once i finished that part i travelled back to Ankara and then came my first migration in Bratislava ( Slovakia). That migration was a success and i was quite pleased with that. From there on i have travelled a lot into Europe and have done few more migrations and now i want to start doing some design stuff as well. Lets see how it goes.

New Role

Hi Guys ! I have started my role with Fujitsu Telecommunications UK & Ireland as Systems Engineer. Started the role on 1st of June. I will working on migrations for Customers all over the EMEA ( Europe, Middle East, Africa) region. The job requires me to travel throught out the EMEA region. First we go to the site and do Site Audit and then feed that information back so that the design for the migration is done. Then next time we go back to the site and migrate the old kit with new kit. Will keep you guys posted on how it is progressing.

Big Move to UK

Its been a long time since my last post. I always promise that i will be posting my updates regularly but sorry guys, i wasnt able to post anything for some time and the reason for that is that i have made a big move from New Zealand to UK. At the moment i am looking for a new role and hopefully will find an opening soon. Havent been able to study much for last few months as winding up everything in NZ took a long time and i never got time to study along with finishing my pending projects at work. I think now i should really start studying as my CCIE Written is going to expire soon in 4 months. I will aim to book my lab before that. Will keep everyone posted.