If you have not heard of it by now, let me take a moment and introduce you to a really good podcast called Packet Pushers Podcast (PPP for short).
PPP is a bunch of networking nerds and uber geeks getting together around a virtual workbench and talking about topics that are of interest to us networking people.  Past topics have ranged from Juniper Q-Fabric, LISP, MS Teredo, Arista Networks, Openflow, and many many more.  Some of these topics might be new to you, some of them are an old hat, but no matter what they it is a great opportunity to listen and learn to what others have to say.  Sometimes their view or understanding is different then ours.  Also what is nice – sometimes the Vendors step in and join the conversation, so you are getting first-hand information!
The primary topics focus on the core technologies – Routing, Switching, and Firewalls.  These are the core of what most of us do on a day to day basis, and lets be honest – how many of us have time to research all the technologies and changing industries that are out there?   We all can do some, but there are many more that we cannot look at, and this is where PPP is great.  It is a chance to listen to about an hour podcast and listen and learn.  I usually listen when I am either walking during lunch, cutting the grass at, or going for a bike ride after work (still trying to get rid of the CCIE 30.) (cont)

As some of you are aware, my family and I enjoy vacations at Walt Disney World on a yearly basis. In fact, we are Disney Vacation Club (DVC) members for over 10 years now and it was probably one of the best things we ever did. Alas, this is not a sales pitch for the DVC (but if you do call, Jeff Fry – Northampton, PA referred you :), but more of me wanting to share some of my tips and tricks that we have learned over the years.
 

Fly vs Drive

Due to our location we always fly to Disney. Our local airport is a small regional airport that is very easy to get in and out of, and to be honest, it is one of those that you can show up 30-45 minutes before your flight and still make it – with luggage. I prefer to find a direct flight as much as possible, these flights tend to be easier on the kids – as well as parents – since the stress of delays, connections, etc is greatly reduced
Another benefit of staying on-site and flying is a thing Disney offers called Magical Express. This is a complimentary transportation service that is offered to Disney guests who are flying into Orlando (MCO). Disney will pick you up at the airport (ok, you take a free bus) and take you to your hotel, as well as that you do not need to worry about your luggage. They will deliver it to your room a few hours after you arrive -no need for you to wait at the luggage carousel. This is a great service that we love to use whenever we can!

Ahhh… It’s Sunday – just a few days after Cisco Live 2011 has come to a close and I am still recovering!  Why am I still recovering one might ask? Well, my liver needs time to recuperate, the 3 hour time difference is a killer, leaving at 7 AM and getting home at 6PM is tough, and just all the information and knowledge gained last week is still soaking in!  I will admit – it was an AWESOME experience this year!
So I see I owe you a recap for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  I will start with Tuesday first..
 

Tuesday

Well my first class on Tuesday was BRKRST-3045 – LISP and to my surprise this was a LARGE class!  I would guess that there was close to 1000 people in attendance for this one, blew me away!  LISP is a cool protocol that I blogged about some time ago here – LISP – Say What?. They covered the protocol and the components of it in detail, the operation of LISP as well as some Use Cases.  It was a great class and has generated a few new blog post ideas – so the future looks bright for this one!
After that class it was a quick break over to Tom’s Corner ( NetworkingNerd ) that was basically a table outside of the registration and World of Solutions entrance.  It turned out to be a great meeting place for all the Twitter people out there, and we had a crowd!  We usually met there before going to a class, session, WoS, or anywhere else – nice common place that was easy to get to.

Just a quick update… I will try and update the blog this weekend as time allows, if not this weekend then definitely on Monday.  Been a long and tiring week – and best of all an awesome one! Have quite a bit to share about the experiences over the day as well as many new post ideas.
Was great to meet many of you – really appreciated (as well as humbled) by all the compliments and kind words.
Hope you all have a safe trip home and hope to see you again next year!
Thank you,
Jeff (Fryguy)
 
PS – I will fix the IOS 15 post as soon as possible, I am hearing it is kicking back errors – and I think that is due to the sheer size of the matrix.  See what I can do.

Well, Monday is in the books now – and it was a great start to the conference.
The day started with breakfast with Ron Fuller  – @CCIE58581 on Twitter and he  is also one of the authors on the NX-OS and Cisco Nexus Switching.  It was really great to put a face and voice to the name as he and I have chatted over the past year and such, but never had that change to meet – until now.
After breakfast with Ron, I headed over to the Pearson Vue testing center to take the free test that I signed up for.  Not sure what I was thinking when I scheduled the test for 8 AM on a Monday, but I am glad I did.  I can now say that I am a CCDE candidate – I am now allowed to take the CCDE lab – if I can get a seat.  It was a good test, some things took more thought then I expected, but it is a fair test.  If you are wondering what I used to study, there are many books listed on the CCDE Cisco site, the list there is good.
My first class of the day was BRKARC-3470 Cisco Nexus 7000 Switch Architecture given by Tim Stevenson.  This class was a great overview of how the Cisco 7010/7018 chassis interworkings work.  From port-level asic connectivity, to backplane connectivity, and even the differences with the M and F cards.  It was a great overview of the hardware.
Lunch on Monday was hectic – there are about 14,000 attendees here (last count I heard), so you can image the logistics of getting that many people fed and seated.  The food was good but the seating was a bit tough.  It is sometimes like that on the first day though, it is the day that any issues are quickly exposed and fixed.

A few weeks ago a few of us on Twitter where having some fun with technology and talking about the closing keynote speaker, William Shatner, and his history and his fame with Star Trek.  What came out of all of that tweeting was a shirt design that reflected memorable Star Trek terms with the Nexus 7000.  Since it was proving difficult to get the shirt printed through on-line means,  I decided to make one myself – and add in a few other geeky items.
So, without further ado, here is the shirt and all the fun stuff that is on it!
Front of shirt playing off the movie phrase “Scotty, we need more power” by Capt. Kirk

And then on the back we have

Well, Day two of Cisco Live 2011 for me (for some this is your first day as you are still arriving).

For me, I am taking an 8 hour Techtorial on Next Generation Data Center Infrastructure TECDCT-8001.  This is a paid seminar that has covered some great material – and probably help to generate some future blog posts as well!

Mike Herbert took the first part of the class and did a great review of some of the changes that have happened in the data center over the past few years. From the evolving 3-tier architecture with Spanning Tree and such all the way to Fabric Path and TRILL.  Nothing was really in depth but was a great setting of the stage for the day.  Some of the things that I liked was the discussion on the Data Center Standards and where different things are in the flow.  Another nice discussion was data center cabling and the potential future of cabling.  From the traditional home-run cabling that many of us use today to the discussion of top of rack (TOR) and end of row (EOR) drivers with regards to 10g and beyond cabling.  Problems discussed where primarily the cost of running those lengths of cables to the cross-talk potentials due to the power required to drive the data.  Oh yeah, Mike gets some bonus points for mentioning LISP during the presentation as well.

Well the day has finally come, it is time for Cisco Live 2011 in Las Vegas, NV.  Everything here is looking great, things are still getting setup but the Wireless is up and working, registration opened early, and I am set to go.
So, the big question every year is what does the bag look like?  Well, here is your answer – looks great! Tom ( @NetworkingNerd) mentioned to me that these are the TSA Friendly backpack bags, AWESOME!  What is a TSA Friendly bag? Well, you can check the TSA website for exact details – link – but in short they are bags where the laptop storage section open like a butterfly to go through x-ray without having to remove the laptop from the bag.
 
So, here are pics of the bag.  It is black, orange, and gray – not a bad color combination at all!