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Why Do You Need 640-802 Practice Q and A?

Posted on by Posted in CCNA, Tech

Cisco is the international organization in computer networking that transforms how people communicate and work together. Cisco Company produces and sells electronics goods. Cisco is world recognized organization due to its products quality. Cisco has strong impact on the IT professionals.

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Cisco certification enhance your abilities

Cisco certification is highly valued in IT profession. Holder of Cisco certification can apply for job everywhere in the world. Cisco certification is the name of guarantee. A professional can enhance his/her capabilities and can easily improve his/her knowledge and expertise with Cisco certification. Companies are searching for those employees who are well certified and have extra ordinary skills and abilities in their field.
Ensure your reliability

Exam 640-802 is the complex exam connected with the Cisco Certified Network Associate certification. 640-802exam is a greatest way to evaluate the applicant’s knowledge and abilities in a relevant field of work. Exam 640-802 is the most valued and demanded exam in IT field. To pass this practice exam 640-802 is not so easy but with our assistance you will clear 640-802 in a very first chance. The professionals who want to be skillful in their fields and also have a wish to reach at the peak of capability and success they use different certification exams for this reason. Practice exams 640-802 are genuine certifications that guarantee your employers that you are highly skilled, qualified, and consistent.

You can pass exam in very first attempt

Practice exam comprises all the questions and answers to assist you in passing the real exam with good marks. If you want to be successful in your profession and want to get distinction among other competitors then come and follow our guideline. With our help you can attain your goals very easily by passing 640-802 exam. With our training material we ensure you 100% success in real exam Free MCTS Training and MCTS Online Training .

CCNA Salary

Posted on by Posted in Career, CCNA, Tech

The CCNA salary range is very similar in nature to the CCNP salary levels, because previous experience, education and other skill sets can play a significant role in the salary you can qualify for.  Generally speaking, the Cisco Certified Network Associate pays less than the CCNP designation, and is cited in more junior network IT positions.

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The CCNA salary survey shows that yearly income can more than double, depending on geographic location, the college degrees you have, and other factors.

Let’s look at the 2011 CCNA salary data and see what Cisco IT professionals are getting paid.
USA CCNA Salary Rates

As mentioned, CCNA salary levels in the USA can vary a lot, based on where you live and who you work for.  Let’s look at some regions and see the going CCNA salary rates for New York, Dallas and other IT centers in the USA, as reported by Pay Scale:
CCNA Salary New York: Low $43,500 High $123,000

New York is one of the places in the US with the biggest range of salaries for CCNA qualified employees.  The top end, at over $123,000 is one of the highest salaries in all of the USA.
CCNA Salary Dallas and Houston

Dallas and Houston are fairly competitive, with salaries in Dallas generally being 5%-10% higher than Houston.  Here’s the current CCNA salaries being reported:

Dallas: Low $39,000 High $106,000

Houston: Low $35,000 High $102,000
Atlanta CCNA Salary

The CCNA salary reports from Atlanta suggest the pay is close to Texas, with salaries ranging from $39,000 up to $112,000
Chicago CCNA Salary Levels

If you work in the CCNA salary Chicago data indicates the range to be from $40,000 to $106,000 in 2011, with salary levels growing at 4-5% annually.
CCNA Salary UK Data, Including London

The CCNA salary for the UK is divided into two groups:  all of the UK, and everything excluding the London area, because in the London area, CCNA salaries are generally significantly higher.

Looking at the ITJobsWatch site, we see the current CCNA salary rate is £37,000, and if you take all the UK CCNA salary information excluding London, the average rate drops to £35,000.

The average annual salary growth rate averages around 5% for all of the UK, but only about 3% if you exclude the London area.
CCNA Salary Australia – Sydney, Adelaide

The CCNA Salary data for Australia suggests the pay is on par with America, with entry level positions offering around AU$40,000 and senior positions exceeding AU$100,000.  Your educations, skills and experience will influence the offers you get, along with your geographic location and the employers you target.
CCNA Salary In India

The current CCNA salary rates in India are significantly lower than the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.  In fact, many levels of careers in India ask for the CCNA designation, including everything from network engineer to IT Director.  Generally speaking, the entry level with little or no experience apart from the CCNA designation will earn you a salary starting around Rs 94,567, according to payscale, and the salary can increase more than 500%, up to Rs 501,923, depending on previous work experience and education.

Generally speaking, if you come from a top school, like Mumbai university, your salary will be higher, even as much as Rs 120,000 for a starting position.  Likewise, other schools, like IGNOU can lower your starting salary, down to as little as Rs 60,000.
CCNA Requirements

Here are what you need to do to get your CCNA and qualify for CCNA salary levels, as referenced on Wikipedia:

CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) is the certification from Cisco.CCNA certification is a second-level Cisco Career certification. CCNA certification validates the ability to install, configure, operate, and troubleshoot medium-size routed and switched networks, including implementation and verification of connections to remote sites in a WAN.

To achieve CCNA certification, one must earn a passing score on Cisco exam #640-802, or combined passing scores on both the ICND1 #640-822 and ICND2 #640-816 exams.

Passing the ICND1 grants one the Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician (CCENT) certification.

Passing scores are set by using statistical analysis and are subject to change. At the completion of the exam, candidates receive a score report along with a score breakout by exam section and the passing score for the given exam.

Cisco does not publish exam passing scores because exam questions and passing scores are subject to change without notice.

The use of IP, EIGRP, Frame Relay, RIPv2, VLANs, Ethernet, and access control lists is all included within the curriculum.

CISCO produce a breakdown of the CCNA topics on their website.

The exams themselves include a mixture of question types including Multiple choice, drag and drop, Testlets and simulations.

Additional CCNA Salary Information

For additional CCNA Salary data, consult the local online job listings, as well as the CCNA salary surveys being published online.

If you want to comment on your knowledge of CCNA salary rates around the world, leave a comment below.
Incoming search terms:

entry level CCNA salary new york

When a cloud service vanishes: How to protect your data

Posted on by Posted in Apple, CCIE, CCNA, Google, Microsoft, Tech

Nothing lasts forever, and that includes online services. We look at some dangers in trusting your data to the cloud, and how to prevent problems.

Look for these features

If you’re currently deciding whether to use a specific Web service, it helps to know how it will handle your data and if it can provide you with ways to rescue your data or move the information offsite. There are several things to look for.

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Data is available in open formats for easy download. The best sign that a website or service has the preservation of its users’ data in mind is the ability for users to make a backup copy of their data through the service itself. If there’s no back-end tool for downloading copies of your content, you may be forced to scrape the data manually, so anything that saves you the trouble of having to do so is worth noting. The wiki-creation site Wikia.com, for instance, lets you save whole wikis or individual pages into plain text files either for archiving or offline editing.

Interestingly, Google has been making major strides in this area. When it recently started beta-testing its Google+ social network, it added extensions to allow personal data (contacts, circles, etc.) to be exported via Google Checkout. The real test of such a feature, though, is how useful it’ll be to transport your data into other services.

Data tools are provided by the service or third parties. If you don’t have direct access to your data through the service’s own Web interface, the next best thing is an application that can pull that data for you via one of the service’s APIs. You might have to do some programming on your own to take advantage of those APIs, but it’s a good idea to look around first — someone else out there might well have done that work for you and made the results freely available.
When a cloud service vanishes

Andrew Reichman, principal analyst at Forrester Research, says any service you use should be considered proprietary, even if the provider of the service advertises its own exit strategy. In other words, take any claims about data portability with a hefty chunk of salt. “Even with standards [for data interchange], you are still at the mercy of the administrators and policies of the company operating the equipment on your behalf.”

Terms of service. The ToS for almost any service these days is worded to within an inch of its life, with almost every conceivable aspect of the service’s functionality covered. “Paying close attention to the SLAs [service-level agreements], contracts and penalty structure related to non-performance of SLAs is critical,” says Reichman. “Having an exit strategy, or at least some discussion about what would happen in the event the customer wants to pull out or the vendor cancels service, is an important preliminary step to take, prior to committing to a given vendor.” The fewer details about such things in the ToS, the more wary you should be. (Later in this article, I’ll talk more about what to look for in the ToS.)

George Hamilton, an analyst at Yankee Group, is even more insistent on this point. “Caveat emptor,” he says. “Know how the service provider protects stored data and data in motion, and how it is backed up.”

This is where services can afford to compete most aggressively: by allowing customers more freedom of movement with their data, even if it seems counterintuitive at first to let them leave. “Vendors should sell their functionality, not create lock-in with technology,” says Hamilton, noting that the general movement in the industry is toward open standards of one kind or another.

Reichman, however, disagrees. “The most likely [scenario] is one vendor’s proprietary structure becoming a de-facto standard that other vendors follow,” he says.
Watch for warning signs

Is it possible to tell ahead of time if a service’s plug is about to be pulled? Sometimes the best places to look for signs of that happening are not on the service itself.

The ArchiveTeam Web site maintains a list of sites that are in danger of being shut down or are already dying. If you use a site listed there (under the heading “Watchlist”), it’s probably a good time to think about taking your data elsewhere or, at the very least, backing it up somewhere solid.

Reichman advises looking at the company’s numbers. “You can’t always discover that a potential vendor has financial problems, but some issues can be uncovered with a bit of due diligence in financial statements, if available, or funding history and any news stories about the vendor,” he says. “Rumors of impending acquisitions or divestitures, layoffs or strategy shifts are all signals that there may be trouble looming.”

Both Reichman and Hamilton say there may be few outward warning signs, even financial ones. “Companies in fiscal trouble typically don’t pre-announce that kind of trouble,” notes Hamilton. “You need to be proactive. If they’re a public company, you can see their financials. If not, you should still watch to see if they’re in the news. If you have questions about their viability, don’t use them in the first place.”

That said, again, it’s hard to say no to a particular service if job requirements or peer pressure require you to do so, especially without viable alternatives. For a time it was difficult to spurn Facebook, for instance, despite its lack of data portability and questionable privacy practices — everyone used it. Now that wall of dominance may be crumbling a bit with the appearance of Google+ and the quiet success of LinkedIn.

Other warning signs include:

Declining quality of service. An ongoing, chronic disintegration of the service — “increasing service disruptions or performance issues”, as Hamilton puts it — is a major red flag. He adds to that, “a general lack of responsiveness to calls or emails.”

Declining third-party support. Sites with APIs typically develop a culture of third-party apps — image uploaders for photo-hosting sites, for instance, or applications that integrate directly into the service, such as Facebook’s massive roster of games. If development of such applications has fallen off, that could be a sign the service is losing its user base. If the pace slackens not because of market saturation (you can only have so many photo uploaders) but because of genuine programmer alienation — to the point where word filters out into the general user community — that’s a bad sign.

Changes in terms of service or arbitrary behaviors. Many people leave a Web service behind not because the service itself is endangered, but because of things the service has done. A common reason for this is changes to the terms of service, which can spark a massive user backlash. It doesn’t help that terms of service are all too often pools of mud, where the implications of any changes are unclear unless spelled out with total precision. Think of the recent flap over DropBox’s clause indicating it would turn files over to the government if asked — which forced the company to add wording to the effect that your stuff remains yours and they won’t mess with it unless they have no other choice. (In its own words: “These Terms do not grant us any rights to your stuff or intellectual property except for the limited rights that are needed to run the Services.”)

Different folks have different thresholds of tolerance for such things, so what ticks off your neighbor may not seem as egregious to you. But if you hear about such a thing happening with a service you use, pay attention, and give the ToS a fresh read whenever you’re asked to reconfirm your acceptance.

Inspector Gadgets: Windows 7 Gadgets for Monitoring Your PC

Posted on by Posted in CCIE, CCNA, CCNP, Cisco, Microsoft, Tech, Windows

It’s been nearly two years since Windows 7 was released, and yet there are still some features that Windows 7 users may not be taking full advantage of — such as desktop gadgets. Similar to the Mac’s Dashboard Widgets, Windows desktop gadgets are mini-applications that reside on your desktop and can display live data, perform simple functions like search or password generation, or give you a sneak peek inside the inner workings of your PC.

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Brand-specific gadgets

While the focus of this story is on gadgets that everyone can use to get some insight into how their system is working, I’ve also included two great gadgets that require specific hardware or software to work: the gadget that’s included with Symantec’s (SYMC) Norton Internet Security software and the Intel Core Series gadget for looking at certain Intel (INTC) processors.

Norton Internet Security gadget

Symantec’s Norton gadget is among the most colorful. When the software is up to date and Internet bad guys are kept at bay, there’s a prominent green banner across the top of the gadget that says “Secure.” You’ll immediately know that something is amiss if, for instance, your version of the software is out of date, because the banner turns red and says “At Risk.”

Below the banner are icons that lead to the four major elements of the security suite. You can see details about the system’s current security status, discover what other members of your family have been doing online (the software keeps tabs on other computers on your network that share your Norton Internet Security license), check if your backups are up to date and find out if a website is safe before clicking to it.

There’s no download link for the Norton gadget: The only way to get it is to buy Norton Internet Security (regularly $70; now on sale for $50).

Intel Core Series

By contrast, the Core Series gadget is available online and can tell you a lot about your system’s processor — but only if it’s a recent Intel CPU.

The gadget wasn’t written by Intel, but it does a great job of interrogating Intel processors. (AMD (AMD) has a similar system monitoring program, but it’s a full Windows 7 application, not a gadget.)

Like System Control A1, the Core Series gadget monitors up to eight processing threads (rather than cores, as it says), but it’s valuable information nonetheless. It adds a handy overall CPU Usage rating and a graph below. If you add the WinRing0 software, which Core Series can download for you, the gadget can display the chip’s actual clock speed as well.

You can choose a color scheme for the gadget and tell it what to include in the graph along the bottom: individual threads, all the operating threads, core temperature, or temperature and threads together. You can’t resize it, though, which is a problem because the graph is rather crowded.

Purdue’s hefty switch discounts ‘unusual,’ Cisco says

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Company responds to blog reports showing discounts of 76% on Nexus switches for university.
The steep discounts that Purdue University recently received on Cisco’s Nexus 7000 switches are ‘unusual’ and based on factors that go beyond the purchase alone, Cisco says.

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Cisco this week responded to blog reports that it offered Purdue an exclusive deal that includes a 76% discount off Nexus 7000 switches. Purdue is shopping for switches for its Hansen Cluster project, which is a “community cluster” for Purdue faculty and staff looking to cost-effectively acquire computational resources.

Hansen consists of Dell compute nodes with four 12-core AMD Opteron 6176 processors, 96GB, 192GB, or 512GB of memory, and 250GB of local disk, with 10-Gigabit Ethernet interconnects between nodes. Cisco’s Nexus switches will provide those 10G interconnects and manage traffic via its FabricPath data center switching capability.

CUSTOMERS REACT: How is the Cisco 76% off Nexus sale going over with customers?

A discount of the size offered to Purdue is interesting in that Cisco is struggling to maintain profit margins in switching because of a product transition underway within the company from older Catalyst to newer Nexus switches, and heightened competition. Eroding profits in switching is a factor in Cisco’s current reorganization, in which it is paring workforce and product lines in an effort to regain and maintain past margins.

Cisco officials this week would not discuss the impact a 76% discount would have on switch margins or on Cisco’s effort to grow and maintain those margins. But in the company’s fourth-quarter conference call with investors, CFO Frank Calderoni said fourth quarter “discounts and pricing were flat as compared to the third quarter,” which, according to a Cisco spokesperson, indicates that the company’s overall pricing and discounting strategy has not changed.

There is some speculation in the blog posts, though, that Cisco may be inflating the list price of its switches in order to make attractive margins while still discounting up to 76%.

Without discussing Purdue specifically, Cisco says a discount like the one offered to the university is unusual and determined by many factors, including the project for which the purchase is targeted; the number of products, or volume, to be purchased; follow-on sales opportunities; and the existing relationship with Cisco. Purdue is one of about a half dozen customers on Cisco’s Global Customer Advisory Board, which provides feedback and guidance to Cisco on a regular basis.

“We evaluate every customer on a case-by-case basis,” says Ram Velaga, vice president of product management in Cisco’s Data Center Technology Group. “Projects, areas of interest, etc. There are arrangements for particular projects we are working on, and mutual investments. We don’t ever want a big deal to fall through with a valued customer.”

But the value of that customer is part of the negotiation process. While customers might demand a Purdue-sized discount from Cisco, it’s rare they’ll get it.

“It’s the standard give-and-take, the dance,” the Cisco spokesperson says. “That’s where the evaluation comes in. Other customers do not get that level of discount. It’s very unusual. We make a decision based on the value” of the account.

Facial-Recognition Tools, Facebook Photos Threaten End to Anonymity: Study

Posted on by Posted in Microsoft, Tech

LAS VEGAS — A Carnegie Mellon University researcher used Facebook photos to demonstrate how facial-recognition technology can be used to identify people as they walk down the street.

Using off-the-shelf facial-recognition software and students’ photos posted on Facebook, Alessandro Acquisiti, a CMU researcher, showed attendees at the annual Black Hat security conference how he was able to positively identify 30 percent of students walking around campus.

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Acquisti also searched dating sites for users within 50 miles of a zip code and correlated them with approximately 110,000 Facebook profiles of users who also lived in that same area. The cloud-computing cluster at CMU obtained results in 15 hours and was able to positively identify 10 percent of the users on online dating sites, according to Acquisiti. Narrowing the geographic area increased the match rate.

Acquisti also combined the results with his previous research on predicting Social Security numbers and found he could guess within four tries the correct number for 28 percent of the subjects.

“The goal here is not to generate fear, but we are very close to a point where the convergence of technologies will make it possible for online and offline data to blend seamlessly … and for strangers on the street to predict certain information about you from your picture,” Acquisti said.

As more services include facial-recognition capabilities and as developers can create applications using the technology, the privacy implications are staggering, Acquisti said. Law enforcement officials can use publicly available information and government databases to compile detailed information dossiers on everyone in the country. These applications can be used on pictures of crowds at protests and demonstrations, creating a new form of crowd control.

Someone can snap photos of people at a public event and an application can cull through publicly available information on social-networking sites to identify these strangers and their friends, and list their likes and dislikes. Or online dating sites become no longer anonymous as the technology would be able to identify people by the photos.

“Notwithstanding Americans’ resistance to a Real ID infrastructure, as consumers of social networks, we have consented to a de facto Real ID that markets and information technology, rather than government and regulation, have created,” Acquisti wrote in his report, titled “Privacy in the Age of Augmented Reality.”

Google developed this kind of technology and withheld it because it was deemed to be too dangerous to release publicly, former CEO Eric Schmidt had said.

“That genie is already out of the bottle,” Acquisti said.

Facebook has made it easier for people to tag their friends, and there is no way for users to opt out of getting tagged. Security experts have long said Facebook should allow privacy-conscious users to have a one-click option to stop tag-happy friends, instead of having to manually un-tag every instance.

Facebook also integrated facial-recognition technology into the social-networking platform to auto-suggest users to be tagged in photos. As all things privacy-related in Facebook, all users were included in the recognition database by default.

The researchers said the technologies will soon “democratize surveillance,” as sinking costs make peer-to-peer facial recognition cost effective and available to everyone.

German data-protection officials recently requested that Facebook disable its facial-recognition software and delete any previously stored data. Making facial-recognition technology opt-out runs afoul of European and German data-protection laws, John Caspar, Hamburg, Germany’s commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, said in a letter to Facebook Aug. 2.

If Facebook does not comply with the request, German authorities would take action and the company could face fines of up to $425,490, or 300,000 euros, Caspar said. Germany, takes online privacy much more seriously than many other countries and its laws generally restrict photographs of people and property, except in public places, such as a sporting event, without a person’s consent.

“The legal situation is clear in my opinion,” Caspar told German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt. “If the data were to get into the wrong hands, then someone with a picture taken on a mobile phone could use biometrics to compare the pictures and make an identification,” Caspar said.

Such a system could be used by undemocratic governments to spy on the opposition or by security services around the world. “The right to anonymity is in danger,” said Caspar.

Speed Subnetting for Success in the CCENT and CCNA Exams

Posted on by Posted in Career, CCNA, CCNP, Cisco, Tech

Subnetting is an absolutely critical component for CCNA success. In this article, we are first going to review how subnetting works, ensure you master the “longhand” method and understand the mathematics behind this networking principle. Once this is done, we are going to look at some shortcuts that can be used in the exam to ensure that we can solve the many subnetting challenges quickly and accurately.

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Subnetting is an absolutely critical component for CCNA success. The skill must be demonstrated in the CCENT (ICND1) and CCNA (ICND2) exams. Should you take the composite CCNA exam option, you need to be even better and faster at subnetting in order to achieve success.

In this article, we are first going to review how subnetting works and ensure you master the “longhand” method and understand the mathematics behind this networking principle. Then we will look at some shortcuts that can be used in the exam to ensure that we can solve the many subnetting challenges quickly and accurately. I believe it is critical that students understand the how’s and why’s behind this topic. It is unacceptable, in my opinion, to master subnetting if you only know the shortcuts. We need to fully understand why we are doing something in the network, and how it truly works before we can start seeking exam shortcuts.

NOTE

This article assumes you have a basic working knowledge of IP addressing and subnet masks. Also, this article assumes you can manually convert a binary octet to decimal, and vice versa.
Why Subnetting?

Why do we even need this concept of subnetting? Well, we need to break up our networks into smaller networks all of the time. Breaking the network up allows the network to be more efficient and more secure and more easily managed.

When you look at a Class B private address like 172.16.0.0/16 (255.255.0.0), you can calculate the number of hosts that can live in this network. You take the number of bits used for host addressing (16), and you raise 2 to this power and then subtract 2. So the formula is 2^h-2 where h is the number of host bits. We need a calculator for this one because the number is so big! It turns out that 65,534 can live in this network. That’s great, that’s amazing, and…it also turns out that this is impossible! In a typical TCP/IP network of today, you are going to have big problems if you start placing 500 or more systems in the same network (subnet), never mind 65,000 or more!
Number of Subnets and Number of Hosts

So if we want to use the 172.16.0.0 private address space, we need to “subnetwork” this address space in order create more network addresses that can each accommodate an appropriate number of host systems. When we subnetwork, we play a balancing act. As we “borrow” bits for subnetting from the host bits, we can create more subnets, but we do so at the cost of being able to support fewer and fewer host systems per network. The formula for how many hosts you can have always remains the same— it is 2^h-2. The formula for how many networks we can create is very similar. It is 2^n where n is the number of bits we borrow from the host bits.

Let us study an example. If we have 172.16.0.0/16 and we decide to borrow 8 bits for subnetting, we can create 2^8 or 256 different subnetworks. How many hosts can each of these subnetworks accommodate? Well, there are now 8 bits left for host addressing. 2^8-2 gives us 254 hosts per subnetwork.
A Sample Subnetting Scenario

Let us stick with the example where we begin with the private IP address space of a Class B address of 172.16.0.0. We examine our networking needs and realize that we need to accommodate 100 different subnetworks in our organization. From the previous information in this article, we know that in order to create 100 subnets, we need to borrow 7 bits (2^7 = 128). This is perfect; we have the number of subnetworks that we need, plus a few extra that we can call upon when the network inevitably grows.

What will the subnet mask be in this scenario? This mask will be the one that is used by all of the hosts in all of the different subnetworks. It is critical that we calculate this number correctly, of course.

Notice that our Class B address originally had 16 bits that made up the network ID portion. In this sample scenario we are going to borrow 7 bits. Now we have a network ID that is made up of 23 (16+7). We can write out the 23 bits of the subnet mask now:

11111111.11111111.11111110.00000000

So converting to our convenient dotted decimal notation, we can see our mask:

255.255.254.0

A cooler way to write the mask is just /23 after the IP address. This is called prefix notation.

So what would the first subnetwork network ID be? Well, we know it will start 172.16, but what will the value be in that third octet where we have some bits (7) representing the subnet and one bit representing the host portion.

To answer this in the longhand method, we write out the mask and the address from that octet in binary and do some analysis.

Mask: 11111110

IP: 00000000

Notice the first subnetwork will be 172.16.0.0. We can use all zeros in the first 7 bit positions of the third octet, and we have a zero in the last bit position which is used to identify hosts.

What would the first host address be in this network? Let’s write those last two octets out longhand:

00000000.00000001

The first host address on the 172.16.0.0 network would be:

172.16.0.1

What would the broadcast address be for that network? To get this you fill all the host bits with a 1:

00000001.111111111

172.16.1.255

How about the last usable host address on this subnetwork? Easy. We will turn all the host bits to 1, except for the last one.

00000001.11111110

172.16.1.254

What is the next subnetwork in this scheme? Well, let us turn one of those subnetwork bits on. We will start with the least significant (rightmost):

Mask: 11111110

IP: 00000010

Ahh, so the next network is 172.16.2.0/23.
Exam Shortcuts

It is wonderful to see how all of this works longhand, but in the lab exam environment, we are VERY pressed for time. We need powerful shortcuts. Here we will walk through my preferred shortcuts against the backdrop of sample exam questions.

NOTE

There are many different shortcut approaches that are all valid. This is the one that I prefer, but you might be taught another by some other Cisco trainer. Go with whatever works for you in the exam!
Sample Question 1:

What is the last usable address in the subnet of a host with the address 192.168.1.136 and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.240?

Step 1 Upon arriving at my first subnetting question in the exam environment, I build a Powers of Two reference chart on the scratch paper Cisco provides.

2^7=128 | 2^6=64 | 2^5=32 | 2^4=16 | 2^3=8 | 2^2-=4 | 2 ^1=2 | 2^0=1

Step 2 How many bits of subnetting are used in the fourth octet here? My Powers of Two chart tells me. 1 bit = 128; 2 bits = 192; 3 bits = 224; 4 bits = 240. Yes, the forth octet of the subnet mask looks like this in binary—11110000.

Step 3 Now the magic of the shortcut—we go four bits deep (from left to right) in the Powers of Two chart. This tells us the value that the subnets increment on. In our example it is 16:

So our subnets are:
o 192.168.1.0
o 192.168.1.16
o 192.168.1.32
o 192.168.1.48
o 192.168.1.64
o 192.168.1.80
o 192.168.1.96
o 192.168.1.112
o 192.168.1.128
o 192.168.1.144

Step 4 This host, with the address of 192.168.1.136 must live on the 192.168.1.128 subnet. The broadcast address for this subnet is one less than the next subnet of 144, so that is 143. The last usable address is 142. We have arrived at our answer—192.168.1.142.

Sample Question 2

Your IT Junior Administrator has provided you with the address and mask of 192.168.20.102 and 255.255.255.224. You Junior Admin has asked you to tell him how many hosts can be created on your subnet?

Step 1 Here I begin by referencing the Powers of Two chart I created on my scratch paper. Adding 128 + 64 + 32, I get the 224 value used in the fourth octet of the subnet mask. Therefore, I can see that there are 3 bits used for subnetting in that octet. This leaves 5 bits for host addressing.

2^7=128 | 2^6=64 | 2^5=32 | 2^4=16 | 2^3=8 | 2^2-=4 | 2 ^1=2 | 2^0=1

Step 2 As we discussed earlier, the equation for the number of hosts per subnet is 2^h – 2 where h is the number of host bits. From the chart I see that 2^5 = 32. 32-2 = 30 hosts per subnet.

Conclusion

Initially, the subnetting related questions strike fear in the hearts of CCNA candidates. Sure enough, with study and practice, and the many shortcut methods that exist, these questions become the favorites in the Certification Exam environment. They can be solved easily and quickly, and candidates know they solved them correctly. Thanks to the power of mathematics, there are certainly no “grey” areas in questions like these.

Cisco rival Juniper lands Microsoft’s Muglia

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Former Windows Server chief to guide Juniper’s software strategy

It was a cleaner software foundation that attracted former Microsoft executive Bob Muglia to Cisco rival Juniper Networks. That, and the fact that he was familiar with many executives at Juniper from his days at Microsoft.

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Juniper this week announced that Muglia will be joining the company as executive vice president of its Software Solutions Division. In this newly created position, Muglia will oversee the company’s end-to-end software strategy and lead the newly formed Software Solutions Division.

He will report directly to Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson, another former Microsoft executive whom he worked under at Microsoft for 18 months.

A 23-year veteran of Microsoft, Muglia most recently served as president of Microsoft’s $15 billion Server and Tools Business, where he was responsible for infrastructure software, developer tools and cloud platforms, including products such as Windows Server, SQL Server, Visual Studio, System Center and the Windows Azure Platform.

He was ousted by CEO Stever Ballmer and replaced with Microsoft online services veteran, Satya Nadella. Instead of accepting a new role at Microsoft, Muglia agreed to leave the company this summer.

Muglia also held leadership positions across Microsoft’s Developer, Office, Mobile Devices, Windows NT and Online Services business groups.

Juniper is centralizing its software business to further position it as a company differentiator and growth engine. Included in it will be software for Juniper’s SRX Series and vGW Series security platforms, MobileNext packet core offering for mobile operators, Junos Pulse mobile security suite for managing devices, and the Junos Space platform for developing and deploying network applications.

Software will be a key enabler of mobile device support, cloud computing and application intelligence in the networking industry going forward, Muglia says.

“The emergence of cloud, heterogeneous devices connecting, and applications (executing) in a much more automated state creates an opportunity to bring software into the network and connect to all devices,” he says. “Networks are configured and managed by manual processes, people with mice and keyboards, and separate from the application infrastructure. There is no way to deal with the scale of the amount of configuration changes in the network to ensure the reliability and consistency of the environment. Networks will be applications driven; applications are at the center of intelligence and business value. The infrastructure as a whole is being driven by the applications. Juniper is very well positioned to take this on with QFabric for cloud, and a single operating system platform. There’s not a lot of legacy mess to clean up.”

“We are excited to have a leader of Bob’s caliber coming on board to lead Juniper’s software initiatives, and I’m confident that his vision, management savvy and technical expertise will bring tremendous value to our organization,” CEO Johnson said, in a statement.

Muglia said he talked to several companies, and venture capital and equity firms, large and small, including Cisco, before deciding to go to Juniper.

“I did talk to Cisco, they’re bunch of great guys there,” he said.

Google: Sun offered to license Java for $100M

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IDG News Service – Sun Microsystems offered to license its Java technology to Google for $100 million, a Google attorney said Thursday, attempting to show that Oracle is out of touch as it seeks billions from Google for patent infringement.

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Oracle and Google were in court Thursday for a hearing in Oracle’s lawsuit accusing Google of patent infringement in its Android OS. Judge William Alsup was in a feisty mood, warning Oracle that “this court is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oracle Corporation” and telling Google that Andy Rubin, who runs its Android business, will be “on the hot-seat” at trial.

Alsup also made it clear that he thinks Google’s ad revenues are linked to the value of Android – something Google contests — and that it will have to pay damages “probably in the millions … maybe the billions” if it’s found guilty of infringement.

Oracle sued Google last August, saying its Android OS violates seven Java-related patents, as well as Java copyrights, that Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems.

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The hearing at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco was to hear Google’s motion to have Oracle’s damages expert excluded from the case. Robert Van Nest, an attorney for Google, told Alsup the expert failed to link Oracle’s patents directly to his damages estimate, which Google says is between $1.4 billion and $6.1 billion.

The expert ignored that Sun offered Google a three-year, “all-in” royalty license for Java for $100 million, which Google rejected, Van Nest said. The offer was made when Google was just starting Android’s development.

But if Google tried to negotiate a license for Java, Alsup asked, doesn’t that show Google knew it was going to infringe Sun’s patents all along?

“Tell me why there’s not wilful infringement here?” he asked.

“The negotiation that took place was not a pure licensing negotiation,” Van Nest replied. Google was trying to partner with Sun to co-develop Android, he said. When the talks failed, Google developed a “clean room” version of Java using technology it developed in-house or licensed from the Apache Software Foundation.

So why did Google think it needed a license? Alsup wanted to know.

“They were negotiating an agreement,” Van Nest said. “They weren’t saying we need a license to your technology. They came to Sun saying we have a product we’d like to build together. You guys have technology that might be useful, we have technology that might be useful, let’s partner and build it.”

If Alsup was tough on Van Nest, he was tougher on Oracle. He didn’t say Thursday if he’ll exclude Oracle’s damages expert, but he clearly thinks the upper end of his damages estimate is too high.

Still Awesome After All These Years: 8 Excellent Free Downloads

Posted on by Posted in Cisco, Microsoft, Tech

Wine gets better with age. Men get more distinguished looking (or so my wife tells me). Even some cars seem to improve as time passes (I’m looking at you, 1965 Mustang). But there’s nothing glamorous about old software apps, which just get less and less useful the older they get–right?

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WinPatrol

Another longtime security champ, WinPatrol from BillP Studios, tackles the other side of online safety: It monitors your system for unauthorized changes– the kinds made by malware and browser hijackers–and then lets you delete any offenders. It can also disable or delay startup programs so that your system boots faster. For users who want to know more about the programs running on their PC (including hidden and cryptic ones), WinPatrol Plus ($30) includes a database of tens of thousands of them. Amazingly, this program is now on version 20.

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition

Alas, WinPatrol can’t defend your PC against viruses and the like. For that you need something like AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, one of the most robust free security tools ever. (In a recent test, it detected 98.5 percent of known malware.) And this is no mere scanner; AVG offers real-time protection against malware infections, plus a LinkScanner component that thwarts Web attacks while you surf. Why pay for antivirus software when this ever-improving gem does the job gratis?

IrfanView

Irfan Skiljan’s IrfanView has long been my go-to tool for cropping, resizing, and otherwise manipulating images. It’s not an editor so much as a tweaker, enabling you to make simple changes to a screenshot or photo, and to add a few special effects when the occasion warrants. IrfanView loads within a second after you click its icon, and it occupies just 1.5MB of space on your hard drive. The program hasn’t seen many major changes in recent years, but that’s a good thing.

GNU Image Manipulation Program

Of course, IrfanView doesn’t support Photoshop-level image editing. For that, turn to the GNU Image Manipulation Program, affectionately known as GIMP. It replicates many of Photoshop’s best features, offering filters, special effects, masks, layers, and everything else you need to create digital works of art (or works of digital art).