Cisco, Troll Tracker Blogger Sued For Defamation

Joe Mullin writes "We've discussed Troll Tracker here before — the anonymous blogger who was outed last month as Rick Frenkel, a Cisco lawyer. Since then, two lawyers from the notoriously patent-friendly Eastern District of Texas have filed defamation suits against Frenkel and Cisco, and Frenkel's blog has been shuttered. One of the plaintiffs, a renowned patent judge's son, may have been hunting the anonymous blogger for months. This week Cisco announced new blogging guidelines in response to the Troll Tracker fiasco. The company acknowledged that 'a few Cisco employees used poor judgment' during secret-blog-time, but they're largely standing by their man. Cisco's new rules will prohibit only anonymous blogging by employees about issues for which 'they have responsibilities at Cisco.

Is Google Neglecting Blogger?

Ian Lamont writes "For years, I've been frustrated by Blogger's relatively limited functionality and other problems. For instance, we've heard about Blogger's security flaws since the beginning of this decade. Blogger's latest problem, which lets bots bypass CAPTCHAs in order to set up spam blogs, is not just a sign of Google's disregard for security — it's symptomatic of Google's neglect of its Blogger service. For instance, Blogger is just now rolling out a feature that lets writers publish in the future, years after similar functionality was released in Wordpress and Moveable Type. Is Blogger destined to be a sideshow as long as Google keeps acquiring and building more high-profile services, such as Google Maps and YouTube?"

Cisco Turns Routers Into Linux App Servers

symbolset writes "InternetNews is reporting that Cisco's new Application eXtension Platform turns several models of Cisco switches into Linux application servers. With certified libraries in C, Java and Perl, developers will be able to use a downloadable SDK to build their apps. The AXP server is just another module in a Cisco switch running Cisco's own derivation of a modern Linux distro (Kernel 2.6.x) specifically hardened to run on that particular hardware. Modules will include up to 1.4-GHz Intel Pentiums with 2 GB RAM and a 160 GB hard drive."

IP Cisco network for ROMATSA

Cisco announced that ROMATSA, the Romanian Air Traffic Service Association, implemented an IP Cisco network for air traffic services. This network is a communication platform for all air traffic services, including data transfer for aeronautical applications. According to the company, the Cisco solution helps ROMATSA reduce operational costs, and meet its special requirements of resiliency and redundancy. "The new network architecture implemented by ROMATSA proves that the intrinsic flexibility of IP communications can provide resiliency and redundancy by reducing operational costs. This is very important in an area such as air traffic control, where reliability is essential, and standards are very strict", said Bogdan Constantinescu, general manager, Cisco Romania and the Republic of Moldova.

Pre-Owned and Used Cisco CISCO1721

Network Hardware Resale carries the Cisco CISCO1721, and, in most cases, we can deliver it next-day. To request a quote, simply add the Cisco CISCO1721 to your online quote cart, or call us at 1-800-230-6638 for assistance.

We want your purchase to be worry-free. Our entire inventory of used and refurbished CISCO1721 is rigorously tested by our Cisco-certified technicians to ensure that they are in like-new condition. Many of the pre-owned CISCO1721 that we carry are unused and in the original Cisco packaging.

All NHR refurbished Cisco equipment comes with our standard one-year, overnight-replacement warranty. If you should have technical questions about your CISCO1721 or any other NHR product, NHR provides installation and configuration support from our expert technicians at no additional charge.

NHR carries the industry’s largest inventory of current and previous generation Cisco products. In addition to used and refurbished CISCO1721, we have Cisco routers, Cisco switches and accessories in stock for immediate availability. Please continue to browse our online Cisco catalog to find all the Cisco equipment that you need.

If your CISCO1721 purchase today is part of an upgrade, consider selling your outdated equipment to NHR. Find out more about our asset recovery and buy back services, and turn your surplus equipment into working capital.

Setting up a VLAN with the Cisco IOS

Recently, in my forums at my personal website, I have a VLAN Question thread going with over 20 posts and 638 views. Additionally, I have a free video where I demonstrate how to configure VLANs in the Cisco IOS. This video is one of the most popular free videos on my site.

Because of the popularity of these two sites, I wanted to take a second to cover the basics on VLAN configuration. Here are some crucial VLAN “show” commands on a switch:

————————–

Show vlan brief
Show interfaces switchport
Show ip interface brief
Show int trunk

————————–

And here is how you would configure a VLAN routing on your router with some show commands:
Router commands
Interface fastethernet 4.1
Encapsulation dot1q 10

Interface fastethernet 4.2
Encapsulation dot1q 20

Interface fastethernet 4
No shutdown

Show ip interface brief
Show vlans

—————————–

And here is how you would configure a VLAN on your switch:

Switch commands
Interface fastethernet 2/0
Switchport access vlan 10
No shutdown

Interface fastethernet 5/0
Switchport access vlan 20
No shutdown

Interface vlan 10
Ip address x.x.x.x y.y.y.y
No shutdown

Interface vlan 20
Ip address x.x.x.x y.y.y.y
No shutdown

———————-

I hope that sample configuration helps you out and don’t forget about my VLAN Configuration video where you can see how it is configured, step by step.

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cisco/setting-up-a-vlan-with-the-cisco-ios/

Sadly, the PIX Firewall is Discontinued

What is the name that everyone thinks of when they think of firewalls? The “PIX” firewall, right?

Sadly, the PIX will be discontinued by Cisco, as of January 27, 2009. This was announced on January 28, 2008 in this Cisco Press Release. If you are a PIX owner, the good news is that Cisco will support it until the year 2013 so, no rush huh?

Of course, we all know that the PIX will be replaced by the ASA 5500 line. When the ASA was announced we all saw this coming, even though Cisco said that they had no plans to discontinue the PIX and that there was a place in the marketplace for both. Still, it just made sense to discontinue the PIX.

So can the ASA become as well known as the PIX? Instead of asking for a firewall will admins just say “we need to install an ASA”? And is it pronounced “A.S.A.” or “Aay-Sah-Uh”? Only time will tell…

But seriously, the ASA is a very strong firewall and it can do a lot of things that the PIX could not do because the ASA is a real “UTM” or “Anti-X Appliance”. That means that, when combined with the CSC-SSM card (the card that really provides the Anti-X / UTM), the ASA is a much more complete firewall. The ASA is what businesses need today because, today, it isn’t enough to just maintain TCP states and drop traffic. You need intrusion prevention. You need filtering of traffic for viruses, worms, and malicious attack signatures in the real time. You want content filtering of web traffic. The ASA can do all that and more.

Do you have a Cisco ASA? What do you think of it? I’d like to hear from you!

For more information on the Cisco ASA, checkout the ASA homepage over at Cisco.com

-David
Personal Website: HappyRouter.com
Checkout David’s Video Training:
VMware ESX Server Video Training
Cisco CCNA & CCNP Video Training

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cisco/sadly-the-pix-firewall-is-discontinued/

Cisco opens router code to stymie Juniper

Cisco opens router code to stymie Juniper

Cisco is to open up its long-established IOS routing software to third-party developers, according to company officials.

Having just formed its first dedicated software group, Cisco officials are now tinkering with making IOS more than just a platform for Cisco-developed services in the network. To that end, Cisco plans to "componentise" IOS - developing only one implementation of a specific function instead of several, depending on the image - dynamically link IOS services and move the software onto a Unix-based kernel, according to Alan Baratz, Cisco senior vice president of the Network Software and Systems Technology Group.

Cisco then plans to open up interfaces on IOS to allow third-party applications to access IOS services, Baratz said."We are in the process of trying to open up IOS interfaces and make them available to third-party developers," Baratz said. He did not provide a timeframe for doing so.

Cisco's plan is similar to what Juniper announced for its JUNOS operating system operating system earlier this week. Juniper announced a Partner Solution Development Platform (PSDP) allowing customers and partners to develop specialised applications on its JUNOS operating system.

The PSDP includes a software development kit with "intelligent and secure" interfaces to Juniper's JUNOS routing and service functions.

Cisco's formation of the Software Group within its Cisco Development Organization was arguably the most significant move associated with last week's reorganization of CDO. All Cisco software development operations - IOS, Unified Communications, Collaboration and Network Management - now fall under one orchestrator, Senior Vice President Don Proctor.

The move was made to coordinate product development and inject a common set of services across all of Cisco's software assets, company officials said. Another catalyst was Cisco's intention to drive collaboration as a business process, and the network infrastructure as the platform for all IT services.

"We're looking at more significant software transitions over the next several years than we've seen in this industry," Proctor said, referring to the emergence of collaboration, Web 2.0 and video as key business processes going forward. "We'd like to say Cisco has distinguished itself as a software company" five years from now.