The winning teams were determined by a panel of seven industry experts who selected the following applications as the most innovative, implementable and relevant to businesses. More than 100 qualified teams from 75 countries entered the competition. The finalists demonstrated the business relevance of the AXP in solving real-world problems, in areas of unified communications, security, advertising, cloud architectures and energy management.

Below the winners list:

First Place: Team MADnetwork, led by David Perez in Spain, won US$50,000 for the Building Automation Service application (BAS). Created with branch offices and multitenant units in mind, BAS helps businesses remotely monitor and manage building operations.

By integrating the service management capabilities on AXP, the application minimizes the need for external servers to manage disparate facilities (HVAC, lighting, plumbing, presence, fire, flooding and smoke detectors), which reduces capital and operational costs. The solution also saves energy costs by determining, in real time, which resources are being consumed, and to what degree, by working with a remote management solution.

Second Place: Team Enhancers, led by Rajesh Kotagiri in India, won US$30,000 for the Local Advertising Mesh Network Platform (LAMP) application.

LAMP creates a distributed ad-serving platform hosted on the AXP. This platform will reside on ISRs targeted initially toward retail deployments: for instance, retail stores can display ads on LCD units in various locations. With this solution, businesses can tap potential new revenue streams by shifting some of their advertising efforts to their existing networking infrastructures.

Third Place: Team BugsBernie, led by Bernhard Beckmann in Germany, won US$20,000 for the Integrated Surveillance System application. With this application, Internet Protocol phones can be turned on during nonworking hours to monitor any audio signals in the offices.When abnormal audio signal patterns are detected (crossing a configurable threshold), the application notifies external security services or devices such as mobile phones, computers and video monitoring systems. Sabotage of telephony equipment is also detected.

The Integrated Surveillance System is a simple and cost-effective means to enable a security solution in branch offices by taking advantage of an existing IP-telephony network. The application improves manageability of security systems by providing an integrated security framework to an existing network.

References:

• http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/axpdev/index.html
• http://blogs.cisco.com/…/cisco_developer_contest_the_winners/
• http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_100709.html
• http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/axpdev/finalistdemos/index.html

© Fabio Semperboni for CiscoZine, 2010. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: AXP, Competition, Video

• Rollback configuration
• Restore configuration in case of a broken router

There are two ways to backup: manually (using write command each time that you would save running configuration) or automatically (using software like Ciscoworks, HP OpenView, … ).

In this tutorial, I would explain a different method to backup configuration: the archive command.

Introduced into Cisco IOS Release 12.3(4)T, the archive command permits to save a copy of the current running configuration to different path: ftp, http, https, rcp, scp, tftp servers. Moreover the archive command has other features, but in this article I would use only two of these:

• time-period: it sets the time increment for automatically saving an archive file of the current running configuration in the Cisco IOS configuration archive.
• write-memory: it enable automatic backup generation during write memory; for instance, when I use the ‘write’ command the archive command will be invoked automatically.

Example: Implement and test archive command

Suppose to have a network (192.168.217.0/24) with an FTP-Server (.1). It is required to save the running configuration to the FTP-Server each day (1440 minutes). The FTP-Server has an FTP account with username: cisco and password: lab.

First of all, it is required access to the archive configuration mode:

Ciscozine(config)#archive

Now it is possible define the destination path. In this example, I use the FTP protocol to send the running configuration; the name ‘$h’ instructs the system to use the router hostname when naming the archived configuration (in this case $h is equal to Ciscozine).

Ciscozine(config-archive)#path ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/$h

To instruct the router to save the configuration each day (1440 minutes) and to enable automatic backup generation when write memory command is typed, use:

Ciscozine(config-archive)#time-period 1440
Ciscozine(config-archive)#write-memory

To see how many configurations are been saved use the command ’show archive’:

Ciscozine#sh archive
The next archive file will be named
                      ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-17
Archive #  Name
0       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-15
1       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-16 <- Most Recent
2       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-2
3       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-3
4       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-4
5       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-5
6       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-6
7       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-7
8       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-8
9       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-9
10       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-10
11       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-11
12       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-12
13       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-13
14       ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-14
Ciscozine#

To display the differences between two config files use the ’show archive config differences’; for instance, to find the differences between the startup-config and the ‘Ciscozine-8′ file, type:

NEW-CISCOZINE#show archive config differences nvram:startup-config
    ftp://cisco:lab@192.168.217.1/Ciscozine-8
Loading Ciscozine-8 !
[OK - 717/4096 bytes]

Contextual Config Diffs:
+hostname Ciscozine

-hostname NEW-CISCOZINE
NEW-CISCOZINE#

As you can see, there are two differences: the hostname saved in the startup-configuration file (NEW-CISCOZINE) is different from the Ciscozine-8 file (Ciscozine).

Remember: If the router is reloaded, the system will restart to save the configuration with the counter equal to one (for example Ciscozine-1). So the previous configurations will be overwritten!

References: http://www.cisco.com/…/cfrgt_01.html#wp1094403

© Fabio Semperboni for CiscoZine, 2010. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: Advanced configuration, Archive, Video

Cisco was founded on December 10, 1984 by husband and wife Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, two former Stanford University computer scientists whose efforts to enable email between computers on different networks led to the invention of the first multiprotocol router. This seminal breakthrough played a major role in fueling the growth of the Internet. 

Chambers says “In the coming quarter century, the role of the network will become even more important in driving growth, innovation, and productivity in industries such as healthcare, education and energy.  Looking ahead, Cisco is positioned to lead the evolution of the network to enable a ‘connected future’ which is increasingly collaborative, video-driven, personalized, and mobile.”.

Twenty-five years, more than 7,000 patents, and nearly 1 million employee volunteer hours later, Cisco today is the worldwide leader in networking technologies that are changing how the world works, lives, plays and learns. The company’s commitment to innovation, customers and giving back has been key to Cisco’s success over the years—and it will drive the company’s ongoing mission to shape the future of the Internet by creating unprecedented value and opportunity for customers, employees, investors and ecosystem partners.

For Presti, a technology consultant and former journalist who has been covering Cisco Systems since 1995, Cisco’s ability to reinvent itself is top of the list. Cisco’s tradition, he says, is not to be stuck in the past but to use the past as the starting point for its future.

In the mid-1990s, for example, Cisco was strictly a router and switch vendor. “It was all about plumbing back then,” Presti says. But over time Cisco has moved from making gear for data networks to providing all kinds of equipment for voice communications and video systems, highlighted by products like Cisco TelePresence. The company has also become much more focused on software to make networks work even better for communicating, collaborating and entertaining.

Perhaps more importantly, Cisco has also been able to reinvent its business operations. For example, Presti says Cisco’s rapid growth in the 1990s was threatening to outstrip the company’s sales capabilities. This is when it developed a pillar to its current operations: the Cisco reseller partner program.

John Chambers discuss Cisco’s 25th Anniversary

Highlights:
•A quarter of a century ago there were just 1,000 “hosts” on the Internet, today there are more than 1.7 billion Internet users worldwide.
•In 1984, there were 1,000 Internet devices; today there are over a 1 billion.
•Cisco has grown from two employees with one product in 1984 to more than 63,000 people today in 200 offices worldwide with 50 product lines.
•Cisco has been on the forefront of information technology for 25 years and posted fiscal year 2009 revenue of $36.1 billion.
•Cisco’s innovation is demonstrated in the company’s more than 7,000 patents issued worldwide to Cisco inventors and 9,000 patent applications currently pending.
•Cisco employees have logged nearly 1 million hours of volunteer service since 2001.
•As a global corporate citizen, Cisco, in the last 10 years, has contributed over $1 billion to education, social inclusion and economic development initiatives globally.

References:

• http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/corp_121009.html
• http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/ts_121009.html

© Fabio Semperboni for CiscoZine, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: 25th anniversary, Happy Birthday, Video

Cisco will award two first-place prizes of Christmas dinners over TelePresence, 10 second-place prizes of a TelePresence meeting and 20 third-place prizes of Flip MinoTM cameras to the person with the entry that best illustrates the importance of connections with family and friends at Christmas.

Cisco TelePresence creates a live face-to-face experience with high-quality video and spatial audio technology that makes it feel as if you’re in the same room when in reality you may be thousands of kilometres away!  The Cisco “Christmas Connections” Contest is designed to connect friends and families living around the world over Christmas via Cisco TelePresence.

The deadline for entries is midnight Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) on Dec. 6, 2009. For official terms and conditions the Cisco “Christmas Connections” Contest, please visit: www.cisco.com/connect.

References:

• http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_112509.html
• http://www.cisco.com/connect

© Fabio Semperboni for CiscoZine, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Business, Event, Video

Marie Hattar, vice president, Network Systems Solutions Marketing, Cisco says: “enabling borderless networks is critical for today’s business success.  A key component of enabling individuals to connect to their business networks from anywhere is working to ensure that the network is protected regardless of the device used. Our new Cisco SIO To Go iPhone application is another important step in making this vision a reality. It improves the means by which IT departments are alerted to threats, and it provides added confidence and device flexibility as Cisco customers are shielded from these breaches.”

iPhone Features:
Powered by the Cisco Security IntelliShield Alert Manager Service, the Cisco SIO To Go iPhone application informs, protects and enables users to respond in real time to alerts and threats to the network. The application delivers early warning intelligence, threat vulnerability and proven Cisco mitigation solutions to users’ iPhones as they occur. It also provides unique IP and URL address e-mail and Web reputation look-up powered by the Cisco IronPort® SenderBase Security Network and the Cisco SIO.

Alerts delivered include:

• Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) Alerts
• Cisco Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) Signatures
• Cisco Applied Mitigation Bulletins
• Cisco Threat Outbreak Alerts
• And many others

References:

• http://csioiphone.com/
• http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_112009.html

© Fabio Semperboni for CiscoZine, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: iPhone, Software, Video

You manage your business as it evolves from the stone age of dial-up, through the broadband and mobile connected eras, and into the dawning of the medianet age. Learn how to transform your community and explore the products and solutions that will help you provide a migration path from dial up, broadband and mobile services into the medianet age.

MyPlanNet was released on Oct. 5 at an International Telecommunication Union in Geneva, Switzerland, and is the product of an internal innovation contest at Cisco.

Liu, who is a senior marketing manager, says the game was a side project of his for over a year. He was looking for a way to engage customers with marketing and thought his game would target the intellectual side of issues by “introducing these complex topics in a more fun way than you would get from” reading white papers.

Liu calls myPlanNet an educational tool that puts a “human touch” on evolving technology challenges and also helps to place them within a broader context. The game does simulate historic timeline contexts and how “technology is needed to deploy advance services as your community evolves,” said Liu.

The game is free, but works only on Windows platform (x32 and x64 system). To download it go to http://www.cisco.com/go/myplannet/.

1. After you click on “Download Game”, you will be prompted for login (if not already logged into cisco.com). New users without Cisco login can get one by clicking on the “register now” option.
2. After you accept the end-user license agreement, you will be prompted with a download box.  Choose “Save File”.  Personally, I prefer to just place it on my desktop so I can easily find it.
3. Once the file is saved to your desktop, unzip it and select “extract all”. Again, I prefer to just extract it to my desktop.
4. The game will appear on your desktop in a folder titled “mpn_final_Gold”.  Open that folder and click on the myPlanNet.exe file to get started!
5. Enjoy!

© Fabio Semperboni for CiscoZine, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Business, Game, Software, Video

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will commence a cash tender offer to purchase all the outstanding shares of TANDBERG for 153.5 Norwegian Kroner per share for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $3.0 billion.  This represents an 11.0% premium to the previous day closing price of TANDBERG’s stock, and a 25.2% premium to the 3-month volume weighted average closing price for TANDBERG’s stock.  The proposal was recommended unanimously by TANDBERG’s board of directors.

The acquisition is expected to close during the first half of calendar year 2010; however, the close date is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory review in the United States and elsewhere.  Cisco expects the acquisition to be accretive to Cisco’s non-GAAP earnings in fiscal year 2011.

Highlights:

• Cisco’s collaboration vision is to enable a sustainable, new level of enterprise productivity, agility and innovation by transforming the way people interact, share knowledge and deliver productive outcomes within and across organizations.
• TelePresence and high-quality video have redefined how users communicate through easy-to-use, immersive, high-quality video experiences and are becoming a larger segment of the broader collaboration market.
• TANDBERG’s leading video endpoints and network infrastructure solution will be integrated into Cisco’s world-class collaboration architecture. 
• This will enable intercompany and multi-vendor interoperability and ease of use across the full product portfolio – from desktop to immersive, multi-screen TelePresence.  This interoperability will benefit Cisco’s customers, but also competitors and partners by accelerating customer interest in video collaboration globally.
• Cisco continues to invest in the European market as a center of innovation across all market segments, and will continue to drive global growth by positioning TANDBERG’s Norway operations as a European center of video excellence alongside our Service Provider video team in Kortrijk, Belgium.
• TANDBERG’s 1,500 employees globally, with innovation centers in Norway and the United Kingdom, will be extremely important as Cisco’s team continues to drive video innovation and growth.
• Upon completion of the transaction, TANDBERG’s CEO Fredrik Halvorsen will lead the new TelePresence Technology Group, reporting to Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group.

References: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/corp_093009.html

© Fabio Semperboni for CiscoZine, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Business, Tandberg, Video

To create a command alias, issue the alias command in global configuration mode. The syntax of the command is alias mode command-alias original-command. Who have never typed repeatedly the commands show cdp neigh or show ip inter brief?

Some helpful alias could be:

• scn -> show cdp neighbor
  • command: alias exec scn show cdp neighbor
• ifconfig -> show ip interface brief
  • command: alias exec ifconfig show ip interface brief
• sint [interface number] ->show run interface fastEthernet
  • command: alias exec sint show run interface fastethernet
• proc -> show proc cpu | excl 0.00%__0.00%__0.00%
  • command: alias exec proc show proc cpu | excl 0.00%__0.00%__0.00
• eth0 -> interface fastethernet0/0
  • command: alias configure eth0 interface fastethernet0/0
• ns -> no shutdown
  • command: alias interface ns no shutdown

Tips: if you would create an alias for ’interface mode’ and ’priviledge mode’, you must define the same alias for the two environment. See you below:

alias configure sir do show ip route
alias interface sir do show ip route

Remember: There are some built-in command aliases:

Ciscozine#sh aliases
Exec mode aliases:
  h                     help
  lo                    logout
  p                     ping
  r                     resume
  s                     show
  u                     undebug
  un                    undebug
  w                     where

Ciscozine#

References: http://www.cisco.com/…/usingios.html#wp1013134

© Fabio Semperboni for CiscoZine, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Basic configuration, Tips, Video

The Cisco 2009 Midyear Security Report presents an overview of Cisco security intelligence, highlighting threat information and trends from the first half of 2009. The report also includes recommendations from Cisco security experts and predictions of how identified trends will evolve. As predicted in the Cisco 2008 Annual Security Report, attacks are only becoming more sophisticated and targeted as we move through 2009—and the global recession.

However, while cybercrime is more pervasive, there are encouraging signs that increased collaboration among the “good guys” is making it more difficult for attacks to take root and grow.

Report Highlights

• Criminals are exploiting traditional vulnerabilities because they believe security experts and individual users are paying little attention to these types of threats.
• Compromising legitimate websites for the purpose of propagating malware remains a highly effective technique for criminals.
• Web 2.0 applications, prized for their ease of use and flexibility, have become lures for criminals.
• Criminals are now targeting online banking customers using well-designed, localized text message scams that leave virtually no trail in their wake.
• The Obama administration has made strengthening U.S. cybersecurity a high priority, and plans to meet threats by using technological innovations and partnering with the private sector. Other countries are similarly increasing efforts to enhance cybersecurity and prevent cybercrime.
• Compared to 2008, the number of vulnerabilities and discrete threats has not risen as quickly. According to research by Cisco, this is a clear sign that the security community is succeeding in making it more difficult for attacks to take root and grow.

An overview of the 2009 Midyear Security Report with Cisco Fellow Patrick Peterson.

References:

• http://cisco.com/…/annual_security_report.html
• http://cisco.com/web/about/…/midyear_security_review09.pdf

© Fabio Semperboni for CiscoZine, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Report, Video

The router is typically segmented into three planes of operation, each with a clearly identified objective:

• the data plane allows the ability to forward data packets
• the control plane allows the ability to route data correctly
• the management plane allows the ability to manage network elements.

The vast majority of packets handled by a router travel through the router by way of the forwarding plane, or data plane. However, the system’s route processor must handle certain packets, such as routing protocols, keepalives, packets destined to the local IP addresses of the router, and packets from management protocols and other interactive access protocols, such as Telnet and Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol. This type of traffic is often referred to as control plane traffic.

Packet overloads on a router’s control plane can slow down routing processes and, as a result, degrade network service levels and user productivity. One cause for an overburdened router control plane is a router making inefficient use of shared CPU and memory resources. The same result can occur if reconnaissance or denial-of-service (DoS) attacks appear on the control plane, or if a routing protocol otherwise misbehaves.

For example, if a high volume of rogue packets generated by a virus or worm is presented to the control plane, the router will spend an excessive amount of time processing and discarding unnecessary traffic. This can eventually overwhelm the route processor, which is responsible for handling router control plane functions, and possibly bring router processes to a halt.

Following is an overview of several Cisco IOS Software security features that protect the control plane of networking devices.

• Receive Access Control Lists: Receive Access Controls Lists (rACLs) are designed to protect the route processor on high-end routers from unnecessary traffic that could potentially affect system performance.
  The rACL feature uses standard or extended ACLs that control the traffic sent by the various line cards to the route processor on distributed architectures such as Cisco 12000 Series Routers. An rACL does not apply to transit traffic.
• Control Plane Policing: The control plane policing (CoPP) feature significantly improves upon the rACL feature. Whereas rACLs allow the configuration of basic “permit” and “deny” filters for traffic destined to the router CPU, the CPP feature extends this by allowing users to configure a quality of service (QoS) filter that can also “rate-limit” this traffic.
• Control Plane Protection: Cisco Control Plane Protection (CPPr) extends the CPP feature by enabling classification of the control plane traffic based on packet destination and information provided by the forwarding plane, allowing appropriate throttling for each category of packet.

In this article I will explain the control plane policing (CoPP), a feature introduced with release 12.2(18)S.

The CoPP feature protects the control plane of Cisco IOS Software-based routers and switches against many attacks, including reconnaissance and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. In this manner, the control plane can maintain packet forwarding and protocol state despite an attack or heavy load on the router or switch.

CoPP provides the following benefits:

• Protection against DoS attacks at infrastructure routers and switches
• QoS control for packets that are destined to the control plane of Cisco routers or switches
• Ease of configuration for control plane policies
• Better platform reliability and availability

Example: Implement and test CoPP feature
Suppose to have a network (192.168.144.0/24) with two routers (.252 and .253) and an untrusted PC (.100). It is required to protect Ciscozine1 control plane from ICMP flood attack.

Ciscozine2 (the trusted host) can forward ICMP packets to the control plane without constraint, while all remaining ICMP packets will be policed at the specified rate.

To test the CoPP feature, I use the ping command, with a size of 1250byte. As you can see, all ICMP packets sent by Ciscozine2 are received, while some ICMP packets from the Untrusted_pc are lost due to the control plane policing feature.

To display the configuration and statistics for a traffic class or all traffic classes in the policy maps attached to the control plane for aggregate or distributed control plane services, use the show policy-map control-plane command in privileged EXEC mode.

Ciscozine1#show policy-map control-plane
 Control Plane

  Service-policy input: control-plane-policing-test

    Class-map: block-untrusted-icmp (match-all)
      5246 packets, 3764458 bytes
      5 minute offered rate 10000 bps, drop rate 6000 bps
      Match: access-group 100
      police:
          cir 8000 bps, bc 1500 bytes
        conformed 3536 packets, 1386530 bytes; actions:
          transmit
        exceeded 1710 packets, 2377928 bytes; actions:
          drop
        conformed 4000 bps, exceed 6000 bps

    Class-map: class-default (match-any)
      1478 packets, 132467 bytes
      5 minute offered rate 0 bps, drop rate 0 bps
      Match: any
Ciscozine1#

Ciscozine1 (partial) configuration:
Ciscozine1#
!
hostname Ciscozine1
!
class-map match-all block-untrusted-icmp
 match access-group 100
!
!
policy-map control-plane-policing-test
 class block-untrusted-icmp
    police 8000 conform-action transmit  exceed-action drop
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
 ip address 192.168.144.252 255.255.255.0
 duplex auto
 speed auto
!
access-list 100 deny   icmp host 192.168.144.253 any
access-list 100 permit icmp any any
!
control-plane
 service-policy input control-plane-policing-test


References:

• http://www.cisco.com/…/gtrtlimt.html
• http://www.cisco.com/…/prod_white_paper0900aecd805ffde8.html
• http://www.cisco.com/…/prod_presentation0900aecd80313fee.pdf

© Fabio Semperboni for CiscoZine, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Advanced configuration, DOS, QOS, Secure a router, Video