About Firewalls and EIGRP

Hey guys, its been a while since I posted here despite all my attempts to post more frequently. I have been immensely busy with my day job. I have also been working on a lot of exciting projects on the side and I hope to share some more details as they start to gain some traction.

I still write for intenseschool as time permits, even though I cannot write as much as I would love to. This month, two of my articles were posted on the intense school site; the first is on the EIGRP best path selection and the second is on Firewall Redundancy. If you have some time, please head over there an read the articles. I thoroughly enjoyed writing them so I know you would enjoy reading them.

And if you are studying for Cisco exams in the US, you should check out their bootcamps here.

Active Standby Redundancy on ASAs

I have been so busy with my day job these past few weeks that I have not really had time to do (or write) anything else. But I was able to squeeze out time to write an article as part of my redundancy series over at Intense School site.

This one is on Active/Standby redundancy on ASAs. You can view the article here. I hope to get the concluding part of the article written in the next few days. As usual, I'd let you know when its up!

Also if you are planning to take professional bootcamps in the US, you can check out intense school CCNA classes here.

7 Random facts about 25!

1. It’s the mail number. The email protocol, SMTP, uses TCP port number 25
2. It’s the atomic number of Manganese.
3. It is a perfect square.
4. It’s the minimum age for election into the United States House of Representatives.
5. It’s the Silver number – 25 years anniversary is called a silver jubilee.
6. It is a popular motorway in London (M25).
7. That’s how old I turn today! Happy Birthday to me!!!

If you are curious about the number 25, there are more random facts here. These are just my favorites.

Load Balancing Articles

Hey Guys,

As I mentioned in my previous article, I am writing a series on Network Reliability over at intense school blog. Two articles on load balancing just got posted and you should head over there to have a read. You can view them here and here. I enjoyed writing them and I hope you enjoy reading them too.

Also, if you are planning to take a live CCNA class in the US, you should check out the Intense school bootcamps here.

Network Reliability Series

In the last post, I mentioned that I write technical posts for the Infosec Institute. In the last month I have been writing a series on Network Reliability. The series focuses on how to make a network more reliable by eliminating single points of failure and increasing redundancy. The latest posts were about L3 redundancy and you can view them here and here.

You can view most of my articles here. And if you want to take a live CCNA class in the US, you can also check out Intense school bootcamps here.

Cheers!

3 years, 2 months, 1 day later...

After abandoning this blog for so long, I've decided to give blogging a try again. The last 3-ish years have been exciting and I hope to share some of the details with you later. But since this is like a first post (again), I'd just give a summary here....

I have changed jobs - Many times. The last time I posted, I was working in Abuja, Nigeria's capital city. Since then, I have worked in Tunisia, Lagos, London and I'm now based in Dublin, working for a totally cool company.

I took a break - I took a break from Network Engineering. In 2012, I decided to take out a year to pursue a masters degree. So I went off to London to study Technology Entrepreneurship, and I absolutely LOVED it. Studying @ UCL was absolutely amazing. More details about that later.

I tried entrepreneurship - Yes, I started my own company. But I'd admit I was clueless. Lots of determination with absolutely no strategy. This was probably the reason I eventually took a break to study Technology Entrepreneurship. I have pursued some more ideas since then, but none of them have gained enough traction yet. I'd also be sharing more details about that later.

I developed my own course - I have been an absolute fan of CBT Trainers. The Brians from INE used to be my heroes back in 2008-2010 when I was studying for my CCIEs. And before them, there was Jeremy Cioara, my personal CCNA/CCNP tutor. Last year, I had an opportunity to develop my own CCNA videos and I totally jumped at it. I developed the video series for howtonetwork.com, and I had so much fun doing it. The editor had a voice over done because of my African accent, but the content is all mine :)

I have been writing - Yup. I haven't been blogging but I have been writing. I did a lot of academic writing during my MSc degree. Asides that, I have been writing technical articles for a the Infosec Institute on their new intenseschool site which was launched last year. You can find my articles here. I'd be reposting some of them on this blog from time to time.

So that's some of the stuff I've been  up to while I was away. I'd wrap up this post now before it gets too long (and boring). See y'all soon!

Time and Chance - Lessons from Outliers

Hi everyone, and Happy (kinda belated) new year.


The last few months on the previous year had me questioning my definition of personal and career success. At the beginning of the year, I tried to make a list of books (non-tech) I had to study in the first half of this year.


Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
Freakonomics - Steve Levitt
Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Taleb
Good to Great - Jim Collins

I spent most of the last weekend reading outliers, where Malcolm Gladwell makes some salient points on the story of success.

While I am still considering making a detailed review of this book, I can summarize most of the book into the words of Solomon from the scriptures in Ecclesiastes chapter 9 vs 11

"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race [is] not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."

The role opportunity (being at the right place at the right time) plays in success is too huge to be neglected.

Well, even at that I still believe success is not entirely a function of chance, we must be able to recognize the opportunities and adapt so we can take advantage of them. The ability to do this is an extremely crucial factor in determining if we would be successful.

I think Outliers was a good read. Up next is Blink.

On the techy note, I'm considering picking up Juniper skills as a form of horizontal development as opposed to studying for another CCIE. Lets see how that goes.

Cheers!
Amplebrain.