Network World

Expert's answer

This question is not as simple as it seems - although the smaller the network, the easier your work will be. What I'm going to describe is a plan to upgrade for today - and for the future when you'll want to move to gigabit speeds.

To get the most out of your upgrade, make sure that all the devices on your network (computers, printers, etc.) have at least 100-MB network cards installed. To avoid potential problems, make sure that the latest drivers or firmware are installed so that you avoid potential problems or security vulnerabilities that may be present in earlier versions.

Next, check is the wiring. If you have Cat 5 installed, you're good to go for 100 MB. While it is possible to run Gigabit Ethernet on Cat 5, it will be hit or miss in most cases. Your success will be depending on the quality of the cable used, how long the runs are and how good your terminations are. To go Gig Ethernet or 10-Gig Ethernet (for servers), you will want to be on at least Cat 6. While it is possible to run Gig Ethernet over copper, the support at a switch level is just starting to become available - and it only runs a very short distance. For 10 Gig, your best bet for the time being is to run this over fiber.

So far, so good, especially if you only have one switch. Where it starts to get complicated is if you have multiple switches, especially if they're on more than one floor, because now you'll have to think about the bandwidth available between switches. It would be awful to go to all the upgrade work and then have a couple of users tie up all the bandwidth between them and a server.

Newer network installs or upgrades are starting to use 10-Gigabit links between switches for that very reason. On these same switches you have mostly 100-Megabit connections with some 1-Gig connections for those servers or systems that really need that type of bandwidth. This is where you need to sit down and really do some planning so that you don't just get things ready to run today at 100-Megabit but leave yourself some growing room to make going to Gig speeds or higher a little easier as you make the move later on.

Expert's answer

Since it worked fine and then stopped my hunch is that the Windows firewall settings changed between the time that it worked and now.

Go into the Control Panel and open up the Windows Firewall applet and check the settings under the Exceptions tab. If you do not see your VOIP application listed as one of the applications allowed to connect to the network go back to the main firewall control dialog and use the Add Application button to make an entry for the VOIP program and try making a call.

Testing that the software works between two systems on the local network as well as between two Internet connected systems should help isolate the source of the disconnect.It may be that the particular port the VOIP software uses is blocked at the network level on one end or the other.

Expert's answer

At the official ITIL Web site, you can find overview information, links to order the ITIL publications and links to the ITIL knowledge center and information about how to earn credits towards ITIL qualification and ITIL certificates. Version 3 of the ITIL was published in May 2007 and is an evolution of the standards and practices embodied in ITIL Version 2.

There are five core volumes in the Official ITIL Lifecycle Publication Suite, which is available for purchase from a number of vendors, including this one.
You can find general information about Versions 2 and 3 of ITIL and links to additional resources on Wikipedia or by searching on ITIL in a search engine. ITIL is a framework of best practice guidance for information technology service management and like other best practice frameworks needs to be viewed through the lens of your own organization and requirements. As ITIL adoption continues to spread, becoming familiar with the concepts and vocabulary can enable more productive discourse with others grounded in the same terminology. ITIL claims to not be prescriptive about implementation details or to have all the answers, but rather provides guidance and structure for integrating and expanding best practices in the organization’s information technology service delivery and management. There are forums dedicated to ITIL discussions, here and here.

Another resource I would add is the ITIL FAQ. One of the most important statements in the FAQ is that "ITIL books emphasise that organisations that have succeeded in implementing ITIL have one important thing in common - a strong 'Executive Sponsor'." While this is true of most successful large IT projects it is especially true of documentation/standards implementation projects that change working practice and accountability mechanisms. If you are confident that the opportunity in front of you includes solid high level sponsorship then start digging in to the material keeping in mind that the rules are more like guidelines and begin engaging your team members to develop a shared understanding of the ITIL vocabulary and use it to identify the portions of the ITIL core processes that you will begin with. You can establish yourself as the ITIL lead along the way to becoming a true ITIL expert. I think you will find that much of the material codifies many things you and your team already know about best practices.

Expert's answer

That error message is a common one. It doesn't appear that dropping to a lower speed is the total cause of your problem - it may have just aggravated a problem that was already there.

Check the FAQs at oovoo.com. Even though you have uninstalled and reinstalled the Oovoo application, there may have been some other changes that could have occured. The first thing is to make sure you have the latest Windows updates applied. This may take one or more reboots to accomplish depending on how long it has been since you have applied the updates.

If you are running some type of software firewall on your computer, I would temporarily disable the firewall to see if that is causing the problem. The next step would be to specify the IP address of your workstation in the hardware firewall/router as a DMZ address that all traffic is allowed to passt hrough without being filtered by the firewall. I suggest this option only for testing purposes and not as a long-term solution. If this resolves the problem, you may need to look at the other firewall rules that are in place to see if one or more of them are conflicting with the application you are trying to run on the workstation. It would be a good idea to make sure that you have the latest firmware installed on the hardware firewall/router.

If you still have problems after this, then the speed of your connection might be the problem. I couldn't find anything specific as to exactly what speed the Oovoo software required to run correctly, so if nothing else resolves your problem, you may have just found the minimum speed needed (at least with the ISP that you are using).

Expert's answer

My first question would be: With all the different CDN's that are currently in operation, why do you want to design your own? What are they not able to do that designing/operating your own CDN will let you do? These are questions that you will need to be able to answer when going for the financing that you will have to have to purchase all of the equipment (whether you buy or lease) you'll need for this.

Completely answering your questions could fill a book, but I'll try to give you a start for more questions to ask and to continue your research. I would suggest engaging technical people with CDN experience with the various networking vendors, such as Cisco, Foundry, Juniper, etc. If you are going to do this on your own, you need to talk to the various vendors that are out there to see who has the best options for your specific situation.

One of the things you will need to look closely at the the different types of video encoding that are available. Distributing 30-minute video clips, for example, will require considerable thought. The more you can compress the video clip, the faster it will download. Something else to consider is to having the clips downloaded during off peak hours when you may have an easier time at downloading a large file.

One concern I have is that you may have less than stellar performance out of a DSL connection at the customer end. Even if they order a "business" grade DSL connection, they won't get the same level of response/support as they would expect to get with a T1 connection. One of the biggest challenges you will have with a DSL connection is that it won't have the same upload and download speeds unless you order something like SDSL, and even then there isn't a guarantee that you will get what you ordered.

The best way that I know of to test such a network is to actually set up the equipment needed at the CDN side of things. You can use WAN simulators to come up with simulated lines speeds similar to what will be used at the customer end. You should be able to inject different types of line problems/noise to see how that affects the transfer of the content you want to distribute. Just to be on the safe side, in addition to a simulator, you should also put as much of the real equipment together as you can - this will give you the best idea of how things will work when you actually go into production. This may get kind of pricey, however, if you don't know which vendor you will select for the equipment. One thing to ask prospective vendors is if they can give you access to their demo lab (most vendors now have one), although this could also mean travel expenses if you have to get to the lab. However, it would would let you try things out before having to buy the equipment and finding out you don't have the right pieces.

Depending on how many customers you anticipate being able to serve if you go forward with your CDN service, you might want to consider using OC3s instead of DS3s. It isn't too hard to max out a DS3 with video. If you need to use DS3s to start with because of cost reasons, also check with the various carriers to see how long it is from the time the OC3 is ordered until you have it delivered and installed. Don't be surprised if you are quoted 90 days or longer. Having a network connection maxed out for that period of time before you can get the speed increased is not somethingI think you will want to deal with. This is where getting the best help you can find before you start the ordering process will make sure you get started the right way with upgrades ordered as part of a plan instead of as a reaction.

Expert's answer

Once you change the baud rate on the switch side you would need to adjust the baud rate in the terminal program to match. You may be able to restore the communication in the same session or you may have to disconnect and reset your terminal program and then connect again. I'm not sure you need to change the baud rate to load the new firmware image though. 9600 is not very fast but you only have to do this one time and so my recommendation would be to leave the connection speed at 9600 and follow the instructions on page 3-25 of the Foundry EdgeIron User Guide to load the image using TFTP.

You can find TFTP server software for Windows available for free from Jounin.net and Tftp-server.com among other places if you do not have a TFTP server handy in your network.

Welcome to the wild world of network administration.

Expert's answer

You will plug the IP phones into the switches that you have for your lab. If you bought non-POE switches, you will need to purchase the additional power supplies for each phone in order. As you will find out, POE switches are more expensive because of the power supplies necessary to power the phones but it means one less thing you have to plug into the phone at the desk it will be.

As to the CME routers, you will need to plug the router into the Ethernet switch that your IP phones are plugged into, assuming you have just one switch at this point. Hopefully, you have both FXO and FXS ports/cards available in your CME router. The FXO ports will connect the CME to the pots line(s) that you have available for testing. Having one or more FXS ports in the CME router will let you test integrating non-IP phones with the IP phone(s) that you have. It will also let you see the challenges you will face handling fax machines - which don't necessarily play by the same rules as the IP phones.

Not knowing what books you already have, I would suggest heading to Google and searching for

CCVP study lab

One of the resources I found was www.ccvp.org. I would also suggest that you consider purchasing the Cisco books for the different CCVP exams. Part of the information I found while researching your question pointed me directly to information from the Cisco CCVP books.

Expert's answer

Can the node ping anything? Start by checking physical connectivity, then make sure that the network addresses are correct. Move on to ensuring that the login credentials you are using to connect match on the remote computer in network neighborhood.

Using NetBIOS over TPC can be problematic over the open Internet but shouldn't be a problem on a LAN. Double check to make sure that you are using the same version of the NTLM authentication protocol in your network settings at both ends. Make sure the Server, Browser, and Workstation services are running.

Reboot everything in sight and try again; especially if you are using Windows VPN services in this ptp network. Make sure the network allows traffic on the appropriate ports. You might also try turning on Remote Access in the My Computer properties dialog and then attempting to connect using Remote Desktop.

Expert's answer

This example shows how to print to IP network printers from a command line in a terminal window after installing a print driver for the iPhone. To print without breaking into command line mode you can use the CloudPrint provided by HP.

Another approach is to set up an email forwarding rule that automatically prints email sent from the iPhone to your networked computer's printer.

Expert's answer

You can remotely administer Windows systems using Remote Desktop. Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) clients are available for Linux and Mac OS X so you can connect to your Windows systems from a full range of remote clients. For administering Mac OS X and Linux systems you have SSH services available as part of the standard operating system and there are a number of SSH clients available for Windows. If you have a workplace desktop PC that will be running while you are on leave you can use a service like GoToMyPC to simplify getting connected from another PC in a remote location. Whether you need to use a connection mediation service rather than simply connecting with Remote Desktop will depend on whether your workplace network allows inbound Remote Desktop connections to workstations.