CCIE-level material for engineers past the CCNP line. Articles tagged CCIE cover expert-track routing, overlays, security and automation, with full configs and real device output from CML.
Embedded Packet Capture puts Wireshark-grade capture inside the IOS XE router itself: no SPAN, no capture laptop, no cabling. Includes a real on-router capture from a CML lab and the syntax difference that will bite you.
Build SNMPv3 in production form: users, groups, views, and the three security levels. The payoff is a real encrypted trap arriving and being decrypted on a Linux receiver, with no cleartext community strings on the wire.
The IOS DHCP server does far more than network, default-router, dns-server. This article covers options for PXE boot and phones, DHCP classes, and manual bindings, with real lease output from a CML lab.
Two customers with identical 10.5.5.0/24 subnets reach one shared exit through a single router. VRF-aware NAT on IOS XE keeps them separate, and this CML lab build shows two translation tables holding identical inside-local addresses.
One MPLS circuit, two WAN Edge routers: without TLOC extension your redundancy is fiction. This post explains how one router uses a transport physically connected to the other and how it fits a redundant branch design.
DIA lets branch internet traffic exit locally instead of backhauling to a data center firewall. See how it works in Catalyst SD-WAN, how the data policy is configured, and the security question local breakout forces you to answer.
Localized policy is what runs on the SD-WAN edge itself: interface ACLs, QoS treatment, and route policies filtering what a branch redistributes into OMP. Syntax follows Cisco's current 20.x documentation.
Application-aware routing measures loss, latency, and jitter on every transport and steers each app onto a path that meets its SLA. This article covers centralized data policy, SLA classes, and how the fabric measures paths, per Cisco's 20.x docs.
In SD-WAN you do not configure routing policy on the routers. Centralized control policy is one document on the Controller that shapes topology, path preference, and reachability for the entire overlay.
OMP carries everything in Catalyst SD-WAN: routes, TLOCs, service routes, keys, and policy. This deep dive walks each advertisement type and the path selection logic, with WAN Edge CLI drawn from Cisco's current 20.x documentation.
CLI templates, feature templates, and configuration groups arrived in three different eras of Catalyst SD-WAN. This article explains what each provisioning model is, why it exists, and which one to use in 2026.
Not every network should be a fabric. This article covers where SD-Access earns its controller, identity service, and hardware requirements, and where a senior engineer should say no to deploying it.