OSPF Explained Like You’re Traveling Across the Philippines “Part of my CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure Journey.” I remember concepts much better when I can visualize them. So instead of memorizing Link State Advertisements, DR elections, and SPF calculations, I imagined traveling across the Philippines. Oddly enough… It made OSPF much easier to understand. Let’s start from […]
001 CCIE EI Study Notes – OSPF Explained Read More »
The Hook: Busting the Myth Let’s start with a reality check that 90% of networking articles get wrong: Distance Vector protocols aren’t the ones eating your CPU. If you are running RIP or EIGRP, your router is essentially “routing by rumor.” It takes a neighbor’s word for it, drops it in a table, and moves
The Day 1,000 OSPF Neighbors Killed ASR Router Read More »
You Can Be Right and Still Lose. You Can Lose and Still Win….. When I was younger in my IT career, I believed that if I had the right answer, I had to prove it. If someone pointed to the network, I’d defend it. If I knew the issue wasn’t on our side, I’d push
You Can Be Right and Still Lose Read More »
Introduction For many months—or maybe even a year now—I’ve been wondering if I’d ever get the chance to add Cisco DNA Center (now Cisco Catalyst Center) to my home lab. At first, it felt like a huge “how?” The biggest challenge wasn’t just figuring out the installation process, but also meeting the hardware requirements… and
Installing Catalyst Center (DNAC) 2.3.5 on Proxmox (Budget Friendly?) Read More »
In real-world scenarios, there are deployments where we need to consider vendor interoperability—especially when it comes to SFP modules. Whether it’s due to requirements, cost optimization, restoration, or troubleshooting, this becomes a key factor in network operations. One common issue arises when using non-native or unsupported SFP modules, and this is where FortiGate commands come
Unsupported SFPs in FortiGate Read More »
Today, let’s talk about wireless design and the key components used in enterprise networks. This is a summary of what I’ve learned from my research and, of course, a little bit of “YouTube University” 😄 Multi-Gigabit Ethernet and Future-Proofing Network Switches The use of multi-gigabit ports supporting 1, 2.5, 5, and 10 Gbps on switches
Wi-Fi End-to-End Design & Components Read More »
Have you ever configured or set up a FortiGate and found yourself scratching your head because something isn’t working? You’re not alone 😊 Most of the issues I’ve experienced whether in production or in the lab aren’t caused by bugs, hardware problems, or image versions. They usually come from misunderstanding how NAT, routing, and firewall
NAT vs Transparent mode in Fortigate Read More »
In today’s world, cybersecurity threats are more sophisticated than ever. Simply relying on a traditional stateful firewall is no longer enough. That’s where FortiGate Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFW) come in, offering advanced inspection and modern threat protection to keep our network secure. FortiGate combines traditional firewall capabilities with advanced security features such as deep packet
Back to FortiGate: Features, Deployment, and Best Practices Read More »
Today, I’m trying to refresh the deployment for Hub and Spoke ADVPN setup in FortiGate SDWAN Deployment. Let’s Start…. I. Creating a device groupIt is a best practice to use Device Groups as the installation target instead of the firewall itself. The reason behind this is that if you ever need to remove the FortiGate
FortiGate SD-WAN Deployment using the FortiManager for HUB and Spoke ADVPN Setup Read More »
In day 2, I focused on Equal Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) of Fortigate but let me dig deep into the design – architecture aspect. first, this post is just my personal view and unlocking further about the ECMP. ECMP job is pretty simple. Its job is to move packets from a source to a destination using
Equal Cost Multi-Path(ECMP) Design – Architecture Aspect Read More »
