This is a very exciting topic. I recently observed a conversation where sysadmins talked about network problems. Well, go figure :) But anyway, instead of joining, I just listened and as the conversation progressed, I was more and more confident that I had my next article to write about. It seemed that these folks had a serious problem understanding the concept of vlans. I don't really see why, as there is another post about vlans right here, how come they never read it?
Today's topic is all about redundancy. Well, at least, in a way. Redundancy is a great thing, although it's not how it's always been. We're focusing on ethernet today, ethernet topology to be precise and how it plays an important role in availability and reliability.
Most people just order stuff from Cisco, opens the box, installs the fresh & new kit into the rack, poweres on and watches the IOS to load. But what if there is no IOS, just a blank flash memory? This could happen if things have gone bad (someone erased something), or you just ordered a new, empty flash and powered down the router. Where to go from here? Afraid no more, lone netwok warrior, here is the solution.
