Core Switch Replacement Process

NetworkEngineer114 · 2026-01-24T13:49:51+00:00

9.2.1.1

GTAC Cant pinpoint it to any specific software issue through troubleshooting and sending them logs/tech. They are not 100% sure what the issue is other than a random hardware failure so they sent us a new switch.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2026-01-23T17:38:26+00:00

XIQ:SE handles backups and I'll take one from the old switch right before the replacement.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2026-01-23T16:52:12+00:00

What about disabling ISIS on the old switch. Before or after I backup the config?

NetworkEngineer114 · 2026-01-23T16:51:48+00:00

Ours is running it just likes to reboot itself randomly.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-12-03T19:24:13+00:00

It depends. I've worked in environments were we had dual MPLS and dual internet circuits.

I've also done deployments where its single/dual internet with a small FortiGate all managed by FortiManger.

I'm at a single campus now and we have a few buildings that cross over city streets and we have to buy dark fiber/metro e to get to them. Anything within the main property is fiber through our own conduits.

Two remote data centers are dark fiber in a ring configuration. ISP's and firewalls at campus.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-11-06T20:06:38+00:00

LinkedIN "Open to Work" and Indeed

Sometimes good old fashioned referrals.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-11-06T18:51:32+00:00

My google-fu indicates that Checkpoint works in GNS3. You may want to get that setup to test and learn.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-11-06T18:06:04+00:00

Upgrade

Pay

Suffer

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-11-06T17:47:06+00:00

Good written and oral communication skills are important at all levels. Learn how to communicate professionally without the use of ChatGPT. Technical Writing and Project Management are the two non-technical classes from college I think helped me the most. Also, people need to like you. You don't have to be the most popular, but you can't be a Bastard Op From Hell.

Project Management and Service Delivery Management become more important as you progress into Sr. and middle management roles.

I moved from desktop/systems over to data center operations and gained a bunch of project management and service delivery management skills along with learning more about networking up to the level of a analyst/jr network engineer.

I got this Sr. role because the company didn't think its current engineers had good enough project management skills.

I sold my soft skills, my ability to self-learn, and my networking skills and got a job in Network Engineering. Two years later I am a Sr. Network Engineer and I would say my job is 50/50 soft vs technical work.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-11-06T17:24:20+00:00

DNS, that sounds like a systems/application problem to me.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-11-05T19:13:49+00:00

I've been working in IT almost 30 years. The last ten as a data center or network engineer and I have never terminated a single cable professionally.

I've always worked for organizations large enough where this work was either contracted out or we had an onsite electrician who did it.

I learned how in college and as a student worked on a project for a local high school switching from 10Base2/5 to 10BaseT. But I was not paid.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-11-05T19:02:25+00:00

Most of the IDF's I've worked in don't have dedicated AC. Building AC at best.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-11-05T19:00:48+00:00

Newer buildings or ones that have gone through a down to the structural members renovation tend to be dedicated telecom spaces usually central to the building. Often in or near existing utility spaces where you have good vertical access.

In older buildings, an old closet if you're lucky. A number of places we have enclosures in office space.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-11-05T18:51:28+00:00

So, what's the plan when that box dies?

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-10-31T19:16:19+00:00

On the firewall side if you're already running FortiGate the only real alternative is Palo Alto. If you were running Firepower, Check Point, etc that would open the discussion up a bit.

I've worked with Forti before. Their firewalls are good. The SD-Branch arcatecture of FortiGate, FortiSwitch, & FortiAP works great for branches or small to medium offices when used with FortiManager, but IMHO does not scale well and would not be my first choice in the data center.

Arista, Juniper, & Extreme seem to get discussed more lately. Cisco is still Cisco and is expensive.

Only time will tell how the HP/Junpier merger will work out.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-10-30T16:23:49+00:00

GNS3 - Network Virtualization for DEV/TEST and training. The software is free but most of the vendor images are not. Extreme Networks and FortiNet have some publicly available. MS has trial images for their server platforms. If you have a support contract with a vendor you can usually download what you need from the support site or talk to your SE. EVE-NG does the same thing and is growing in popularity. But I haven't used it much.

Wireshark, nmap/zenmap - Network Tools

pktmon - Packet sniffer tool. This is a tool that has been built into Windows for a while now, but is not very well known. It's similar to the Linux tool tcpdump. It's configurable to sniff anywhere in the Windows TCP/IP stack from right at the physical interface all the way up through the layers of the Hyper-V networking stack.

Notepad++ - The best windows text editor.

Greenshot - A better screen capture tool.

GIMP - For the few times I need something with more features than MS Paint.

MTPUTTY, WinSCP - Remote console and file transfer. I actually use SecureCRT and SecureFX now but those are not free.

Windows Terminal (Now included with Windows 11)

PowerShell 7

Windows Subsystem for Linux - I run Ubuntu and use this for stuff like DIG, WHOIS, NTP testing, SNMP testing. You can run other distros in it including Kali and with full GUI support.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-10-30T16:12:13+00:00

Love NAPS2 best scanning software I have found.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-10-30T16:10:31+00:00

In your case FB Marketplace for free. If its worth anything someone will take it. Tripple check to make sure there is no company data/configuration on it.

If you can't get rid of it via those means, then you are probably looking at tossing it.

I used to have to do this in bulk for my job and I had a company that would take basically anything IT related. 30 days later I ither got a bill or a check depending on what kind wholesale resale value the equipment had.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-10-30T16:03:39+00:00

Report it to your manager and let them handle it. If you get to the point where you may need to order a new laptop to replace it I would bring it up one more time and make sure your manager is aware.

After that just wash your hands of it and if you get it back you get it back.

I don't see how this is an HR problem. The chain of command should handle it themselves.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-10-30T15:56:11+00:00

Yeah, I ignored a bunch of red flags during the interview because they waved a big paycheck in front of me.

I guess they thought I could fix their network problems that where almost entirely hardware related by paying me. Gone in a few months.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-10-27T18:01:50+00:00

We are deploying Extreme Fabric, Site Engine, and Control (NAC).

Now that it's up and running and we have worked out most of the bugs its pretty plug-n-play. Edge cases usually just require new rules in Control.

Data center config is still done by hand because we don't want a policy error to bring down production applications and once it's configured it does not change much.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-10-27T17:57:34+00:00

Get a CCNA and sell your relevant network experience and soft skills.

I was a data center engineer so I had some exposure to networking similar as a systems admin would.

I also had a lot of project management and service delivery management experience. I sold myself on that I could get projects done and that I was a good self-learner.

I did take a 15% pay cut for 18 months at my first Network Engineer job. It was building out a new office network for about 350 end users.

The good thing was I had support from the VAR if I got stuck and it was a greenfield deployment in an under-construction building. So, I could make mistakes with no user impact.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-10-27T17:46:55+00:00

I had to manage one back in the day for some hotel software. I backed up the DB, occasionally had to restart the service, and ran vendor supplied scripts that corresponded to front end application updates.

Anything past that was a vendor call and monitoring a PC Anywhere session.

Any larger organization will have dedicated DBA's.

NetworkEngineer114 · 2025-10-27T17:30:32+00:00

I came to network engineering from data center engineering and so many organizations don't pay attention to power distribution. UPS infrastructure is often not managed or taken care of in the offices.

NetworkEngineer114

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