IT Knowledgebase Articles

Basics of Cisco Switch Administration – Part 2

Last Update: Nov 19, 2024

Introduction In Basics of Cisco Switch Administration – Part 1, we covered some of the basics of Cisco switch administration – how to log in, how to show configuration, how to change interface speed & duplex, how to enable switch ports, and how to show switch port status. In Part 2, we will stick to…

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Basics of Cisco Switch Administration – Part 1

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024

Need help configuring a switch port or seeing what MAC address is on what port? David Davis serves up some Cisco switch admin basics.

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Analyzing the Boot Process of a Cisco IOS Router

Last Update: Nov 19, 2024

You can learn a lot about a router by watching it power-up / boot-up. When the router boots, you can learn how fast it is, how much RAM it has, how much storage it has, how many interfaces it has, what type of interfaces, and much more. Many administrators don’t think about the boot-up process…

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3 WAN Protocols you should know: HDLC, PPP, and Frame-Relay

Your company is connected to the Internet, right? (everyone nod your head yes) So what WAN protocol do you use to connect to the Internet? Chances are, that if you have a T1 leased line to the Internet or a private network between locations, you use one of these three WAN Protocols: HDLC, PPP, or…

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Create Custom Roles in VMware ESX Server

In our previous articles, we covered the explained what Roles, Privileges, and Permissions are in VMware ESX. VMware ESX Server comes with a number of administrative security roles already defined, by default. However, those default roles aren’t going to fit the needs of every company or every network administrator. In this article, we will find…

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How to Configure VMware ESX Alarms

Once you have your VMware ESX Server Datacenter up and running, you are going to want to know when the virtualized financial server goes down or, much worse, when the virtualized email server goes down. So how do you know what is going on in your ESX farm when you aren’t sitting there and staring…

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What is Cisco Telepresence and what does it take?

Last Update: Jul 29, 2025

If you are like me, you have probably heard about Cisco’s Telepresence video conferencing system but probably didn’t realize that it was much more than a regular video conferencing suite. Sure, I had seen Cisco Telepresence on the TV show “24” and it looked pretty neat but I didn’t envision the scope of what is…

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Cisco 800 series Routers – the best routers to practice for your CCNA exam and learn the IOS

Last Update: Jul 29, 2025

So many new or aspiring network administrators have asked me “what is the best router to use to learn the Cisco IOS?”, or “what is the best router to use to practice for your CCNA exam?”, or even, “what is the best router to use to connect your home or small business to the Internet?”….

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Automatically Power Up VMware Server Guest Operating Systems

Last Update: Sep 24, 2024

Recently, there was a Petri Virtualization Forums member asking about how he could automatically power up a VMware Guest OS. To help that member and others member who may have the same question, I have created this article on how to automatically power up VMware Server Guest Operating systems on server boot up. Why do…

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Windows Update Problems – Error 0x800A138F

Last Update: Nov 19, 2024

Many users of Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 have had problems when trying to access the Windows Update site. Windows Update works fine scanning for updates, but when you choose to download and install them the page displays this happy error message: Windows Update has encountered an error and cannot display the…

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