ABS Engineer Paul Ingram Achieves Cisco Voice Designated TSS

Paul Ingram, a Senior Network Engineer at ABS Technology Architects, was officially designated as a Technology Solution Specialist (TSS) for Cisco Voice Advanced Technology products yesterday by a review board of Cisco employees. Paul is one of only two Cisco Voice TSS' in the Virginia Mid-Atlantic Region. His achievement highlights ABS as a frontrunner in the industry, and the only Cisco Partner in Virginia with two TSS designated engineers: Paul Ingram (Voice) and Timur Snoke (Security).

A Technology Solution Specialist is a qualification given to a Cisco Partner Engineers who can expertly explain, demonstrate, & design a technical solution within a particular technology, as well as escalate and facilitate post-sales issues during the implementation phase. A TSS must continue to participate and stay current in their chosen technology to maintain their designation. Cisco created the TSS Program to create awareness within Cisco for the best partner pre-sales engineers, create demand in the customer base for the best partner pre-sales engineers, and recognize partner pre-sales excellence.

Paul Ingram has been with ABS since 2005, and is certified CCNA, CCDA, GSEC Gold, LPIC-1 and A+. He has designed, developed and deployed a variety of Cisco based solutions for customers across industries, including education, finance, and commercial corporations. In 2006, Paul was awarded the Cisco Systems Partner SE Award. He lives with his wife, Emily, and daughter, Zoe, in Chesapeake, Virginia.

President Walker Dorroh Selected for 2008 Hampton Roads "Top Forty Under 40"

Walker Dorroh, President and Co-owner of ABS Technology Architects, headquartered in Virginia Beach, has been selected by Inside Business as a 2008 "Top Forty Under 40" honoree. This prestigious award program was established in 1999 and each year, its aim is to recognize forty local businesspeople under the age of 40 for leadership, innovation and achievement in their careers, and for their dedication to the community.

Dorroh and the other recipients of the tenth annual awards were honored at a special banquet celebration held at the Norfolk Waterside Marriot on Monday, October 13th, 2008.
As the President and co-owner of ABS Technology Architects, Walker Dorroh is responsible for tailoring strategic company solutions and services to the needs of customers in Government, Education, Banking & Finance, and Retail markets, where technology-driven innovation is a key differentiator. Dorroh develops and executes strategies to drive growth, market leadership, profitability, and customer satisfaction for ABS.

Dorroh's community volunteer activities include theCommotion in the Ocean at the Virginia Aquarium, the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters Health and Surgery Center Advisory Board member, and being a Virginia Tech Alumni Association and CareerLink Member.
To read more about Walker Dorroh and the other 2008 Top Forty Under 40 Honorees, please click here.

Tech Tip for ASA packet Captures

Thanks again to Paul Ingram, Sr. Network Engineer, for this Tech Tip:


How to Automate Getting Packet Captures off of an ASA
For weeks I have been trying to figure out how to get packet captures off an an ASA before the buffer is full or overwritten. It always seems like I was too late go get the capture I wanted manually, so here is what I came up with. I have found this to be a life saver for intermittent and unpredictable network events.

Using a circular-buffer and the Linux wget and crontab commands you can automate the download of your capture file off of your ASA and store as many captures as you have disk space. There might be some overlap between captures but at least you are going to have the packet captures you need. I am using Debian Etch but the commands are very generic and should work with any Linux distribution or Cygwin if you are stuck with Windows. My ASA software is version 7.2(3)12.

First, create an access-list for the captures you want on your ASA. Let's say between two devices:

access-list cap extended permit ip host 10.10.150.1 host 192.168.0.1 access-list cap extended permit ip host 192.168.0.1 host 10.10.150.1

Second, start your capture.

capture capout access-list cap interface outside buffer 1000000 circular-buffer
I am increasing the size of the buffer so I don't have to pull the captures off of the ASA so often. And, I am setting the circular-buffer command so the capture buffer starts overwriting old packet captures when it gets full. If you don't set this the capture just stops when the buffer is full.

Third, create an executable file on your Linux box and enter all on one line:

wget -P /home/directory 'https: //username:'password'@ASA/capture/capout/pcap' -–no-check-certificate

wget is a very powerful program from the Linux/Unix world. It is great for pulling content off of a website without going through a browser. This command will place your capture files in the /home/directory. Unfortunately this is not very secure because the password to your ASA is in this file for anyone who has privileges to read. So be careful where you put it and who can see it.

Fourth, create your crontab. We will set the crontab to download the capture every half hour.
At the command prompt enter:

crontab -e

Then add a line like this:

30 * * * * /directory/of/your/executable_in_step_three

Make sure the permissions on the file allow it be executed.

Now, what will happen is every half hour the crontab will download the pcap file to the directory you specified. The first file will be named pcap, the second pcap.1, third pcap.2 and so on. You need to be careful to make sure your crontab is downloading the pcap file before the new packet captures get overwritten. You can adjust either your crontab time or the buffer size on your ASA to accomplish this.

Cisco WAAS keeps Olympic net humming

Paul Ingram, Senior Network Engineer at ABS, found this article on Cisco at the 2008 Beijing Olympics from Ann Bednarz at Network World:

Cisco's Cisco IP video technology and WAN acceleration gear is playing a behind-the-scenes role in one of the most watched events worldwide: the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

NBC is using Cisco’s IP video infrastructure and video-encoding technology to transfer multi-gigabyte files in near real-time so that NBC staff working in New York and Los Angeles can edit video after it’s captured in Beijing and ready it for delivery to TV, PC and smartphone screens.

Don't Miss!Read the latest WhitePaper - Best Practices for WAN Optimization with Data Replication

NBC expects to present more than 3,600 hours of broadcast coverage during the 17-day Olympic Games, which wrap up on Aug. 24. Online viewers will have access to 2,200 hours of video that they can play back on demand, as well as 3,000 hours of highlights and scoring results. Smartphone users will be able to watch video and view event results as well.

In previous Olympics, NBC staff worked from videotapes to add graphics and captions to event shots. But with so many thousands of hours of coverage planned, working from tapes and duplicating video copies for use at eight different affiliate networks would have been impossible, according to Cisco. Instead, NBC is using a file-based workflow to select shots and distribute them to affiliates -- even before an event is finished. To cut back on WAN bandwidth consumption, Cisco’s video encoding technology converts high-definition video into low-resolution MPEG-4 files for editors and shot selectors in North America to review. Once their selections are made, NBC determines which high-definition video files need to be transferred to affiliates.

"With the Cisco network solution, we've achieved the Holy Grail of digital video, which is the ability to perform shot selections on low-resolution files and extract high-resolution material from those files even as they are being recorded. That is a huge accomplishment," said Craig Lau, vice president for IT at NBC Olympics, in a statement.
In a blog posting, Cisco’s Douglas Gourlay highlights the role that Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) technology plays.

Cisco WAAS effectively optimizes 35Mbps links into 140Mbps links so that editors and shot selectors in New York and Los Angeles can “access gigabyte-sized video files over the WAN with the same performance as if they were stored locally,” writes Gourlay, who is senior director of marketing and product management for Cisco’s data center business unit.

Instead of sending 400 video shot selectors and editors to Beijing, NBC deployed three 155Mbps OC-3 pipes between Beijing and New York to transmit video to its studios. A Cisco 12004/4 Router collapses all three into one virtual pipe using equal cost load balancing, Gourlay writes. “Cisco WAAS leverages rather than overwrites router QoS, giving NBC the confidence to dedicate 400Mbps to video, unlike tunnel-based architectures.”

ABS Continues Cisco Channel Customer Satisfaction Excellence

ABS Technology Architects is pleased to announce that Cisco Systems has recognized us for achieving Cisco Channel Customer Satisfaction Excellence. ABS as achieved this customer satisfaction rating for six consecutive years, from 2002 - 2008.

Customer Satisfaction Excellence is the highest distinction a partner can achieve within the Cisco Channel Partner Program. ABS will be recognized for Customer Satisfaction Excellence in the Cisco Partner Locator (www.cisco.com/go/partnerlocator) with a special star indicator representing its achievement. Customers, Cisco personnel and partners will be able to identify us as having achieved outstanding customer satisfaction as part of Cisco's worldwide assessment process.

Channel Customer Satisfaction Excellence assessment is based upon the customer satisfaction results captured in the Cisco Partner Access Online tool (www.cisco.com/go/pal). Each quarter, Cisco will acknowledge Certified Partners that have the highest customer satisfaction distinction within each geographic region.

Customer Satisfaction Excellence is a core value that Cisco and ABS share, and a key driver of our current and future success.

For more information on Cisco Channel Customer Satisfaction Excellence, please visit: www.cisco.com/go/pal.

ABS Hosts 4 Network on Wheels Events Across the Commonwealth

ABS Technology Architects and Cisco Systems hosted the Network on Wheels (NOW) Van—with New Unified Communications and Security Demos—in three locations across Virgina so far this summer. On June 19 and 20, the van visited southwestern Virginia at the ABS office in Roanoke, and Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia. On July 10, TowneBank hosted the van at their Member Service Center in Suffolk, near ABS headquarters in Virginia Beach.

Visitors experienced the very best in real-world, small and medium-sized business solutions from Cisco in a mobile showcase that’s both educational and entertaining. The recently updated 25 foot van boasts the most advanced Unified Communications and Security solutions available today. It is equipped with the latest Cisco networking technologies. This unique showcase provides hands-on demonstrations of proven integrated networking solutions that are customizable to your business size and needs.

If you weren't able to visit the NOW Van in June or July, your next chance will be September 18 in Lynchburg, Virginia. For more information or to register for the event, please contact Julia Gardner at sales@absnt.com. Once onboard, you’ll take part in interactive demonstrations of technology solutions that can sharpen your competitive edge, maximize productivity, reduce operating costs, and increase user satisfaction—just what you need to increase the growth of your business.

Brian Meade Wins National Award in Internetworking

Kansas City, MO, June 27, 2008, 6:00 p.m.

Brian Meade, a student at Virginia Beach Public School’s Advanced Technology Center and Tallwood High School, was awarded the 2nd place in Internetworking at the annual National Leadership and Skills Conference and SkillsUSA Championships. The competition was held at H. Roe Bartle Hall, Municipal Auditorium and American Royal in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 24-26.

The SkillsUSA Championships is considered the largest single day of corporate volunteerism in America and valued at $33 million in industry support of donated time, equipment, cash and material. All contests are run by and judged by industry using industry standards for employment. Over 500 industry judges participated this year.

All winners receive medallions and frequently receive tools of their trade and/or scholarships to further their careers and education. The SkillsUSA Championships is for high school and college-level students who are members of SkillsUSA. More than 5,000 students from every state and three territories competed in 91 contests in technical, skilled, and service occupations, including health occupations this year. In order to qualify for the national competition, the students competed in local and state contests. The state gold winners advanced to the national SkillsUSA Championships. Brian Meade was one of only five contestants from Virginia to place in the SkillsUSA Championships in Kansas City, Missouri. He is currently employed as a Junior Network Engineer for ABS Technology Architects in Virginia Beach.

A complete list of winners is available. Go to http://www.skillsusa.org/compete/results.shtml. In addition, trade releases specific to each contest area are located at http://www.skillsusa.org/about/mediakit.shtml.

About ABS Technology Architects

ABS Technology Architects (www.absnt.com) is a Cisco Gold Direct Value Added Reseller (DVAR) headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia that provides both regional and national advanced technology solutions for corporate, educational, and governmental organizations. Founded in 1972, ABS has long been considered one of the top solution partners in the United States with an emphasis on Cisco based advanced technologies including IP Unified Communications, Contact Center, MESH Wireless, and Advanced Security Solutions. In 2004 ABS was named one of Cisco’s U.S. National Partners of the Year at the Global Partner Summit in Vancouver, Canada.