CCNP Route Part 2

It has been a couple of days since I started my CCNP Route studying and I have hit my first stumbling point.  It wasn’t the configuration of  EIGRP as a whole. I was able to remember and grasp the concepts of Passive Interfaces, Network Commands, Un-Equal Cost Load Balancing as well as authentication and utilizing the bandwidth percent command. The problem that I was having was the configuration of frame relay.

The frame relay lab topology I was working with has 3 routers in a hub and spoke topology.

EIGRP FRAM RELAY

The simulated wan backbone was a frame relay switch within GNS3. I assigned the DLCI’s to the appropriate ports and connected each router. I was able to quickly configure each router with its Loopback’s and default configurations with ease. However, when it came to getting the can connectivity that is where I had problems. I tried everything I could remember but it didn’t work. I did some research and came across some CISCO documentation on how frame relay works and how you should configure it. The document can be found on Cisco’s Website here.

Once I understood the concepts I was able to get the links running correctly. In the Lab topology the HQ router has a single Wan interface. I set that up using a Multi-point sub interface configuration, used Inverse ARP to find each neighbor and turned off Split Horizon. On each of the spokes I set the sub interface configuration using the frame-relay interface-dlci command to manually specify which DLCI it needed to use. I used the verification commands such as show ip route, show frame-relay pvc and show frame-relay maps in addition to pings and trace routes.

The lab was working correctly and it did not take as long as I expected. I will keep the information learned from the cisco white papers  handy just in case if I do have issues with frame relay when it comes to OSPF in the next

Certification Tip:

Make sure you have a good solid foundation of the ccna concepts before moving onto the CCNP. The CCENT/CCNA Certification is like looking at the tip of an iceburgh. You only get a small glimpse of what lies ahead. When you move onto your CCNP you take those foundations and build upon it. If you don’t have a good understanding of the concepts then things may be to hard for you to go.

Its time for me to take a break.  Good night Everyone.
RTA