Network Engineers need Linux

Although I am my no means an expert in Linux (yet), I have done the swap.  I have dropped Windows for a Mint 17.3 Linux.  Since I work in the network consulting realm, it does make things (some things) a little simpler.  I am a fan of Windows 10, but the good about Linux far out weighs the good about Windows.

Benefits:

• Become more familiar with commands that are regularly used to install and troubleshoot Cisco and other vendor appliances
• terminal services are much more fluid and many variants are available
• VIRL and GNS3, in my opinion, run much more efficiently on Linux.
• Over all performance increase 
• Less bloat in my OS
• The new Linux distros' GUIs are as good as, if not better than Windows
• IT'S FREE!

Drawbacks:

• Visio and a few other office like products
• I like Outlook much better than Thunderbird or Evolution

*** I still have Windows 10 installed on my hard drive for now if I need to use certain applications

More info on current Linux distributions: Click Here

More info on Mint: Click Here

Cisco VIRL Installation

So I finally had the chance to install Cisco VIRL.

Here are a few things that I learned:

• Installation on bare metal is a pain
• it is totally possible and is doable, but installing on a free esxi host is much easier
• interfaces get tricky unless your box matches the base config exactly
• ESXi is your friend
• if you have an old PowerEdge 710 server laying around you might as well run ESXi on it an load the pre-configured OVA
• no messing with linux interfaces in the server
• just have to build the back end networking in ESXi
• Don't use the minimum required RAM
• purchased the 30 node license, but quickly ran out of 32GB (only ran 14 nodes)
• maxed out the server at 128GB and I can max out my node limit
• Cisco's community links don't work (as of 7/6/16)
• all of the google results redirect you to a parked domain
• this makes troubleshooting and tips a pain if something gets screwed up
• community forum exists, but it hard to get to threads directly at the moment
• YOU CAN EXPORT TO GNS3!

All in all I think its great that you can run multiple types of devices (NXOS, IOS, IOSXE, switches).  If you have someone paying for it I would get it, but GNS3 will still be my personal go-to software.  

Here is a link to Cisco's documentation: Click Here

If you'd like some detailed info on doing a Bare Metal install (on a poweredge server): Click Here