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Network Notes

  • 4 min read

Let's Encrypt certificates for VMware Horizon

Recently, I needed to renew the SSL certificates on a VMware Horizon View deployment. I chose to make this the last year of paid SSL certifcates, and move the deployment over to Let's Encrypt.

There are surely numerous approaches to do this with all code or just minimal code. In this case, the Certify the Web's Windows application fit the bill for making future renewals and changes supportable by an IT staff that doesn't have much experience with scripting.

In this tutorial, Certify the Web is configured to handle the heavy lifting of Let's Encrypt's ACME certificate renewal process. PowerShell scripts are then used to deploy the newly minted certificates into VMware Horizon View and VMware's Unified Access Gateway (UAG) product.

  • 8 min read

Let's upgrade Cisco SD-WAN

Cisco SD-WAN

I've long raved about how easy it is to perform an upgrade to the components of Cisco SD-WAN. Join me as we upgrade to the new gold star - 20.6.3 for the Viptela components with 17.6.3a for the cEdge.

The environment is currently running the previous gold star release of Cisco SD-WAN:

  • vManage/vSmart/vBond 20.3.5
  • vEdge 20.3.5
  • IOS-XE (cEdge) 17.3.4a

The environment is fairly straightforward, with Cisco cloud deployed controllers, including 2 vSmart and 2 vBond. There is a single vEdge 1000 left, and the rest of the devices are a mix of cEdge - specifically ISR4331, ISR4431, and Catalyst 8300.

  • 5 min read

Catalyst on Meraki: Getting Started

Catalyst on Mearki

Two Catalyst 9300 switches monitored in Meraki Dashboard

Cisco Live 2022 represents the birth of "Catalyst on Meraki", a new feature that brings traditional Cisco Catalyst hardware into the Meraki Dashboard. You have the option to use two 'modes' of operation:

  • 4 min read

Meraki automation using Typer

Screenshot

In college, one of my Computer Science professors gave us some sage advice:

Computer Scientists are lazy.

He was right. Any time I can avoid spending time writing code that isn't related to my end goal - I'm all for it. It's an added bonus if I can use a library that gives me tools to easily make my end product more polished and professional.

If you haven't heard of Typer, it's a library for building CLI applications. It boasts an easy to understand syntax, features to minimize code duplication, and options to provide auto-completion and automatic help for end users.

  • 3 min read

Automating Cisco CallManager

Callmanager Find/Replace

Last week, I was presented with the need to modify a number of translation patterns in Cisco CallManager (CUCM) to support the implementation with a new auto attendant for one of my customers.

If you've worked with CUCM before, you likely know that translation patterns work similarly to NAT for phone calls. For example: you might set a translation pattern's calledPartyTransformationMask to map a call to an external number from a remote party to an internal extension in your organization.

API's are much more interesting to me than the intricacies of CUCM, so I'll save you the headache of hearing about that. Suffice it to say: there isn't an easy way to find all translation patterns with a specific calledPartyTransformationMask and modify that mask to reflect a new internal extension.

  • 3 min read

What are Cards on Webex Teams?

Cards on Webex

Over the past year we've seen exciting new additions to the Webex Teams API that introduce some exciting new options for bots and integrations to interact with end users. One of these additions is support for 'in chat' buttons & cards.

Buttons & cards add a new way to format messages in Webex Teams - before diving in, let's take a look at the previous message formatting options: