Microsoft .NET Part I by Ravi

Microsoft .net is a very broad initiative covering too many things. In fact expect anything that comes out of MS after 2000 to get the .net branding. This makes it difficult to say what it is. But its promising. Its superb. And in one word its over ambitious

Microsoft calls it a paradigm shift. The focus that used to on the desktop is now on the inter-network. In other words its about software as a services (or web applications), and software rental (not subscription). It is based on the expectation that future generation would feel totally comfortable with net transactions( that is everything from my personal info to my finances). Its also based on the bandwidth boom we should be having 'around the corner'. If both these fails .net would fail. If not? Well, then we will need to look at .net seriously and to know what it is.

So what is .net? Before we go any farther it has to be cleared that nothing in .net is innovative. They are a collection of existing technologies. It is however a very innovative way of marketing it all under a broad initiative and vision. This is what Microsoft has always been good at. The buzz word is web services. With this will come into mind distributed computing. All the text book theories on it will apply. I will not go further on this. What you will have been hearing all the time would be stuff like hailstorm/passport. And C# (C Sharp). This is a very good place to start tackling it. As .net is a very broad and all-encompassing bomb, it seems there are many entry points to start at when explaining. But first I just want to clear off hailstorm as it in itself has probably least to do with .net. The one login-name/password 'strategy' that Microsoft so successfully marketed as a selling point of Windows NT, is being extended over to the web. If you have tried Windows XP you will notice that it ask you to link your windows login account to passport. If you say no, it will continue to ask seven more times (talk about numbers!). [As a note MSN messenger also can use the single logon feature of the OS its running on, thus when you login to windows you automatically login into MSN and thus into passport]. So what is passport? When you sign-up initially for services such as yahoo (free) and amazon (e-commerce), you have to fill in a two A4 length form, with your data. This will include a login and password as well. And from there on each time you login to yahoo you will need only your login/password and the same for amazon. Cool right? Wrong! Under passport once you sign-in you should not be required to sign-in to any more sites (well if they were buying and using the passport service from Microsoft). In fact you should not be required to fill in a form even, as your data entered during passport sign-up will be transferred to yahoo/amazon. You just have to click a little link that says sign-up. So passport is a profile service and authentication service. The merits would be that you would not have to keep transferring sensitive information over insecure lines. Just make sure that the very fist initial sign-up to passport was on a secure one. And for the downsides… Well just let your imaginations run wild. Look who is keeping your data! Who knows how many sites you signed-up for? How often you visit and from where, and so on…You bet, it’s the big bully. And any one who wishes to use hailstorm/passport will have to pay Microsoft for it. This is what Microsoft really meant by a paradigm shift. They meant they would like to become a service company than a product company. This way every time financial situations changes they can just re-adjust fees on the service. They envied the way AOL could just charge more to its millions of subscribers when they become hit with the economy. But wait, we haven’t reached the hailstorm part yet. Hailstorm has more to do with credit-card/sensitive information then with profiles. It will store other more sensitive information like medical records, birth certificates, criminal records, genealogy, and ok let your imaginations run wild. You get the point. It means it has to be real secure. And each time you go for hospital visits, just ‘flash’ your ‘passport’ and your wouldn’t need fill in a single form. I can off course continue more elaborating, and talking about the pro/cons of this, but wait! I hear someone saying, “would you stop it Ravi, you are boring me. I get the point”. [Personally though I would prefer to elaborate on the implications of hailstorm and Microsoft being the central control (as opposed to distributed) of it rather then by an international body (e.g. ICANN for domain names)] Ok, so back to C#. C# they say is a Java killer (whichever way you would like to take the meaning). But it is indeed true that Microsoft needed a new language to support the .net framework. The .net environment is based on CLI (Common Language Infrastructure, a virtual machine for .net), CLR (Common Language Runtime, in Java this wold be byte codes), and the http/smtp protocol. In fact component to component communication will also use these protocols (not just on the TCP/IP network). It also natively supports XML (and therefore RPC (Remote Procedure Call) as well, and hence the distributed concept I mentioned earlier). It is based on componentization (like JavaBeans yes, but don’t forget VB and COM as well). Componentization should ideally be plug-n-play (software plug-n-play that is). Remember again that without wares called bridges a COBRA object cannot plug into a COM object; .net hopes to attain this by making major parts of this as an industry controlled standard by submitting to the ECMA for approval. Java’s’ draw back here would be that its controlled by Sun Microsystems to a large extend [though Sun did announce twice that they would submit Java to ECMA but never did, and do not confuse this with JavaScript which is ECMA standard). Talking about standards, recall that for distributed components Microsoft created the DCOM standard, which is ideal in a LAN, but because is embeds IP addresses it became impossible to connect behind firewalls or Network Address Translations (NAT). They did come up with COM over the internet to patch up with this short coming but in came SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). SOAP is an Open Industry Standard, which did not rely on registry (oh! Nightmares) hives the way COM does. So it can be said that .net have removed the necessity of registry (as far as COM declaration and plug-n-play is concerned). Interlude SOAP, is simple elegant protocol developed for distributed computing in mind. In fact its for P2P (a catchy term, Peer to Peer as opposed to Client/Server). In P2P environment unreliability is the norm. Once a connection has been established the connected computers have to rely on each other to maintain further connection and deal not in fixed IPs but in sessions, hence the term P2P. The popular music sharing software Napster is supposed to be a good example of P2P applications. This is not really a good definition of P2P, but until I can come up with a better one… I could be dead wrong here, someone please get me cleared on this!!! PS: Part II, in the coming week.

Cisco Certifications by Ravi.

Ok you might notice the WAN Switching suffix added to some of the primer certifications. WAN Switching means expetise in Ciscos line of WAN switching products. This is a seperate track on its own and does not mean its lower nor higher than the CCNA/CCNP/CCDP track.

Most people take CCNA and/or CCDA. Only after this the CCNP exam can be taken.

I think the confusion of CCNA turned into CCIS comes from the fact that it is the certification in the first category: the NISC (Network Installation and Support Certification). If I hear news to the contrary I will inform you again.

About expiration (This one is direct quote from thier website).
...certifications are valid for three years.(Advancing to the next level or recertifying at the Professional level automatically renews the related CCNA/WAN certification.)
This means that when you are at the advanced level, you will have to certify, no matter what. But once you recertify your lower level certifications automatically gets revived. Thus before three years pass recertifiy or move to a higher level (if you are not yet there!).

I will now start to speak about the exam tracks in exam numbers.
Associate:
a) CCNA b) CCNA WAN Switching c) CCDA
For the Associate levels only one exam is required. For CCNA its exam 640-507, and CCNA/WAN Switching is exam 640-410 and for CCDA its exam 640-441 DCN. For these exams there are no pre-requisites, but knowledge of CCNA is recommended for CCDA exam.
Professional:
a) CCNP b) CCNP WAN Switching c) CCDP d) CCDP WAN Switching e) CCIP
For the Network levels a combination of exams are required. Prerequisites also apply. For CCNP a valid CCNA certificate is required (Please note the word valid and refer to above for certificate expiration). For CCDP both CCDA and CCNA certs are required (must be valid! ). For the WAN switching track its the same, but the prerequisites must be thier WAN Switching counter parts. As an example, if you want to sit for CCDP WAN Switching than you must have valid CCNA WAN Switching and CCDA WAN Switching certs. For CCNP two combinations can be taken. (640-503 Routing + 640-504 Switching + 640-505 Remote Access) + 640-506 Support. If this combination is too time consuming you can take this combination instead 640-509 Foundations + 640-506 Support. Only one combination (of four) exams are possible for CCNP WAN Switching. They are 640-419 MSSC + 640-425 BSSC + 640-411 MACC + 640-459 CWMIO. For CCDP there are two combinations possible. One is (640-503 Routing + 640-504 Switching + 640-505 Remote Access) + 640-025 Design. Or 640-509 Foundations + 640-025 Support. You may have noticed that exam combination for CCNP and CCDP are all same except that for CCNP its 640-506 and for CCDP its 640-025. For CCDP WAN Switching there is only one exam to answer not many combinations like others but do remember the prerequisites required. Ok the exam is 640-413 DSWVS. And finally we come to CCIP, the very new exam. CCIP does not have any prerequisites(surprised?) but CCNA is highly recommended. This exam is very new and some of the combination exams are still in their beta stage, additionally recertification requirments have not been defined yet. The combination at present is as follows (but will later change). Now the its 641-900 BSCI Beta Exam + Multi Cast + QOS + (Cable OR Security OR MPLS). The text below is from Cisco website about CCIP
Additional elective technology solution options such as cable, ISP dial, wireless, and optical will be added over time.
I could not find more information on CCIP as it requires a password to access thos area. To get a password I must either be CCIE or one of thier customers! As you can see the exams at present are given only vague titles without exam numbers. Thats it. Will update more later. So this document is version 0.90 !
Expert:
I know so little about this as there is a lot to read even to know what the exam is!!! Whew!

Ok, bye

Ravi.

Abbreviation Note: (not important, can skip).
DCN = Designing Cisco Networks (640-441)
MSSC = Multi-band Switch and Service Configuration. (640-419)
BSSC = BPX Switch and Service Configuraion. (640-425)
MACC = MTX ATM Concentration and Configuration. (640-411)
CWMIO = Cisco WAN Manager Installion and Operation. (640-459)
DSWVS = Designing Switched WAN and Voice Solutions (644-413)
BSCI = Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks

PS: Arnold, I have written this in much detail because I used to be confused about these stuff. Thus a lot of information would be redundant to you, but would benefit others. So please edit(for clarity and error) and forward them to those wanting information on these certifications. If edited please send me a copy too!