I've now attended two of these, and in general have found them both well worth the effort it takes me to attend ( long drive, work schedule finagling ) The security seminar was focused around securing routers. It was interesting for me to hear other philosophies. For example, the speaker was not particularly favorable towards the use of privilege exec level commands, but for good reason. They can be a pain to configure properly, and can be difficult to remove. The speaker also spoke of security in terms of what is appropriate for the level of protection you require. For example, if all you are protecting are a few files easily duplicated, and not confidential in nature, your approach might be entirely different than if you were protecting data the compromise of which can lead to people's deaths ( i.e. the FBI witness protection program files, for example ) The campus switching seminar proved very valuable to me for a couple of reasons. Switching is one of my weak areas. The speaker is someone I have met at Networkers, and about whom I have heard good things from a number of sources. And the lab that was set up provided a pretty good demonstration of layer 3 switching, HSRP, and the behavior of the data flows across vlans, even in situations where spanning tree has to reconverge after path interruptions. I attended the presentations in the Mentor Tech San Jose facility. I was privileged(?) to witness one of the most bizarre incidents I have ever seen, when one of the attendees spoke out during the security seminar, and compared the lecturer to a 1950's state department paranoid who saw communists behind every bush. He ranted for a moment about how security was overblown, then stormed out. This was, of course, after having taken advantage of the free food. ( as an aside, I was eavesdropping on this guy's conversations before the start of the presentation. He stated to someone else that he was a network engineer at a major co-location facility, and that they didn't bother with security of any kind, and that as far as he was concerned the whole topic was nonsense. All I can say is for those of you who are considering co-hosting and co-location, you might want to ask a LOT of questions. ) Check out the Mentor tech web site at http://www.mentortech.com/learn/series.shtml for information about the seminar series. So far it has been fun, has had free food, and has been a chance to interact with others interested in broadening their horizons. Oh yeah, and I've learned a couple of things as well. Note: I receive no consideration whatsoever for saying nice things about Mentor Tech. Chuck CCIE Written October 28 - clock's ticking! **NOTE: New CCNA/CCDA List has been formed. For more information go to http://www.groupstudy.com/list/Associates.html _________________________________ UPDATED Posting Guidelines: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/guide.html FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
