-According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, nearly 250 million computers will become obsolete in the next five years. Unfortunately, less than 20 percent of PCs retired in the U.S. are recycled most years, instead creating what is being termed "e-waste."
To help reverse this trend, the U.S. government recently passed legislation that imposes penalties and fines on companies that do not practice environmentally proper IT disposal. According to a survey conducted by HP, the majority of companies-especially small-to-medium businesses (SMBs)-underestimate the security, financial and environmental impact of technology equipment disposal. Key findings include:
• 70 percent of respondents underestimate the cost of disposing of PCs;
• 66 percent of executives with purchasing authority are unaware of the financial implications of ignoring environmental regulations when disposing of IT equipment; and
• The biggest concern regarding disposal of IT equipment is data security and privacy.
So, what is the "politically correct" way to dispose of aging technology equipment? IT leaders like HP are increasing their commitment to real-world solutions that help customers achieve environmental responsibility, while also helping them get a better return on their IT investments.
E-Cycling computers and their components can be done to build new computers. HP helped its customers recycle more than 140 million pounds of hardware and print cartridges last year-the equivalent weight of 280 jumbo airliners! More and more retailers are also offering recycled products, which helps keep them out of landfills and other disposal sites.
Leasing is another way for companies to mitigate the various risks involved with acquiring IT assets, because the lessor assumes the responsibility for proper disposal of equipment at the end of its useful life. Leasing protects customers against the fines and consequences associated with violating environmental regulations, as well as from violations of data security and personal privacy laws. Similarly, older systems can be traded in for discounts on the price of new machines through such programs as HP's "Ditch Your Dinosaur," which offers a $100 rebate when customers trade in an outdated computer.
Donating computers to charities in need is a positive option to consider. Like older cars, they can be used as an effective tax write-off for a business, while benefiting worthwhile organizations. For example, HP and many others work with the National Cristina Foundation. This organization helps people with disabilities, students at risk and economically disadvantaged persons lead more independent and productive lives by providing them with computer technology and training.
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Computer Certification
Cisco Certification: Introduction To ISDN
From the CCNA to the CCIE, ISDN is one of the most important technolgies you'll work with. It's also very common in the field ISDN is frequently used as a backup connection in case an organization's Frame Relay connections go down. Therefore, it's important to know ISDN basics not only for your particular exam, but for job success.
ISDN is used between two Cisco routers that have BRI or PRI interfaces. Basically, with ISDN one of the routers places a phone call to the other router. It is vital to understand not only what causes one router to dial another, but what makes the link go down.
Why? Since ISDN is basically a phone call from one router to another, you're getting billed for that phone call -- by the minute. If one of your routers dials another, and never hangs up, the connection can theoretically last for days or weeks. The network manager then receives an astronomical phone bill, which leads to bad things for everyone involved!
Cisco routers use the concept of interesting traffic to decide when one router should call another. By default, there is no interesting traffic, so if you don't define any, the routers will never call each other.
Interesting traffic is defined with the dialer-list command. This command offers many options, so you can tie interesting traffic down not only to what protocols can bring the link up, but what the source, destination, or even port number must be for the line to come up.
One common misconception occurs once that link is up. Interesting traffic is required to bring the link up, but by default, any traffic can then cross the ISDN link.
What makes the link come down? Again, the concept of interesting traffic is used. Cisco routers have an idle-timeout setting for their dialup interfaces. If interesting traffic does not cross the link for the amount of time specified by the idle-timeout, the link comes down.
To summarize: Interesting traffic brings the link up by default, any traffic can cross the link once it's up a lack of interesting traffic is what brings the link down.
Just as important is knowing what keeps the link up once it is dialed. Why? Because ISDN acts as a phone call between two routers, and it's billed that way to your client. The two routers that are connected by this phone call may be located in different area codes, so now we're talking about a long distance phone call.
If your ISDN link does not have a reason to disconnect, the connection could theoretically last for days or weeks before someone realizes what's going on. This is particularly true when the ISDN link is used as a backup for another connection type, as is commonly the case with Frame Relay. When the Frame Relay goes down, the backup ISDN link comes up when the Frame Relay link comes back not billed for all that time.<
To understand why an ISDN link stays up when it's not needed, we have to understand why it stays up period. Cisco's ISDN interfaces use the idle-timeout to determine when an ISDN link should be torn down. By default, this value is two minutes, and it also uses the concept of interesting traffic.
Once interesting traffic brings the link up, by default all traffic can cross the link. However, only interesting traffic resets the idle-timeout. If no interesting traffic crosses the link for two minutes, the idle-timer hits zero and the link comes down.
If the protocol running over the ISDN link is RIP version 2 or EIGRP, the most efficient way to prevent the routing updates from keeping the line up is expressly prohibiting their multicast routing update address in the access-list that is defining interesting traffic. Do not prevent them from crossing the link entirely, or the protocol obviously won't work correctly.
With OSPF, Cisco offers the ip ospf demand-circuit interface-level command. The OSPF adjacency will form over the ISDN link, but once formed, the Hello packets will be suppressed. However, the adjacency will not be lost. A check of the adjacency table with show ip ospf adjacency will show the adjacency remains at Full, even though Hellos are no longer being sent across the link. The ISDN link can drop without the adjacency being lost. When the link is needed, the adjacency is still in place and data can be sent without waiting for OSPF to go through the usual steps of forming an adjacency.
This OSPF command is vital for Cisco certification candidates at every level, but is particularly important for CCNA candidates. Learn this command now, get used to the fact that the adjacency stays up even though Hellos are suppressed, and add this valuable command to your Cisco toolkit.
One myth about ISDN is that Cisco Discovery Packets keep an ISDN link up. CDP is a Cisco-proprietary protocol that runs between directly connected Cisco devices. There is a school of thought that CDP packets have to be disabled on a BRI interface in order to prevent the link from staying up or dialing when it's not really needed. I've worked with ISDN for years in the field and in the lab, and I've never seen CDP bring up an ISDN link. Try it yourself the next time you're working on a practice rack!
Chris Bryant
CCIE #12933
ISDN is used between two Cisco routers that have BRI or PRI interfaces. Basically, with ISDN one of the routers places a phone call to the other router. It is vital to understand not only what causes one router to dial another, but what makes the link go down.
Why? Since ISDN is basically a phone call from one router to another, you're getting billed for that phone call -- by the minute. If one of your routers dials another, and never hangs up, the connection can theoretically last for days or weeks. The network manager then receives an astronomical phone bill, which leads to bad things for everyone involved!
Cisco routers use the concept of interesting traffic to decide when one router should call another. By default, there is no interesting traffic, so if you don't define any, the routers will never call each other.
Interesting traffic is defined with the dialer-list command. This command offers many options, so you can tie interesting traffic down not only to what protocols can bring the link up, but what the source, destination, or even port number must be for the line to come up.
One common misconception occurs once that link is up. Interesting traffic is required to bring the link up, but by default, any traffic can then cross the ISDN link.
What makes the link come down? Again, the concept of interesting traffic is used. Cisco routers have an idle-timeout setting for their dialup interfaces. If interesting traffic does not cross the link for the amount of time specified by the idle-timeout, the link comes down.
To summarize: Interesting traffic brings the link up by default, any traffic can cross the link once it's up a lack of interesting traffic is what brings the link down.
Just as important is knowing what keeps the link up once it is dialed. Why? Because ISDN acts as a phone call between two routers, and it's billed that way to your client. The two routers that are connected by this phone call may be located in different area codes, so now we're talking about a long distance phone call.
If your ISDN link does not have a reason to disconnect, the connection could theoretically last for days or weeks before someone realizes what's going on. This is particularly true when the ISDN link is used as a backup for another connection type, as is commonly the case with Frame Relay. When the Frame Relay goes down, the backup ISDN link comes up when the Frame Relay link comes back not billed for all that time.<
To understand why an ISDN link stays up when it's not needed, we have to understand why it stays up period. Cisco's ISDN interfaces use the idle-timeout to determine when an ISDN link should be torn down. By default, this value is two minutes, and it also uses the concept of interesting traffic.
Once interesting traffic brings the link up, by default all traffic can cross the link. However, only interesting traffic resets the idle-timeout. If no interesting traffic crosses the link for two minutes, the idle-timer hits zero and the link comes down.
If the protocol running over the ISDN link is RIP version 2 or EIGRP, the most efficient way to prevent the routing updates from keeping the line up is expressly prohibiting their multicast routing update address in the access-list that is defining interesting traffic. Do not prevent them from crossing the link entirely, or the protocol obviously won't work correctly.
With OSPF, Cisco offers the ip ospf demand-circuit interface-level command. The OSPF adjacency will form over the ISDN link, but once formed, the Hello packets will be suppressed. However, the adjacency will not be lost. A check of the adjacency table with show ip ospf adjacency will show the adjacency remains at Full, even though Hellos are no longer being sent across the link. The ISDN link can drop without the adjacency being lost. When the link is needed, the adjacency is still in place and data can be sent without waiting for OSPF to go through the usual steps of forming an adjacency.
This OSPF command is vital for Cisco certification candidates at every level, but is particularly important for CCNA candidates. Learn this command now, get used to the fact that the adjacency stays up even though Hellos are suppressed, and add this valuable command to your Cisco toolkit.
One myth about ISDN is that Cisco Discovery Packets keep an ISDN link up. CDP is a Cisco-proprietary protocol that runs between directly connected Cisco devices. There is a school of thought that CDP packets have to be disabled on a BRI interface in order to prevent the link from staying up or dialing when it's not really needed. I've worked with ISDN for years in the field and in the lab, and I've never seen CDP bring up an ISDN link. Try it yourself the next time you're working on a practice rack!
Chris Bryant
CCIE #12933
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Mortgage
Mortgage your home restoration
A commuter rail boom in the New York and New Jersey has enabled many professionals in the area to live further from the big city. One of the places they're moving is Morris County, New Jersey, a group of historic small towns 20 miles to the west. Settled more than 300 years ago, the area offers a well-established, attractive residential base, and solid property investment potential. Morris County includes more than 30 municipalities, and a wide variety of charming unincorporated areas. Homes here are often beautifully restored Victorian and Colonial-era buildings dating back to the early 20th century, which add to an already high quality of life in this attractive area.
Big City professionals also know Morris County for its wide variety of Fortune 500 headquarters, offices, and major facilities. Companies with operations here include AT&T, Honeywell, Bayer and Wyeth, BASF, Novartis, Exxon, and Colgate-Palmolive - good news for anyone who wants to avoid the daily commute to their corporate office job. Many professionals who move to Morris County also find jobs here, and are able to confine their relationship with New York and New Jersey to weekend visits.
Morris County's uncrowded layout is another reason for its popularity. The county has less than 500,000 residents spread across more than 1,247 km and dozens of communities, which compares nicely to the urban sprawl of millions per square mile just to the east. Morris County's low density has put it in high demand with wealthy buyers - it's the sixth wealthiest county in the Nation by median household income, and tenth by per capita income.
Affluence with a taste for old world charm is part of the reason many of Morris County's older homes here have been carefully preserved. A wide variety of old mansions have also been converted into museums, art studios, and schools. When visitors come to Morris County, they make a point of checking out heritage buildings like Acorn Hall in Morristown, which dates back to 1853.
Big City professionals also know Morris County for its wide variety of Fortune 500 headquarters, offices, and major facilities. Companies with operations here include AT&T, Honeywell, Bayer and Wyeth, BASF, Novartis, Exxon, and Colgate-Palmolive - good news for anyone who wants to avoid the daily commute to their corporate office job. Many professionals who move to Morris County also find jobs here, and are able to confine their relationship with New York and New Jersey to weekend visits.
Morris County's uncrowded layout is another reason for its popularity. The county has less than 500,000 residents spread across more than 1,247 km and dozens of communities, which compares nicely to the urban sprawl of millions per square mile just to the east. Morris County's low density has put it in high demand with wealthy buyers - it's the sixth wealthiest county in the Nation by median household income, and tenth by per capita income.
Affluence with a taste for old world charm is part of the reason many of Morris County's older homes here have been carefully preserved. A wide variety of old mansions have also been converted into museums, art studios, and schools. When visitors come to Morris County, they make a point of checking out heritage buildings like Acorn Hall in Morristown, which dates back to 1853.
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