Failing to Take Responsibility

If you realize that you failed to contract an item, you should absorb the cost if it is small. No one feels more nickeled and dimed than a person who has hired a consultant, when the consultant says he forgot to add a cable and will be charging another $10 five times. You can absorb small costs into the 10 percent padding I discussed earlier. If it is a large charge, debate notifying the customer. If it is too large to absorb, explain to the customer that you are at fault for not realizing you needed the part, and that you need to add an additional charge. Doing this more than once can be hazardous to your client/consultant relationship—just a helpful hint.

You will leave resentment in the customer’s mind if you try to blame him by telling him he did not tell you he needed a particular component. The customer is not the professional who needed to realize he needed something—you are.

Conclusion

As a consultant, you must remember to manage your time and yourself. You are your own project manager. In fact, not only are you the project manager, you are the employee who is going to do the work. You’ll probably make many mistakes in the beginning—but, I hope, none that can’t be overcome. I’ll leave you with one last quote that I like: “Experience is a tough teacher. You get the test first; then you’re going to learn the lesson.” I am not sure who wrote it, but it sure does make a good point.

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Appendix D: Cisco 1912EN and Catalyst 5000

Configuration Practice Lab

Today Joe Snow, our imaginary consultant, has received a Catalyst 1912EN switch, a Catalyst 5000 with a Supervisor Engine III, and a 24−port 10/100 Ethernet module.

Joe has taken both the switches out of the box and has assembled all the devices into a rack. At present, neither switch is configured; Joe will be configuring both switches for a lab.

Required Equipment

To complete this lab, you will need:

∙One Cisco Catalyst 5000 (Cisco 2926G, 2948G, 2980G, 5002, 5500, 5505, 5509, 6006, 6009, 6506, or 6509 are great Set/Clear command−based IOS substitutes).

∙One Supervisor Engine III Module for the Cisco Catalyst 5000 running IOS version 5.5(2), as shown here in my show version output:

Catalyst5000> (enable) show version

WS−C5000 Software, Version McpSW: 5.5(2) NmpSW: 5.5(2)

Copyright (c) 1995−2000 by Cisco Systems

NMP S/W compiled on Jul 28 2000, 16:43:52

MCP S/W compiled on Jul 28 2000, 16:38:40

System Bootstrap Version: 3.1.2

Hardware Version: 2.0 Model: WS−C5000 Serial #: 011454261

Catalyst5000> (enable)

∙One 24−port 10/100BaseTX module, as shown in the following show module output (you can substitute any 10/00 Ethernet module):

———————————————— ——————————

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——————————————————————————————————————— ———— ——————— ——————————————————

Mod Sub−Type Sub−Model Sub−Serial Sub−Hw

—————————— ————————— —————————— ——————

Catalyst5000> (enable)

∙One Cisco 1912EN using version 9 of the Catalyst IOS, as shown here (1924EN, 2822, or 2828 are great Access layer substitutes with Enterprise Network Edition of the CLI−based IOS):

1912EN#show version

Cisco Catalyst 1900/2820 Enterprise Edition Software Version V9.00.00

Copyright (c) Cisco Systems, Inc. 1993−1999

1912EN uptime is 9day(s) 10hour(s) 26minute(s) 36second(s)

Cisco Catalyst 1900 (486sxl) processor with 2048K/1024K bytes of memory Hardware board revision is 5

Upgrade Status: No upgrade currently in progress.

Config File Status: No configuration upload/download is in progress 15 Fixed Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)

Base Ethernet Address: 00−30−80−54−6C−00

∙One Cisco 2600 router. (Any Cisco router from the 2600 series through the 7000 series will work fine as a substitute as long as it has at least two 10/100 Ethernet ports. A 10Mbps attachment unit interface [AUI] port will not work, because Inter−Switch Link [ISL] needs to use a 100BaseTX port for optimum trunking support.)

Note For this lab, the Cisco 2620 series router has been previously configured with its basic configuration.

∙Two Ethernet crossover cables to run between devices.

∙One console cable and connector.

Lab Objectives

During this lab, you will complete the following tasks:

∙Configure the basic switch configuration on the Cisco 1912EN. Configure the basic passwords, the hostname, and IP information. Set up three VLANs: VLAN 2, named CAD; VLAN 3, named Graphics; and VLAN 4, named DocProduction.

∙Configure the basic switch configuration on the Cisco Catalyst 5000. Configure the basic passwords, the hostname, and IP information.

∙Enable trunking on port f0/27 on the 1912EN to trunk to port 2/2 on the Cisco Catalyst 5000 using Dynamic ISL (DISL) on the 1912EN side and ISL on the Catalyst 5000 side.

∙Create a trunk port on the Catalyst 5000 port 2/24 to the Fast Ethernet 0/2 interface on the 2600 router using ISL.

∙Enable a VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) domain named Coriolis. Make the 1912EN a VTP server and the Catalyst 5000 a client in order to propagate the 1912EN’s VLAN configuration.

The diagram shown in Figure D.1 illustrates the configuration.

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