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I am also a co-host on The NBD Show podcast.
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The End of Google Exchange Active Sync

Google released a blog post titled Winter Cleaning where in they layed out their road map for Exchange Active Sync (EAS), and sorry to say the road is short. Google says "Starting January 30, 2013, consumers won't be able to set up new devices using Google Sync; however, existing Google Sync connections will continue to function." Google does not hint for how long these existing free EAS devices will work, but did state they will continue to support EAS in Google Apps for Business, Government and Education. 

So where do we go from here?  Google has finished their CardDAV sync for contacts, so in association with IMAP for email and calendar they say they can "offers similar access via IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV, making it possible to build a seamless sync experience using open protocols." It's true I have tested their solution and it works just not as seamless as Exchange and with a much more complicated set up process. 

Here are the steps from Google's Sync site for the new set up of an IOS device. Word of warning these procedures may change so follow the link at the top of each config example for the most current Google Sync procedures.

To configure the 'Mail' app on an Apple device for access to Gmail, just follow these steps:
  1. Make sure you've enabled IMAP in your main Gmail settings
  2. Open the Settings app on your device
  3. Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars
  4. Tap Add Account...
  5. Tap Gmail
  6. Enter your account information, being sure to use your full Gmail address, including '@gmail.com'
  7. Tap Next
  8. Tap Save
Contacts via CardDAV:
Here’s how to sync your contacts to your device:
  1. Open the Settings application on your device.
  2. Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
  3. Select Add Account...
  4. Select Other
  5. Select Add CardDAV Account
  6. Fill out your account information in the following fields:
    • Server: Enter "google.com"
    • User Name: Enter your full Google Account or Google Apps email address.
    • Password: Your Google Account or Google Apps password. (If you’ve enabled 2 Step verification, you’ll need to generate and enter an application specific password.)
    • Description: Enter a description of the account (e.g. Personal Contacts).
  7. Select Next at the top of your screen.
  8. Make sure that the "Contacts" option is turned to ON.
Exchange Active Sync has some benefits over the open alternatives.  The first is its speed, emails arriving into the Microsoft Exchange inbox or Google's inbox using EAS are instantly pushed to the device.  Where as IMAP uses a sudo push/short polling mechanism to trigger the action. The second is ease of set up, as you can see above there are quit a few steps to setting up your phone using open standards.  Where as Exchange Active Sync was just one set of credentials and a control screen to select what you wanted synced.

Exchange Active Sync for me has been the killer APP for my iDevices, and I hope Google can make the alternitive as reliable, speedy, and seamless as EAS.
Apple Brining Home Jobs

If you're a fan of apple or it's products you may be curious about Tim Cook.  Here is a link to a great interview with Apple's CEO Tim Cook. It's entertaining to watch Tim speak in the specific generalities that is apple, but he did drop some very interesting tidbits.  



Google sync is as robust as any enterprise solution, and I discovered one more feature that makes it even more impressive. Many of us have multiple family members that share Google calendars, but  until now I didn't know how to sync those calendars to my iPhone and iPad. Now I do!!!

To select which calendars to sync to your Apple device, follow these steps:
  • Sign in with your account and select your device from the list of devices you’ve set up for Google Sync.
  • Once you select your device you can choose from the calendars you have already set up in your Google  calendar to sync.

  • You’ll need to do this setup on each IOS devices that uses Google Sync, to show multiple calendars.
I also found this helpful link that list some of the known issues between Google sync and IOS devices.  Click Here


For everyone who has worked on a Cisco ACE you have experienced the pains of troubleshooting, especially in a long complicated config. Often you are reverse engineering from the policy-map multi-match to the r servers and probes to find all the pieces that make up the service.  We have asked people within Cisco is there a command that will show everything related to a policy-map multi-match class and the answer has always been no, until recently.  A colleague of mine was working with a Cisco TAC engineer via a webex and came across a most useful undocumented command.  Here is what the TAC engineer entered:

 show run filter policy-map multi-match class name 

ex. show run filter L4_SLB_CLASS

This returned most of the associated parts of the service i.e. class-map, load-balance, server-farm, real server etc. Sounds like a dream right? Here is the kicker, I am not sure what platforms are supported.  I know it worked on a 4710 appliance running A3 code, but I have attempted it on an ACE 20 module running A2 code and it didn't work.  So if anyone has any info about this command send me an email and if I find any more documentation I will link it to this post.