Redundancy is essential for dealing with both planned and unplanned outages, and that includes having redundant dynamic host-configuration protocol (DHCP) servers to allow uninterrupted dynamic assignment of IP addresses.For those working in Windows environments, there are currently two options for setting up redundant DHCP servers: a failover scenario with a main server paired with another in hot standby; and a load-balancing scenario in which two DHCP servers actively handle client requests.
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Redundancy is essential for dealing with both planned and unplanned outages, and that includes having redundant dynamic host-configuration protocol (DHCP) servers to allow uninterrupted dynamic assignment of IP addresses.For those working in Windows environments, there are currently two options for setting up redundant DHCP servers: a failover scenario with a main server paired with another in hot standby; and a load-balancing scenario in which two DHCP servers actively handle client requests.
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Redundancy is essential for dealing with both planned and unplanned outages, and that includes having redundant dynamic host-configuration protocol (DHCP) servers to allow uninterrupted dynamic assignment of IP addresses.For those working in Windows environments, there are currently two options for setting up redundant DHCP servers: a failover scenario with a main server paired with another in hot standby; and a load-balancing scenario in which two DHCP servers actively handle client requests.
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Dynamic host-configuration protocol (DHCP) has a lot of benefits, including saving time by assigning IP addresses and other attributes to networked devices rather than IT pros having to do it manually.Sometimes, though, problems arise that eat up time in a different way. This is one such case affecting Cisco Catalyst 6500 and 9600 Layer 3 chassis switches used as distribution switches for our network, with different groups of buildings linked to them.
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At the agency where I work we recently bought software products that required new virtual machines, and that provided the opportunity to review some of the important basices of properly assigning the hardware memory and compute to each VM.That’s important so we stay in a failover-ready state, and in our environment, that means appropriately allocating resources of the two clustered physical hosts that run VMs for our production applications. It’s even more important now because the new software is particularly resource-intensive.What is a virtual machine?
The task also provided the opportunity to review and adjust the resources assigned to all of our existing virtual servers so they, too, were properly sized.To read this article in full, please click here
At the agency where I work we recently bought software products that required new virtual machines, and that provided the opportunity to review some of the important basices of properly assigning the hardware memory and compute to each VM.That’s important so we stay in a failover-ready state, and in our environment, that means appropriately allocating resources of the two clustered physical hosts that run VMs for our production applications. It’s even more important now because the new software is particularly resource-intensive.What is a virtual machine?
The task also provided the opportunity to review and adjust the resources assigned to all of our existing virtual servers so they, too, were properly sized.To read this article in full, please click here
As an IT pro, it’s not often that I get to tail a suspect, track down a stolen vehicle and provide digital evidence of the thief’s getaway. But that was all part of a day’s work as some colleagues and I kept tabs on the hijacked maintenance truck and ultimately recovered it with the help of a GPS-enabled mobile router.It happened last summer, and I was on the job the IT department of the transit authority I work for when word came in that one of our maintenance vehicles was stolen.The worker on the truck left it running when he stepped out of the vehicle to check what needed to be done at a city bus stop, and an opportunistic thief drove off with it—a six-figure heist given the value of the truck plus the maintenance gear it carried.To read this article in full, please click here
At the transportation organization where I work, we employ two Cradlepoint mobile-router models in our vehicles: the industrial IBR-1700 vehicular routers in our 97 buses and eight smaller IBR-900 vehicular routers in maintenance trucks, operations vans, and other multipurpose vans.The reason for these cellular routers in the buses is to provide a WAN connection to systems on the buses including GPS, electronic signage, passenger counters, and fareboxes.How they are networked
These information-gathering systems connect to the primary processing device on the vehicles called the medius box, which is part of our computer-aided dispatch/automatic vehicle location (CAD/AVL) setup. The medius boxes are connected to the Cradlepoint routers, which link over 4G LTE to a server that collects and manages all of the vehicle’s location and onboard media data.To read this article in full, please click here
Virtualization is an essential part of modern IT infrastructure that presents many routine management tasks to sysadmins, among them increasing virtual hard-drive space when necessary. In my line of work, because of expanding log files, scaling for growing processes, and new tasks for existing servers, this is something I do at least once a month.Here’s how to do it in a Microsoft Server Hyper-V hypervisor running Windows Server 2016 using either Hyper-V Manager or Failover Cluster Manager.To read this article in full, please click here
Virtualization is an essential part of modern IT infrastructure that presents many routine management tasks to sysadmins, among them increasing virtual hard-drive space when necessary. In my line of work, because of expanding log files, scaling for growing processes, and new tasks for existing servers, this is something I do at least once a month.Here’s how to do it in a Microsoft Server Hyper-V hypervisor running Windows Server 2016 using either Hyper-V Manager or Failover Cluster Manager.To read this article in full, please click here
Whether in an existing network or a new one, there is an aspect of design that cannot be skipped: deciding if handing out IP addresses will be dynamic (automatic) or manual (one-by-one) or—the most common—a combination of the two.By choosing to distribute them dynamically you are choosing to use a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) service somewhere on your network, and there can be some tricks to that regardless of what server you use. For this discussion, I will describe how to use user classes on a Windows DCHP Server to specify a range of IP addresses and to assign range-specific DHCP options.To read this article in full, please click here
In the IT world, specifically in networking, there aren’t many aspects that are as much of an enigma as subnetting—the act of creating subnetworks.Subnets are logical divisions of an existing network that are defined by both class of IP address and the subnet mask. Often, consultants provide network design services to budding businesses to help establish a network that fits their needs at the time. But as the business grows or its needs change there may come a time when the initial network structure no longer works.IPv6 deployment guide
I’m currently working on a project that fits that description to a tee. The network was conceived by consultants when there were not as many devices and users to accommodate. As the needs of the business grew, it became painfully obvious that a single /24 subnet that accommodates up to 254 hosts wasn’t enough anymore. So I’m building out a new network structure that can accommodate all of the devices we currently have, separated by types of devices, and with room for growth.To read this article in full, please click here
Michael A. Flowers Sr.