Cleaning Out The Cruft

I spent the weekend doing something I really should have done a long time ago. I went through my piles of technology that I was going to get around to using one day and finally got rid of anything I didn’t recognize. Old access points, old networking gear, and even older widgets that went to devices that I don’t even remember owning.

Do you have one of these piles? Boxes? Corners of your office or cave? The odds are good there’s a pile of stuff that you keep thinking you’re eventually going to get around to doing something with some day. Except some day hasn’t come yet. So maybe it’s time to get rid of that pile. Trust me you’re going to feel better for getting rid of that stuff.

What to do with it? It needs to be properly recycled so don’t just toss it in the trash can. Anything with electric circuits needs to be properly disposed of so look for an electronics recycling facility. Yes, there are stories that electronics recycling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be but it’s better than polluting with e-waste everywhere.

Consider donating the devices to a trade school or other maker Continue reading

Hedgehog – The Network OS Distro?

You’ve probably seen by now that there’s a new entrant into the market for network operating systems. Hedgehog came out of stealth mode this week to fanfare from the networking community. If you read through the website you might question why I labeled them as a network operating system. While they aren’t technically the OS I think it’s more important to look at them as an OS distribution.

Cacophony of Choice

Hedgehog starts from a very simple premise. Cloud networking is where we’re all headed. Whether or not you’re running entirely on-premises, fully in the public cloud, or in some kind of super-multi-hybrid cloud offering you’re all chasing the same thing. You want a stable system that acts as a force multiplier for your operations teams to reduce deployment times for users to get their builds done. It’s been said before but the idea of cloud is to get IT out of the way of the business.

Streamlining processes means automating a lot of the things that were formerly done by people. That means building repeatable and consistent tools to make that happen. If anyone has ever worked on AWS or Google Cloud you have lots of access to that Continue reading

Why Do We Accept Bad Wireless Clients?

We recorded a fun roundtable discussion last week during Mobility Field Day that talked about the challenges that wireless architects face in their daily lives. It’s about an hour but it’s packed with great discussions about hard things we deal with:

One of the surprises for me is that all the conversations came back to how terrible wireless clients can be. The discussion kept coming back to how hard it is to find quality clients and how we adjust our expectations for the bad ones.

Driven to Madness

Did you know that 70% of Windows crashes are caused by third-party drivers? That’s Microsoft’s own research saying it. That doesn’t mean that Windows is any better or more stable with their OS design compared to Linux or MacOS. However, I’ve fiddled with drivers on Linux and I can tell you how horrible that experience can be¹. Windows is quite tolerant of hardware that wouldn’t work anywhere else. As long as the manufacturer provides a driver you’re going to get something that works most of the time.

Apply that logic to a wireless networking card. You can buy just about anything and install it on your system and it will mostly Continue reading

Monday Mobility Quick Thoughts

I’m getting ready for Mobility Field Day 8 later this week and there’s been a lot of effort making sure we’re ready to go. That means I’ve spent lots of time thinking about event planning instead of writing. So I wanted to share some quick thoughts with you ahead of this week as well as WLPC Europe next week.

• I remain convinced than half of the objections that are raised by oversight organizations when it comes to adopting new technology come from the fact they got caught flat-footed and weren’t ready for it to be popular. Whether it’s the Wi-Fi 6E safety issue or the report earlier this year from the FAA about 5G and airports it just seems like organizations spend less time doing actual investigation and more time writing press releases about how they are ready to figure it all out yet.
• I also remain cautiously optimistic that the new Apple devices rumored to be coming out later this year, namely the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro with M2 chips, will have Wi-Fi 6E support. Yes, the iPhone didn’t. It’s also a smaller device with less room to add new hardware. The iPad and MacBook have historically gotten Continue reading

Intelligence and Wisdom

I spent the last week at the Philmont Leadership Challenge in beautiful Cimarron, NM. I had the chance to learn a bit more about servant leadership and work on my outdoor skills a little. I also had some time to reflect on an interesting question posed to me by one of the members of my crew.

He asked me, “You seem wise. How did you get so wise?” This caught me flat-flooted for a moment because I’d never really considered myself to be a very wise person. Experienced perhaps but not wise like Yoda or Gandalf. So I answered him as I thought more about it.

Intelligence is knowing what to do. Wisdom is knowing what not to do.

The more I thought about that quote the more I realized the importance of the distinction.

Basic Botany

There’s another saying that people tweeted back at me when I shared the above quote. It’s used in the context of describing Intelligence and Wisdom for Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying:

Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting tomatoes in a fruit salad.

It’s silly and funny but it gets right to the point and is a Continue reading

Redundancy Is Not Resiliency

Most people carry a spare tire in their car. It’s there in case you get a flat and need to change the tire before you can be on your way again. In my old VAR job I drove a lot away from home and to the middle of nowhere so I didn’t want to rely on roadside assistance. Instead I just grabbed the extra tire out of the back if I needed it and went on my way. However, the process wasn’t entirely hitless. Even the pit crew for a racing team needs time to change tires. I could probably get it done in 20 minutes with appropriate cursing but those were 20 minutes that I wasn’t doing anything else beyond fixing a tire.

Spare tires are redundant. You have an extra thing to replace something that isn’t working. IT operations teams are familiar with redundant systems. Maybe you have a cold spare on the shelf for a switch that might go down. You might have a cold or warm data center location for a disaster. You could even have redundant devices in your enterprise to help you get back in to your equipment if something causes it to go Continue reading

Brand Protection

I woke up at 5am this morning to order a new iPhone. I did this because I wanted the new camera upgrades along with some other nice-to-haves. Why did I get an iPhone and not a new Samsung? Why didn’t I look at any of the other phones on the market? It’s because I am a loyal Apple customer at this point. Does that mean I think the iPhone is perfect? Far from it! But I will choose it in spite of the flaws because I know it has room to be better.

That whole story is repeated time and again in technology. People find themselves drawn to particular companies or brands. They pick a new phone or computer or car based on their familiarity with the way they work or the design choices that are made. But does that mean they have to be loyal to that company no matter what?

Agree to Disagree

One of the things that I feel is absolutely paramount to being a trusted advisor in the technology space is the ability to be critical of a product or brand. If you look at a lot of the ambassador or influencer program agreements you’ll see Continue reading

When Were You Last a Beginner?

In a couple of weeks I’m taking the opportunity to broaden my leadership horizons by attending the BSA leadership course known as Philmont Leadership Challenge. It’s a course that builds on a lot of the things that I’ve been learning and teaching for the past five years. It’s designed to be a sort of capstone for servant leadership and learning how to inspire others. I’m excited to be a part of it in large part because I get to participate for a change.

Being a member of the staff for my local council Wood Badge courses has given me a great opportunity to learn the material inside and out. I love being able to teach and see others grow into leaders. It’s also inspired me to share some of those lessons here to help others in the IT community that might not have the chance to attend a course like that. However the past 3 years have also shown me the value of being a beginner at something from time to time.

Square One

Everyone is new at something. No one is born knowing every piece of information they’ll need to know for their entire lives. We learn language and Continue reading

Certification Comfort Food

I’m a big fan of comfort food. Maybe more than I should be. The idea of something simple and tasty just hits the right spot a lot of time, especially when I’m stressed or don’t have time to do something more involved. I know I really need to be better about cooking but you can’t beat a quick meal that uses something simple and gets the job done, right?

Now, before you ask yourself what I’m on about this week, I want you to think about that analogy in terms of certifications and learning. When we’re starting out in the industry or we’re learning a new skill we have to pick up basic ideas. The more advanced or radical the technology the more we need the kinds of explanations that make the concepts simple to understand. We need the equivalent of learning comfort food. Simple, digestible, and easy to prepare.

Climbing the Ladder

As our skills improve we have the choice to continue on and develop our capabilities to greater depths. Perhaps we want to learn everything there is to know about BGP and policies. We could even parlay that networking knowledge into new adjacencies that build on our skill Continue reading

The Puzzle of Peering with Kentik

If you’ve worked at an ISP or even just closely with them you’ve probably hearing the term peering quite a bit. Peering is essentially a reciprocal agreement to provide access to networks between two providers. Provider A agrees to allow Provider B to send traffic over and through their network in exchange for the same access in the other direction. Sounds easy, right? On a technical level it is pretty easy. You simply set up a BGP session with the partner provider and make sure all the settings match and you’ve got things rolling.

The technical part isn’t usually where peering gets complicated. Instead it’s almost always related to the business side of things. The policy and negations that have to happen for a good peering agreement take way more time that hammering out some BGP configuration stanzas. The amount of traffic to be sent, the latency requirements, and even the cost of the agreement are all things that have to be figured out before the first hello packet can be exchanged. This agreement is always up for negotiation too, since the traffic patterns can change before you realize it and put you at a disadvantage.

Peerless Data Collection

If Continue reading

Authority and Responsibility

Congratulations on your promotion! You’re now a manager or leader for your team. You now have to make sure everyone is getting their things done. That also means lots of reports and meetings with your manager about what’s happening and all the new rules that have to be followed in the future. Doesn’t this all sound nice?

In truth we all want to be able to help out as much as possible. Sometimes that means putting in extra work. For many it also means being promoted to a position of responsibility in a company leading a team or group of teams. That means you will have some new responsibilities and also some new authority. But what’s the difference? And why is one more foundational than the other?

Respect My Authority

Authority is “power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior”. It means you have the ability to tell people what to do. You give orders and they are followed. You tell your team the direction that you want things to go and it happens. If it doesn’t there are consequences. When you tell someone they are the boss this is what they usually picture.

Responsibility is “the quality of Continue reading

Why 2023 is the Year of Wi-Fi 6E

If you’re like me, you chuckle every time someone tells you that next year is the year of whatever technology is going to be hot. Don’t believe me? Which year was the Year of VDI again? I know that writing the title of this post probably made you shake your head in amusement but I truly believe that we’ve hit the point of adoption of Wi-Fi 6E next year.

Device Support Blooms

There are rumors that the new iPhone 14 will adopt Wi-Fi 6E. There were the same rumors when the iPhone 13 was coming out and the iPhone rumor mill is always a mixed bag but I think we’re on track this time. Part of the reason for that is the advancements made in Wi-Fi 6 Release 2. The power management features for 6ER2 are something that should appeal to mobile device users, even if the name is confusing as can be.

Mobile phones don’t make a market. If they were the only driver for wireless adoption the Samsung handsets would have everyone on 6E by now. Instead, it’s the ecosystem. Apple putting a 6E radio in the iPhone wouldn’t be enough to tip the scales. It would take Continue reading

Enforcing SLAs with Real Data

I’m sure by now you’ve probably seen tons of articles telling you about how important it is to travel with location devices in your luggage. The most common one I’ve seen is the Apple AirTag. The logic goes that if you have one in your checked suitcase that you’ll know if there are any issues with your luggage getting lost right away because you’ll be notified as soon as you’re separated from it. The advice is sound if you’re someone that checks your bag frequently or has it lost on a regular basis.

The idea behind using technology to enforce an agreement is a great one. We make these agreements all the time, especially in networking. These service level agreements (SLAs) are the way we know we’re getting what we pay for. Take a leased line, for example. You typically pay for a certain speed and a certain amount of availability. The faster the link or the more available it is the more it costs. Any good consumer is going to want to be sure they’re paying for the right service. How can you verify you’re getting what you’re paying for?

For a long time this was very hard to Continue reading

All Problems Are Hardware Problems

When I was a lad in high school I worked for Walmart. I learned quite a bit about retail at my early age but one of the fascinating things I used in the late 1990s was a wireless inventory unit, colloquially known as a Telxon. I was amazed by the ability to get inventory numbers on a device without a cable. Since this was prior to the adoption of IEEE 802.11 it was a proprietary device that only worked with that system.

Flash forward to the 2020s. I went to Walmart the other day to look for an item and I couldn’t find it. I asked one of the associates if it was in stock. They said they could check and pulled out their phone. To my surprise they were able to launch an app and see that it was in stock in the back. As I waited for them to return with the item I thought about how 25 years of progress had changed that hardware solution into something software focused.

Hardware Genesis

All problems start as hardware problems. If there’s a solution to an issue you’re going to build something first. Need to get somewhere fast? Trains Continue reading

Friday Mobility Field Day Thoughts

I’m finishing up Mobility Field Day 7 this week and there’s been some exciting discussion here around a lot of technology. I think my favorite, and something I’m going to talk about more, is the continuing battle between 5G and Wi-Fi. However, there’s a lot going on that I figured I’d bring up to whet your appetite for the videos.

• What is mission critical? When you think about all the devices that are in your organization that absolutely must work every time what does that look like? And what are you prepared to do to make them work every time? If it’s a safety switch or some other kind of thing that prevents loss of life are you prepared to spend huge amounts of money to make it never fail?
• Operations teams don’t need easier systems. They need systems that remove complexity. The difference in those two things is subtle but important. Easier means that things are simplified to the point of almost being unusable. Think Apple Airport or even some Meraki devices. Whereas reduced complexity means that you’ve made the up front configuration easy but enabled the ability to configure other features in different places. Maybe that’s by giving Continue reading

Getting Tough with Cyberinsurance

I’ve been hearing a lot of claims recently about how companies are starting to rely more and more on cyberinsurance policies to cover them in the event of a breach or other form of disaster. While I’m a fan of insurance policies in general I think the companies trying to rely on these payouts to avoid doing any real security work is going to be a big surprise to them in the future.

Due Diligence

The first issue that I see is that companies are so worried about getting breached that they think taking out big insurance policies are the key to avoiding any big liability. Think about an organization that holds personally identifiable information (PII) and how likely it is that they would get sued in the event of a breach. The idea is that cyberinsurance would pay out for the breach and be used as a way to pay off the damages in a lawsuit.

The issue I have with this is that companies are expecting to get paid. They see cyberinsurance as a guaranteed payout instead of a last resort. In the initial days of taking out these big policies the insurers were happy to pay out Continue reading

Saying “Yes” the Right Way

If only I had known how hard it was to say “no” to someone. Based on the response that my post about declining things had gotten I’d say there are a lot of opinions on the subject. Some of them were positive and talked about how hard it is to decline things. Others told me I was stupid because you can’t say no to your boss. I did, however, get a direct message from Paul Lampron (@Networkified) that said I should have a follow up post about saying yes in a responsible manner.

Positively Perfect

The first thing you have to understand about the act of asking something is that we’re not all wired the same way when it comes to saying yes. I realize that article is over a decade old at this point but the ideas in it remain valid, as does this similar one from the Guardian. Depending on your personality or how you were raised you may not have the outcome you were expecting when you ask.

Let me give you a quick personal example. I was raised with a southern style mentality that involves not just coming out and asking for something. You Continue reading

The Silver Lining of Cisco Live

Cisco Live 2022 Attendees by the big sign

Cisco Live was last week and it was an event full of both relief and worry. Having not seen any of my friends and colleagues during the Geek Summer Camp for since 2019 I was excitedly anticipating how things would go this year. While I was thrilled to see everyone in real life again there were also challenges that presented themselves by the end of the event that we need to discuss as well.

I could spend volumes detailing every little thing that went on but no one really wants to read that kind of discussion. I’ll just summarize some the stuff that I liked, some of it that I didn’t, and some bigger things that everyone needs to think about.

What Worked for Me

I was happy to once more be a part of the CCIE Advisory Council. We have been meeting via Webex for the entire pandemic but there’s just something about being in a room together that fosters conversation and sharing. The ideas that we discussed are going to have a positive impact on the program as we look at what the future of certifications will be. There’s a Continue reading

Practice Until You Can’t Get It Wrong

One of the things that I spend a lot of my time doing it teaching and training. Not the deeply technical stuff like any one of training programs out there or even the legion of folks that are doing entry-level education on sites like Youtube. Instead, I spend a lot of my time bringing new technologies to the fore and discussing how they impact everyone. I also spend a lot of time with youth and teaching them skills.

One of the things that I’ve learned over the years is that it’s important to not only learn something but to reinforce it as well. How much we practice is just as important as how we learn. We’re all a little guilty of doing things just enough to be proficient without truly mastering a skill.

Hours of Fun

You may have heard of the rule proposed by Malcolm Gladwell that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. There’s been a lot of research debunking this “rule of thumb”. In fact it turns out that the way you practice and your predisposition to how you learn has a lot do to with the process as well.

When I’m teaching youth, Continue reading

Friday Thoughts Pre-Cisco Live

It’s weird to think that I’m headed out to Cisco Live for the first time since 2019. The in-person parts of Cisco Live have been sorely missed during the pandemic. I know it was necessary all around but I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed being around others and learning from the community until I wasn’t able to do it for an extended period of time.

Now we’re back in Las Vegas and ready to take part in something that has been missed. I’ve got a busy lineup of meetings with the CCIE Advisory Council and Tech Field Day Extra but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try and have a little fun along the way. And yes, before you ask, I’m going to get the airbrush tattoo again if they brought the artist back. It’s a tradition as old as my CCIE at this point.

What else am I interested in?

• I’m curious to see how Cisco responds to their last disappointing quarter. Are they going to tell us that it was supply chain? Are they going to double down on the software transition? And how much of the purchasing that happened was pull through? Does that mean Continue reading