In this blog, I will cover the different ways in which Openstack can create and manage Docker Containers. The 3 predominant approaches are using Nova Docker driver, Heat Docker plugin and Magnum. Magnum is pretty new and is under development. Openstack is opensource cloud orchestration software and Docker is opensource container management software. For this … Continue reading Openstack and Docker – Part 1→
This is a continuation of my previous 2 blogs on Docker machine, Swarm. In this blog, I will cover Docker Compose and how Docker Machine, Swarm and Compose can work with each other. The interworking part is actively being developed by Docker team and is still at the preliminary stages. Docker Compose: Docker Compose comes from … Continue reading Docker Compose and Docker Machine, Swarm, Compose Interworking→
This is a continuation of my previous blog on Docker machine. In this blog, I will cover Docker Swarm. Swarm manages a set of Docker nodes as a single cluster. This has the following advantages: Rather than managing individual Docker nodes, the cluster can be managed as a single entity. Swarm has an in-built scheduler … Continue reading Docker Swarm→
As part of Docker Orchestration, Docker has released 3 new tools Machine, Swarm, Compose. In the last few weeks, I was playing with these tools and I will share my experiences in this blog. I will start with Docker machine in this blog and I will cover Swarm, Compose in the next set of blogs. Only … Continue reading Docker Machine→
I had written blogs earlier on using Virtualbox and VMWare Player. I recently had a need to connect VMs running on Virtualbox and VMWare player. This is for my Windows laptop. I found the procedure mentioned in this link to be very useful. There are 2 options. Use bridged mechanism. Create a networking interface with … Continue reading Connecting VMs between Virtualbox and VMWare Player→
In my earlier blogs, I had covered basics of Netconf and Yang and how to use Netconf to configure Cisco devices. Recently, I came across this Python ncclient library that simplifies the configuration/monitoring of Networking devices that supports Netconf. Using ncclient library, we can programmatically configure and monitor devices using Netconf. I also found out that … Continue reading Netconf Python ncclient→
In this blog, I will cover the steps that I did to connect Cisco NXOS VIRL switch instance to Arista vEoS switch instance. We can connect any Cisco switch simulated in VIRL, I just picked the NXOS switch type. CML/VIRL supports majority of Cisco switches as VM as well as few external switches from Juniper, … Continue reading Connecting NXOS VIRL instance to Arista vEoS→
In this blog, I will cover the steps to get NXAPI working with NXOS image in VIRL. For more details on CML/VIRL, please refer to my earlier blog series. Running NXAPI with VIRL image makes it easy to write automation scripts without needing a physical switch. Earlier, I had installed VIRL February release(0.9.17) which included … Continue reading Cisco NXAPI with VIRL→
This is a continuation of my previous blog on Arista Eapi. Ansible provides a recipe driven approach to manage servers/switches, I have covered Ansible in some of my previous blogs. In this blog, I will cover the following: Ansible modules for Arista device Ansible galaxy eos role for Arista device There are 2 approaches to … Continue reading Ansible for Arista EoS→
I had covered basics of Arista EoS and vEoS in my previous blog. Arista’s Eapi gives programmatic approach to manage Arista devices. Arista’s Pyeapi Python library is built on top of Eapi. In this blog, I will cover the following: Eapi Pyeapi library I have used Arista vEoS for trying out all examples below without … Continue reading Arista Eapi and pyeapi→
I had heard some good things about Arista EoS(Extensible Operating System). I have never used Arista switches before. I did some reading on Arista EoS and I also tried their VEoS which is their Virtual machine offering for running Arista switch as VM. In this blog, I will share some of my experiences. EoS Overview: … Continue reading Arista EoS and vEoS→
Every Network engineer would have used Ixia or Spirent for traffic generation. These are generally expensive. For majority of use cases, we need a simple protocol packet generator which can generate packet streams of various protocol types. The recent trend is to move traffic generation application into a VM formfactor. This is more suitable for virtual … Continue reading Ostinato Traffic generator→
Earlier, I had written a blog on tools that I used with Opendaylight. In that blog, I covered Mininet, dpctl, packeth, Wireshark, Postman. I covered traffic generation tool Ostanito in another blog. There are few other miscellaneous networking tools that I use and I am planning to cover them in this blog. I will try … Continue reading Networking Debug tools→
Cisco acquired Meraki at the end of 2012. I have heard a lot about Meraki and I recently tried to dig deep into what they do. This blog is a result of that. What does Meraki do? Meraki does cloud managed access devices for the edge market. Their primary focus is small/medium enterprises. Meraki now has … Continue reading Cisco Meraki→
Earlier, I had written about Cisco NXOS device configuration/monitoring using Python and OnePK. Recently, I came across NXAPI approach to configure and monitor NXOS devices. NXAPI uses either http/https to connect to NXOS devices and talk using NXOS CLI. For configuration, CLI is encoded in XML/JSON. For monitoring, CLI is encoded in XML/JSON and the … Continue reading Cisco NXAPI→
Cisco recently acquired Embrane. I tried to dig deep to answer some questions I had and this blog is a result of that. What does Embrane do? Embrane provides L3-L7 Network services and lifecycle management of L3-L7 Network services. Embrane has their own version of Firewall, Load balancers etc and they also partner with vendors … Continue reading Embrane – What do they do?→
Earlier, I had written a blog on Cisco UCS automation using Python SDK. At that time, I used real UCS system to test my scripts. Cisco UCS PE(Platform Emulator) emulates UCSM(UCS Manager) software and we can run this as a VM. Different types of hardware(Fabric Interconnect, FEX/IOM, Servers, adapters, power supply) can be added to … Continue reading Cisco UCS Platform Emulator→
This is a continuation of my VIRL, CML blog series. VIRL/CML overview is covered here. In this blog, I will cover L2 connectivity usecase. L3 support has been present in VIRL for quite some time, L2 support was added recently in VIRL. I used the IOSvL2 experimental image for this usecase. Official L2 image is … Continue reading VIRL and CML- L2 connectivity Usecase→
This is a continuation of my VIRL, CML blog series. VIRL/CML overview is covered here. It will be good to connect VIRL, CML networks to outside world. Following are some use cases. If management interface of VIRL routers are accessible from outside machines, we can run management application in the client machine and connect directly … Continue reading Connecting VIRL, CML networks to outside world→
This is a continuation of my VIRL, CML blog series. VIRL/CML overview is covered here. Here, we will create a L3 IGP network running OSPF. I have used IOS nodes for all routers, we can use XR and NXOS routers as well. I didnt do it because the VM images are bigger for XR and … Continue reading VIRL Simulation – L3 connectivity Usecase→