Steven Iveson

Author Archives: Steven Iveson

Small Giants

I’m sure you’ve all come across the phrase “standing on the shoulders of giants”. Whilst it’s easy to remember or glibly repeat, it’s also easy to forget or ignore the serious message being delivered by those words. To me, the meaning is legion; something as close and personal as my parent’s care (well, of one […]

Virtually Artificial

I had the great pleasure of stumbling across the Wool trilogy of books last year. I haven’t been so touched by a book since The Passage – I must have a thing about the end of the world. The story is about a community that lives in a huge pill shaped structure (a silo) almost […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 20 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, automation, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books, is a regular contributor at DevCentral and was an F5 DevCentral MVP for 2014.

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The post Virtually Artificial appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Continue reading

You Decide

I’m lucky, my current client has me working in a so-called DevOps team, in a very progressive business unit within a large, stable enterprise. F5 Load balancers are everywhere and the ‘product’ is internet facing, I’m in my element; this is ‘my thing’. The heavy use of iRules means I get to ‘programme’ quite often […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 20 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, automation, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books, is a regular contributor at DevCentral and was an F5 DevCentral MVP for 2014.

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The post You Decide appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Continue reading

Linux Network Interface Configuration With udev

I’m recently been running down (or is it through) the Linux, systemd, networkd, udevd rabbit hole at full pelt and thought perhaps now was a good time to come up for some air and to share what I’ve learned so far. I could (and have elsewhere) written long essays on why Linux makes an excellent network […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 20 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, automation, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books, is a regular contributor at DevCentral and was an F5 DevCentral MVP for 2014.

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The post Linux Network Interface Configuration With udev appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and Continue reading

The Night Awaits

and after it a new dawn, but as any wise person will tell you, not before the last light of the sun casts long shadows across the landscape. I often wonder at the sequence of events, coincidences, accidents, opportunities and more that led to the formation of the person that is now my wife. The character […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 20 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, automation, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books, is a regular contributor at DevCentral and was an F5 DevCentral MVP for 2014.

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Free Networking Books

It’s hard to believe in our ‘you are the product’ monetized world but there are some really good, high quality, free networking books out there, with absolutely no strings attached (think Ultron). Here’s a quick list of the one’s I know about. Please do let me know about any others you are aware of in […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 20 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, automation, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books, is a regular contributor at DevCentral and was an F5 DevCentral MVP for 2014.

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OpenStack Neutron – The Dirty Network Detail

This post is just a quick response to a comment by Turing Machinæ on Show 227 – OpenStack Neutron Overview with Kyle Mestery, which was “I’ve learnt absolutely NOTHING about openstack from this podcast.” Whilst I don’t agree I have some empathy; time and time again I’ve found myself hitting a brick wall recently when […]

Author information

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 20 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, automation, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books, is a regular contributor at DevCentral and was an F5 DevCentral MVP for 2014.

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The post OpenStack Neutron – The Dirty Network Detail appeared first on Packet Pushers Continue reading

The Attributes of a Great Network Device API

What makes a good API? A device providing an API is only the start of the story; if its unusable, or unreliable its useless. This post is a response to one of a couple of points I made about Kirk Byers’ recent post on Arista’s API and the comments that followed. Much respect to (and admiration for) Arista […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post The Attributes of a Great Network Device API appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

The Linux ip Command – An Ostensive Overview

It came to my attention and I was rather surprised to learn a while back that the Linux ifconfig command has been deprecated for quite some time by the Linux ip command set. The ip command isn’t new to me and I’ve recognised its advantages for some time but considering its ‘elevated’ status I thought […]

Author information

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post The Linux ip Command – An Ostensive Overview appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

Using Puppet to Configure F5 Network’s LTM via SOAP

You’ll like this, and you won’t; and that reflects on how I’ve felt variously about this task/burden. So, I’ve spent three weeks, almost full-time, on the work necessary to use Puppet to configure F5 Networks LTM via SOAP. Not just a few Pools and Virtual Servers; the whole box, from scratch. I knew this would be […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post Using Puppet to Configure F5 Network’s LTM via SOAP appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

Using ssldump to Decode/Decrypt SSL/TLS Packets

Who needs the Wireshark GUI right; let’s do this at the command line and be grown up about things. This is a straight copy of my popular Using Wireshark to Decode/Decrypt SSL/TLS Packets post, only using ssldump to decode/decrypt SSL/TLS packets at the CLI instead of Wireshark. Aside from the obvious advantages, immediacy and efficiency of a CLI tool, ssldump also […]

Author information

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post Using ssldump to Decode/Decrypt SSL/TLS Packets appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

Automating the Cabbage Patch Network Today (2014)

“Sometimes my head is a bit of an idiot” is something my daughter might say and that happens to me too, if that time is today and this article, let me know. If you don’t get the Cabbage Patch reference and its juxtaposition to automation, see here. I’ve tried to avoid sarcasm (and arrogance) but have […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post Automating the Cabbage Patch Network Today (2014) appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

What The Heck Is SPDY?

A10‘s presentation at NFD8 seemed to generate a bit of interest (dare I say excitement) and many a question around the SPDY (pronounced ‘speedy’) protocol. I promised Lindsey Hill (@northlandboy) on Twitter that I’d write a blog post about it and here it is. It took me rather longer to write than I thought and […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post What The Heck Is SPDY? appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

Viewing HTTP Headers Using Browser Developer Tools

I often find myself viewing HTTP headers (request and response) at the ‘client side’, which are  often much quicker (and safer) than decrypting SSL/TLS traffic on a load balancer/ADC. With the use of SSL/TLS growing rapidly even within private networks and the inability to decrypt PFS/DHE protected traffic, this can often be the only way to troubleshoot. The reasons I […]

Author information

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post Viewing HTTP Headers Using Browser Developer Tools appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

A History of Load Balancing

A visual representation of the company and, to a lesser extent, product history of the load balancing/application delivery field. My usual F5 bias is present but it seems justified considering their long-held market leading position. I’ve been itching to post this for a while but simply couldn’t stop changing the formatting. I can’t say I’m […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post A History of Load Balancing appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

The 24 Rules I Work By – Infographic

I came across this infographic from Anna Vital of Funders and Founders and loved it. As relevant as some of it is, there is an obvious focus on running a startup and not working in IT. Because of that I thought it might be useful to do something similar around the ‘rules’ I work by; my workplace and career philosophy […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post The 24 Rules I Work By – Infographic appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

TCP/IP over VXLAN Bandwidth Overheads

A recent ‘conversation’ around VXLAN encapsulation and MTU with Matt Oswalt got me thinking about this subject recently. My calculations were mostly wrong (Matt’s were not) and I also found a shocking amount of incorrect information on the subject out on the ‘net too. So, let’s let the maths do the talking. TL;DR – As […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post TCP/IP over VXLAN Bandwidth Overheads appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

SDN 2014 – Make Our Garden Grow – Part 1

Let dreamers dream what worlds they please Those Edens can’t be found The sweetest flowers The fairest trees Are grown in solid ground We’re neither pure nor wise nor good We’ll do the best we know We’ll build our house and chop our wood And make our garden grow And make our garden grow These […]

Author information

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post SDN 2014 – Make Our Garden Grow – Part 1 appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

Your Weak and Broken Heart

I can make you happy, I can give you everything you dreamed of. You already know that right? I’ve tried to make you understand this again and again; I’ll fall at your feet at a moments notice, but somehow I’m always here in the background,  a shadow. No matter your heart, somehow I’m always put […]

Author information

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post Your Weak and Broken Heart appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

F5 Networks iRule Event Order – HTTPS/SSL – Client & Server Side

As promised, here’s the event order for  HTTPS. I’d be grateful to any F5′ers out there that can pick holes in this, if any. Apologies for the ‘slimming’ of the diagram caused by the WordPress theme. Right click and view in a new tab or save as to see it in all it’s glory. Last […]

Author information

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

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The post F5 Networks iRule Event Order – HTTPS/SSL – Client & Server Side appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Continue reading

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