I had tons of plans to implement new netlab features during the last week of December, but then (fortunately) reality intervened and I spent my time relaxing and enjoying the break. I still managed to add IOS XRv support to netlab release 1.4.3 though ;). Other new features include:
ipTo upgrade, execute pip3 install --upgrade networklab.
New to netlab? Start with the Getting Started document and the installation guide.
In 2018 I tried to figure out whether the rush to deploy new routing protocols in leaf-and-spine fabrics is anything more than another blob of hype (RIFT, OpenFabric, BGP), considering OSPF got the job done for AWS. Those discussions probably sounded like a bunch of smart kids trying to measure outside temperature with a moist finger, so the only recommendation I could give in 2021 was “use the best tool for the job, keeping in mind you’re not Google or Microsoft”
It’s always better to measure than to have opinions, and a group of academics did just that. They developed Sybil – a tool to measure routing protocol performance in leaf-and-spine fabrics – and Dip Singh used it to compare BGP to IS-IS and OpenFabric.
In 2018 I tried to figure out whether the rush to deploy new routing protocols in leaf-and-spine fabrics is anything more than another blob of hype (RIFT, OpenFabric, BGP), considering OSPF got the job done for AWS. Those discussions probably sounded like a bunch of smart kids trying to measure outside temperature with a moist finger, so the only recommendation I could give in 2021 was “use the best tool for the job, keeping in mind you’re not Google or Microsoft”
It’s always better to measure than to have opinions, and a group of academics did just that. They developed Sybil – a tool to measure routing protocol performance in leaf-and-spine fabrics – and Dip Singh used it to compare BGP to IS-IS and OpenFabric.
Gerben Wierda published an interesting article documenting how overhyped technologies eventually wither due to lack of realistic use cases.
He’s writing about blockchain, but it would be relatively trivial to replace that with OpenFlow – when was the last time you’ve seen something implemented with OpenFlow that wouldn’t be easier to do with traditional tools?
Gerben Wierda published an interesting article documenting how overhyped technologies eventually wither due to lack of realistic use cases.
He’s writing about blockchain, but it would be relatively trivial to replace that with OpenFlow – when was the last time you’ve seen something implemented with OpenFlow that wouldn’t be easier to do with traditional tools?
In November 2022 I described some of the intricacies of using EVPN to implement MLAG control plane. You might have noticed that I didn’t dive deep into EVPN details, and I had a good reason for that – Lukas Krattiger did a wonderful job describing how MLAG works with EVPN in the EVPN Deep Dive webinar.
In November 2022 I described some of the intricacies of using EVPN to implement MLAG control plane. You might have noticed that I didn’t dive deep into EVPN details, and I had a good reason for that – Lukas Krattiger did a wonderful job describing how MLAG works with EVPN in the EVPN Deep Dive webinar.
One of my readers successfully deployed LDPv6 in their production network:
We are using LDPv6 since we started using MPLS with IPv6 because I was used to OSPF/OSPFv3 in dual-stack deployments, and it simply worked.
Not everyone seems to be sharing his enthusiasm:
Now some consultants tell me that they know no-one else that is using LDPv6. According to them “everyone” is using 6PE and the future of LDPv6 is not certain.
One of my readers successfully deployed LDPv6 in their production network:
We are using LDPv6 since we started using MPLS with IPv6 because I was used to OSPF/OSPFv3 in dual-stack deployments, and it simply worked.
Not everyone seems to be sharing his enthusiasm:
Now some consultants tell me that they know no-one else that is using LDPv6. According to them “everyone” is using 6PE and the future of LDPv6 is not certain.
It didn’t make sense to update Amazon Web Services Networking webinar before the re:Invent conference – even though AWS introduced only a few networking features during the conference, at least one of them made a significant impact on the materials.
However, once the conference was over, I went over the to-do list that has been slowly accumulating for months and spent days updating over a dozen videos1. The major changes include:
It didn’t make sense to update Amazon Web Services Networking webinar before the re:Invent conference – even though AWS introduced only a few networking features during the conference, at least one of them made a significant impact on the materials.
However, once the conference was over, I went over the to-do list that has been slowly accumulating for months and spent days updating over a dozen videos1. The major changes include:
One of my readers asked for my opinion about the provocative “It’s Time to Replace TCP in the Datacenter” article by prof. John Ousterhout. I started reading it, found too many things that didn’t make sense, and decided to ignore it as another attempt of a proverbial physicist solving hard problems in someone else’s field.
However, pointers to that article kept popping up, and I eventually realized it was a position paper in a long-term process that included conference talks, interviews and keynote speeches, so I decided to take another look at the technical details.
One of my readers asked for my opinion about the provocative “It’s Time to Replace TCP in the Datacenter” article by prof. John Ousterhout. I started reading it, found too many things that didn’t make sense, and decided to ignore it as another attempt of a proverbial physicist solving hard problems in someone else’s field.
However, pointers to that article kept popping up, and I eventually realized it was a position paper in a long-term process that included conference talks, interviews and keynote speeches, so I decided to take another look at the technical details.
One of the last things I did before going on the Christmas break was to push out netlab release 1.4.2. Its highlights include:
Upgrading is as easy as ever: execute pip3 install --upgrade networklab.
New to netlab? Start with the Getting Started document and the installation guide.
One of the last things I did before going on the Christmas break was to push out netlab release 1.4.2. Its highlights include:
Upgrading is as easy as ever: execute pip3 install --upgrade networklab.
New to netlab? Start with the Getting Started document and the installation guide.
Two hundred forty blog posts and sixteen webinar sessions later, it’s time for yet another “year gone by” blog post – I’m shutting down my virtual office and will disappear until mid-January. I’ll read my email should someone experience an urgent support problem but won’t reply to 90% of the other stuff coming in.
I hope you’ll find a few days to disconnect from the crazy pace of the networking world, forget all the marketing shenanigans you encountered in 2022, and focus on your loved ones. I would also like to wish you all the best in 2023!
Finally, I couldn’t resist posting a few teasers of what’s coming in early 20231:
Two hundred forty blog posts and sixteen webinar sessions later, it’s time for yet another “year gone by” blog post – I’m shutting down my virtual office and will disappear until mid-January. I’ll read my email should someone experience an urgent support problem but won’t reply to 90% of the other stuff coming in.
I hope you’ll find a few days to disconnect from the crazy pace of the networking world, forget all the marketing shenanigans you encountered in 2022, and focus on your loved ones. I would also like to wish you all the best in 2023!
Finally, I couldn’t resist posting a few teasers of what’s coming in early 20231:
One of the most exciting announcements from the last AWS re:Invent was the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) Express functionality that uses the Scalable Reliable Datagram (SRD) protocol as the transport protocol for the overlay virtual networks. AWS claims ENA Express can push 25 Gbps over a single TCP flow and that SRD improves the tail latency (99.9 percentile) for high-throughput workloads by 85%.
Ignoring the “DPUs could change the network forever” blogosphere reactions (hint: they won’t), let’s see what could be happening behind the scenes and why SRD improves TCP throughput and tail latency.
One of the most exciting announcements from the last AWS re:Invent was the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) Express functionality that uses the Scalable Reliable Datagram (SRD) protocol as the transport protocol for the overlay virtual networks. AWS claims ENA Express can push 25 Gbps over a single TCP flow and that SRD improves the tail latency (99.9 percentile) for high-throughput workloads by 85%.
Ignoring the “DPUs could change the network forever” blogosphere reactions (hint: they won’t), let’s see what could be happening behind the scenes and why SRD improves TCP throughput and tail latency.
The hype generated by the “VMware supports DPU offload” announcement already resulted in fascinating misunderstandings. Here’s what I got from a System Architect:
We are dealing with an interesting scenario where a customer had limited data center space, but applications demand more resources. We are evaluating whether we could offload ESXi processing to DPUs (Pensando) to use existing servers as bare-metal servers. Would it be a use case for DPU?
First of all, congratulations to whichever vendor marketer managed to put that guy in that state of mind. Well done, sir, well done. Now for a dose of reality.