Beware of Vendors Bringing White Papers

A few weeks ago I wrote about tradeoffs vendors have to make when designing data center switching ASICs, followed by another blog post discussing how to select the ASICs for various roles in data center fabrics.

You REALLY SHOULD read the two blog posts before moving on; here’s the buffer-related TL&DR for those of you ignoring my advice ;)

When You Find Yourself on Mount Stupid

The early October 2021 Facebook outage generated a predictable phenomenon – couch epidemiologists became experts in little-known Bridging the Gap Protocol (BGP), including its Introvert and Extrovert variants. Unfortunately, I also witnessed several unexpected trips to Mount Stupid by people who should have known better.

To set the record straight: everyone’s been there, and the more vocal you tend to be on social media (including mailing lists), the more probable it is that you’ll take a wrong turn and end there. What matters is how gracefully you descend and what you’ve learned on the way back.

When You Find Yourself on Mount Stupid

The early October 2021 Facebook outage generated a predictable phenomenon – couch epidemiologists became experts in little-known Bridging the Gap Protocol (BGP), including its Introvert and Extrovert variants. Unfortunately, I also witnessed several unexpected trips to Mount Stupid by people who should have known better.

To set the record straight: everyone’s been there, and the more vocal you tend to be on social media (including mailing lists), the more probable it is that you’ll take a wrong turn and end there. What matters is how gracefully you descend and what you’ve learned on the way back.

netsim-tools: Combining VLANs with VRFs

Last two weeks we focused on access VLANs and VLAN trunk implementation in netsim-tools. Can we combine them with VRFs? Of course.

The trick is very simple: attributes within a VLAN definition become attributes of VLAN interfaces. Add vrf attribute to a VLAN and you get all VLAN interfaces created for that VLAN in the corresponding VRF. Can’t get any easier, can it?

How about extending our VLAN trunk lab topology with VRFs? We’ll put red VLAN in red VRF and blue VLAN in blue VRF.

netlab: Combining VLANs with VRFs

Last two weeks we focused on access VLANs and VLAN trunk netlab implementation. Can we combine them with VRFs? Of course.

The trick is very simple: attributes within a VLAN definition become attributes of VLAN interfaces. Add vrf attribute to a VLAN and you get all VLAN interfaces created for that VLAN in the corresponding VRF. Can’t get any easier, can it?

How about extending our VLAN trunk lab topology with VRFs? We’ll put red VLAN in red VRF and blue VLAN in blue VRF.

Video: Rogue IPv6 RA Challenges

IPv6 security-focused presentations were usually an awesome opportunity to lean back and enjoy another round of whack-a-mole, often starting with an attacker using IPv6 Router Advertisements to divert traffic (see also: getting bored at Brussels airport) .

Rogue IPv6 RA challenges and the corresponding countermeasures are thus a mandatory part of any IPv6 security training, and Christopher Werny did a great job describing them in IPv6 security webinar.

Video: Rogue IPv6 RA Challenges

IPv6 security-focused presentations were usually an awesome opportunity to lean back and enjoy another round of whack-a-mole, often starting with an attacker using IPv6 Router Advertisements to divert traffic (see also: getting bored at Brussels airport) .

Rogue IPv6 RA challenges and the corresponding countermeasures are thus a mandatory part of any IPv6 security training, and Christopher Werny did a great job describing them in IPv6 security webinar.

Using Custom Vagrant Boxes with netsim-tools

A friend of mine started using Vagrant with libvirt years ago (it was his enthusiasm that piqued my interest in this particular setup, eventually resulting in netsim-tools). Not surprisingly, he’s built Vagrant boxes for any device he ever encountered, created quite a collection that way, and would like to use them with netsim-tools.

While I didn’t think about this particular use case when programming the netsim-tools virtualization provider interface, I decided very early on that:

• Everything worth changing will be specified in the system defaults
• You will be able to change system defaults in topology file or user defaults.

Using Custom Vagrant Boxes with netlab

A friend of mine started using Vagrant with libvirt years ago (it was his enthusiasm that piqued my interest in this particular setup, eventually resulting in netlab). Not surprisingly, he’s built Vagrant boxes for any device he ever encountered, created quite a collection that way, and would like to use them with netlab.

While I didn’t think about this particular use case when programming the netlab virtualization provider interface, I decided very early on that:

• Everything worth changing will be specified in the system defaults
• You will be able to change system defaults in topology file or user defaults.

Select the Best Switching ASIC For the Job

Last week I described some of the data center switching ASIC design tradeoffs and the ASIC families Broadcom created to fit somewhere in that multi-dimensional space.

Next step: how could you design your data center fabric to make the most out of them? To keep things simple, we’ll build a typical leaf-and-spine fabric with a WAN edge layer (sometimes called border leaf switches).

Select the Best Switching ASIC For the Job

Last week I described some of the data center switching ASIC design tradeoffs and the ASIC families Broadcom created to fit somewhere in that multi-dimensional space.

Next step: how could you design your data center fabric to make the most out of them? To keep things simple, we’ll build a typical leaf-and-spine fabric with a WAN edge layer (sometimes called border leaf switches).

MLAG Deep Dive: Dynamic MAC Learning

In the first blog post of the MLAG Technology Deep Dive series, we explored the components of an MLAG system and the fundamental control plane requirements.

This post focuses on a major building block of the layer-2 data plane functionality: MAC learning. We’ll keep using the same network topology with two switches and five hosts, and assume our system tries its best to implement hot-potato switching (sending the frames toward the destination MAC address on the shortest possible path).

MLAG Deep Dive: Dynamic MAC Learning

In the first blog post of the MLAG Technology Deep Dive series, we explored the components of an MLAG system and the fundamental control plane requirements.

This post focuses on a major building block of the layer-2 data plane functionality: MAC learning. We’ll keep using the same network topology with two switches and five hosts, and assume our system tries its best to implement hot-potato switching (sending the frames toward the destination MAC address on the shortest possible path).

netsim-tools VLAN Trunk Example

Last week I described how easy it is to use access VLANs in netsim-tools. Next step: VLAN trunks.

We’ll add two Linux hosts to the lab topology used in the previous blog post, resulting in two switches, two Linux hosts in red VLAN and two Linux hosts in blue VLAN.

netlab VLAN Trunk Example

Last week I described how easy it is to use access VLANs in netlab. Next step: VLAN trunks.

We’ll add two Linux hosts to the lab topology used in the previous blog post, resulting in two switches, two Linux hosts in red VLAN and two Linux hosts in blue VLAN.

Video: Network Address Scopes

When defining network addresses in IEN 19 John Shoch said:

Addresses must, therefore, be meaningful throughout the domain, and must be drawn from some uniform address space.

But what is a domain? Welcome to the address scope discussion ;)

Video: Network Address Scopes

When defining network addresses in IEN 19 John Shoch said:

Addresses must, therefore, be meaningful throughout the domain, and must be drawn from some uniform address space.

But what is a domain? Welcome to the address scope discussion ;)

Data Center Switching ASICs Tradeoffs

A brief mention of Broadcom ASIC families in the Networking Hardware/Software Disaggregation in 2022 blog post triggered an interesting discussion of ASIC features and where one should use different ASIC families.

Like so many things in life, ASIC design is all about tradeoffs. Usually you’re faced with a decision to either implement X (whatever X happens to be), or have high-performance product, or have a reasonably-priced product. It’s very hard to get two out of three, and getting all three is beyond Mission Impossible.

Data Center Switching ASICs Tradeoffs

A brief mention of Broadcom ASIC families in the Networking Hardware/Software Disaggregation in 2022 blog post triggered an interesting discussion of ASIC features and where one should use different ASIC families.

Like so many things in life, ASIC design is all about tradeoffs. Usually you’re faced with a decision to either implement X (whatever X happens to be), or have high-performance product, or have a reasonably-priced product. It’s very hard to get two out of three, and getting all three is beyond Mission Impossible.

MLAG Deep Dive: System Overview

Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation (MLAG) – the ability to terminate a Port Channel/Link Aggregation Group on multiple switches – is one of the more convoluted¹ bridging technologies². After all, it’s not trivial to persuade two boxes to behave like one and handle the myriad corner cases correctly.

In this series of deep dive blog posts, we’ll explore the intricacies of MLAG, starting with the data plane considerations and the control plane requirements resulting from the data plane quirks. If you wonder why we need all that complexity, remember that Ethernet networks still try to emulate the ancient thick yellow cable that could lose some packets but could never reorder packets or deliver duplicate packets.