Archive

Category Archives for "Networking"

IDG Contributor Network: 2 myths I believed about Disaster Recovery as a Service

Maybe it’s because I’ve been married 16 years. Maybe it’s because we have 4 young children. Whatever the reason, at 42 years old, I’m slowly learning something about myself.I’m sometimes… wrong. [gasp]And when I notice it, it’s much better to admit it than make up an excuse. Can you relate?So, here is how this matters to you… I was wrong about Disaster Recovery as a Service (a.k.a. DRaaS). [bigger gasp]As the CEO of a business cloud and telecom brokerage, DRaaS is something I’ve heard about for a long time. But for a couple of years, I dismissed it. I didn’t think it was a fit for the majority of our clients (i.e. small- and medium-sized companies).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Part II- Quick Interview questions on Routing

As per my earlier article on Quick interview question on Networking and Switching, Now I am coming up with the Quick interview question on Routing. If you want to look on the Part-I, click the link below


Lets have a Quick Interview questions on Routing now

Basics
  • What is Router and Routing ?
  • What is the difference between router and switch ?
  • What is the difference between the static and dynamic routing protocols ?
  • What is the difference between distance vector and Link state routing protocols ?
  • What is the AD value of RIP, EIGRP, OSPF and BGP ?
  • How we can define the static routing in the network ?

Fig 1.1- CCIE Lab routing


Dynamic Protocols- Internal Routing Protocols
  • What is the difference between RIPv1, RIPv2 and RIPv3 ?
  • How route is calculated in EIGRP protocol ?
  • What is the EIGRP Stuck in Active state and how it can be resolved ?
  • What is EIGRP passive interface ?
  • What is EIGRP stub routing feature ?
  • What are the different route types in EIGRP ?
  • What is the offset list in EIGRP and how it is useful ?
  • What are the neighbor states of OSPF and how it works ?
  • What are the different types of areas and Continue reading

New: Metro- and Carrier Ethernet Encryptors Market Overview

My friend Christoph Jaggi published new versions of his Metro- and Carrier Ethernet Encryptor documents:

  • Technology introduction, including an overview of encryption mechanisms, Carrier Ethernet connectivity models, typical deployments, and key management challenges.
  • Market overview, including standards, control- and data plane considerations, key- and system management, and network integration.

Enjoy!

MACSec – Media Access Control Security

How Does Internet Work - We know what is networking

Media Access Control Security or MACSec is the Layer 2 hop to hop network traffic protection. Just like IPsec protects network layer, and SSL protects application data, MACSec protects traffic at data link layer (Layer 2). MACSec is standardized IEEE 802.1AE hop-by-hop encryption that enables confidentiality and integrity of data at layer 2. It encrypts entire Ethernet packet except Source and Destination MAC addresses on any device-to-device, switch-to-switch, router-to-switch, host-to-switch directly connected wired L2 connection. If we compare MACSec with, for example IPsec, MACsec provides same security but on layer 2 for each hop separately. On each hop, packets are

MACSec – Media Access Control Security

iBGP Full meshed solution: BGP Route Reflectors

Today I am going to talk about the BGP route reflectors. The concept of BGP route reflectors resolves the expensive iBGP full meshed topology or you can say BGP route reflector are another solution for the explosion of iBGP peering within the AS. We earlier talk about the solution named as BGP confederation which also resolves the expensive iBGP full meshed network.

So lets start with the bgp Route reflector scenario where I let you know about the configuration done on the routers. As per the scenario showed in the below mentioned one router will act as route reflector and other two routers will be act as route reflector clients.

Below is the topology which has no relevance with any of the live or the enterprise network. The topology shown here is for the demo purposes.

Fig 1.1- BGP route reflectors

Without a route reflector, the network shown in above mentioned topology would require a full IBGP mesh (that is, Router A would have to be a peer of Router B). If Router C is configured as a route reflector, IBGP peering between Routers A and B is not required because Router C will reflect updates from Router A Continue reading

How to buy intent-based networking today

Cisco made a big splash earlier this year when it revealed its vision for the future of networking: An intent-based networking system that allows users to specify what they want the network to do and management software that automatically orchestrates it.Since Cisco’s announcement, intent-based networking (IBN) has caught the networking industry’s attention and has seemingly become the buzzword-du-jour. Some see it as a logical evolution of advanced network automation. Others believe it’s a fundamental shift in how enterprises use machine learning to autonomously manage networks. Meanwhile, all types of vendors, from stalwarts of the industry to myriad startups are jumping on to the IBN bandwagon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to buy intent-based networking today

Cisco made a big splash earlier this year when it revealed its vision for the future of networking: An intent-based networking system that allows users to specify what they want the network to do and management software that automatically orchestrates it.Since Cisco’s announcement, intent-based networking (IBN) has caught the networking industry’s attention and has seemingly become the buzzword-du-jour. Some see it as a logical evolution of advanced network automation. Others believe it’s a fundamental shift in how enterprises use machine learning to autonomously manage networks. Meanwhile, all types of vendors, from stalwarts of the industry to myriad startups are jumping on to the IBN bandwagon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to buy intent based networking today

Cisco made a big splash earlier this year when it revealed its vision for the future of networking: An intent-based networking system that allows users to specify what they want the network to do and management software that automatically orchestrates it.Since Cisco’s announcement, intent-based networking (IBN) has caught the networking industry’s attention and has seemingly become the buzzword-du-jour. Some see it as a logical evolution of advanced network automation. Others believe it’s a fundamental shift in how enterprises use machine learning to autonomously manage networks. Meanwhile, all types of vendors, from stalwarts of the industry to myriad startups are jumping on to the IBN bandwagon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Backing up configs with the Ansible NCLU module

With the release of Ansible 2.3 the Cumulus Linux NCLU module is now part of Ansible core. This means when you `apt-get install ansible`, you get the NCLU module pre-installed! This blog post will focus on using the NCLU module to backup and restore configs on Cumulus Linux. To read more about the NCLU module from its creator, Barry Peddycord, click here.

The consulting team uses Ansible very frequently when helping customers fully automate their data centers. A lot of our playbooks use the Ansible template module because it is very efficient and idempotent, and Cumulus Linux has been built with very robust reload capabilities for both networking and Quagga/FRR. This reload capability allows the box to perform a diff on either `etc/network/interfaces` or `etc/quagga/Quagga.conf` so when a flat-file is overridden with the template module, only the “diff” (or difference) is applied. This means if swp1-10 were already working and we added configuration for swp11-20, an ifreload will only add the additional config and be non-disruptive for swp1-10. This reload capability is imperative to data centers and our customers couldn’t live without it.

However, many customers also want to build configs with NCLU (or the net commands) when Continue reading

Using IoT to keep Mt. Washington hikers safe, predict weather

Weather on Mount Washington in New Hampshire can be biblical. On one occasion, I started an early-morning April ascent with fresh snow at the base. Mid-day we stripped to our base layer of clothing when the bright sun warmed the temperature to 60°F. At the peak elevation of 6,288 feet, dark clouds closed in, the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. We ran for cover from lightning that had a very short distance to travel between the low clouds and the high peak to travel.After hiking the mountain a half-dozen times, in all seasons and all conditions, it’s interesting to learn how the Mount Washington Weather Observatory on the peak uses IoT to update weather conditions on this frequent hiker destination.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here