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Category Archives for "Networking"

Network Automation Engineer Persona: Targeted Learning

The series of Network Automation Engineer (NAE) Persona blog posts have churned some comments in the community around learning. Part of the feedback appears to be the hero syndrome fighting back and also the odd misunderstanding, which might be a result of fear. Change often results in fear, so this is natural.

Network Heroes

Some people love networking because it makes them feel special. Some people have got used to that special feeling and hang on to the fact that they’re

important
. These network engineers feel like a “Packet Lord”.

Automation is designed to remove from humans deterministic and testable tasks. One result is fewer self-titled “Prime minister of Packets” and fewer bottlenecks. Taking IaC (Infrastructure as Code), it becomes so much simpler to define tasks, implement them and test for success or failure. Dealing with sources of truth is part of the natural flow of the process instead of an afterthought on a Friday afternoon.

The hero very much becomes the norm at this point.

Articles

At a high level, the articles discuss the evolving NAE persona and not what you should or shouldn’t learn. The articles do not discourage learning, they recognise and promote learning. After all, you Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Zombie companies are everywhere! But there’s a cure

It’s zombie season again! Not only was The Walking Dead back with new episodes this month, but neighborhoods around the country are about to be crawling with zombies (most can be staved off with a little chocolate).In business, unfortunately, zombie season has been in full swing for some time. This is an era of digital disruption, and it’s completely changed the way business is done, but not everyone has gotten on board. Companies are persisting with outdated business models, investing in outdated products, and committed to outdated delivery methods. To me, these companies are zombies, dead without knowing it. They may be moving forward, but don’t let the motion fool you, they’re only moving toward obsolescence.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Zombie companies are everywhere! But there’s a cure

It’s zombie season again! Not only was The Walking Dead back with new episodes this month, but neighborhoods around the country are about to be crawling with zombies (most can be staved off with a little chocolate).In business, unfortunately, zombie season has been in full swing for some time. This is an era of digital disruption, and it’s completely changed the way business is done, but not everyone has gotten on board. Companies are persisting with outdated business models, investing in outdated products, and committed to outdated delivery methods. To me, these companies are zombies, dead without knowing it. They may be moving forward, but don’t let the motion fool you, they’re only moving toward obsolescence.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Applying Software Agility to Network Design

The paper we are looking at in this post is tangential to the world of network engineering, rather than being directly targeted at network engineering. The thesis of On Understanding Software Agility—A Social Complexity Point of View, is that at least some elements of software development are a wicked problem, and hence need to be managed through complexity. The paper sets the following criteria for complexity—

  • Interaction: made up of a lot of interacting systems
  • Autonomy: subsystems are largely autonomous within specified bounds
  • Emergence: global behavior is unpredictable, but can be explained in subsystem interactions
  • Lack of equilibrium: events prevent the system from reaching a state of equilibrium
  • Nonlinearity: small events cause large output changes
  • Self-organization: self-organizing response to disruptive events
  • Co-evolution: the system and its environment adapt to one another

It’s pretty clear network design and operation would fit into the 7 points made above; the control plane, transport protocols, the physical layer, hardware, and software are all subsystems of an overall system. Between these subsystems, there is clearly interaction, and each subsystem acts autonomously within bounds. The result is a set of systemic behaviors that cannot be predicted from examining the system itself. The network design process is, Continue reading

LDP retention and distribution modes

MPLS protocol uses labels to forward traffic between point A and B. These labels are binded to FECs and distributed on the network by means of different protocols like (LDP, RSVP, BGP-LS, SPRING). LDP (Label Distribution Protocol “RFC5036”) is still by far the widely used protocol among them and was developed to do label distribution […]

The post LDP retention and distribution modes appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

LDP retention and distribution modes

MPLS protocol uses labels to forward traffic between point A and B. These labels are binded to FECs and distributed on the network by means of different protocols like (LDP, RSVP, BGP-LS, SPRING). LDP (Label Distribution Protocol “RFC5036”) is still by far the widely used protocol among them and was developed to do label distribution …

The post LDP retention and distribution modes appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

LDP retention and distribution modes

MPLS protocol uses labels to forward traffic between point A and B. These labels are binded to FECs and distributed on the network by means of different protocols like (LDP, RSVP, BGP-LS, SPRING). LDP (Label Distribution Protocol “RFC5036”) is still by far the widely used protocol among them and was developed to do label distribution …

The post LDP retention and distribution modes appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

IPv6 generated with EUI-64 has a strange bit inside

How Does Internet Work - We know what is networking

What is universal/local bit in IPv6 EUI-64 address? One of my readers contacted me with an interesting question in comments of “IPv6 – SLAAC EUI-64 Address Format” article. The question was: “How come that the ipv6 address after the prefix is 21C:C4FF:FECF:4ED0 if the mac address is 00-1C-C4-CF-4E-D0?” Of course, we all know from the previous article that EUI-64 process is taking the interface MAC address (if that is an Ethernet interface) and it creates 64 bits Interface ID with it by shimming additional FFFE (16bits in hex) in between the MAC address bits. The reader was confused with an

IPv6 generated with EUI-64 has a strange bit inside