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Category Archives for "Networking"

Juniper IP-CLOS (EVPN-VxLAN) Data Center – Design Options and Config Guide

1        Overview

IP-CLOS provides scalable option for large scale Data Center for hosting providers or Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) model.  IP-CLOS model consists of spine and leaf layer switches, where leaf layer switches provides direct connectivity to Bare Metal Servers (BMS), hypervisor based servers or other network devices (e.g Firewall, Load balancer) for services layer. Each leaf device is connected to all spine devices through high speed link, connectivity between spine and leaf is IP based thus offering ECMP (equal cost multipath) load balancing over IP links.

The question arises why need IP-CLOS based Date Center, the main and primary reason is to remove the upper limit on maximum number of VLANs. In switching based Data Center (traditional 3-Tier i.e Core, Distribution & Access) or modern Data Center (Spine and Leaf based switching fabric or flat switching fabric e.g Juniper Virtual Chassis Fabric and Juniper QFabric) we still have an upper limit on available VLANs inside single Data Center i.e 4096. In IP-CLOS based Data Center VLAN values are not significant and once traffic received on leaf layer from sever/ external network devices it will be converted into VxLAN packets and will be identified by Continue reading

Sharing Information Is Hard

Seriously hard. We consume a huge amount of information daily. I see metrics like 10,000 to 100,000 words a day being consumed by each of us. Some of that will be subjective, some of it objective. Some of it will be fiction, some will be fact. Some? Who knows. Political propaganda with elements of truth. Some of it will incite emotion and some of it will aid in falling to sleep.

If you blog, do podcasts or write whitepapers for reasons not tied to your employment or cold hard cash income, have you ever asked yourself why you do it? What makes you want to share?

In a society where something is declared fake news because two parties don’t agree and freedom of speech is becoming one way, is it worth it?

Why do I share?

If I need or want to learn something, I’ll go wide in the hunt for knowledge. Thanks to the ‘tinterweb, information is readily available. So much information is out there that we have the problem of validating what we read. Blogs have been a massive help to me over the years, especially when you read aligning and agreeing articles. The validation of “someone else Continue reading

69% off WowWee Lumi Gaming Drone – Deal Alert

The Lumi Quadcopter from WowWee averages 3.6 stars out of 5 on Amazon, which isn't earth-shattering, but at its currently discounted price you're sure to get your money's worth. EZ flight technology allows for instant drone stabilization, and for awesome aerial tricks with very little effort. But this Quadcopter also features a "Follow-Me" mode, where Lumi follows its pilot's every move. So where you go, Lumi follows. You can also program Lumi to perform custom choreographies to the beat of your music. If you're looking for a fun starter drone that won't hurt you in the wallet, you might want to consider this one right now. Its typical list price is currently reduced a generous 69% down to just $24.99. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Five Questions: Network Automation

Ask Ansible

Welcome to a new series where we interview Ansible experts on IT automation and ask them to share their direct experiences building automation solutions, as well as any insights they have regarding the state of the industry.

In this post, I’ve asked Peter Sprygada and Eric McLeroy five questions about network automation.

Peter Sprygada is a Senior Principal Engineer at Ansible by Red Hat where he brings over 20 years experience building and operating global network infrastructures. He holds two patents in network configuration automation and currently leads the Ansible network engineering team that focuses on building and integrating network automation capabilities into Ansible. Formerly Peter was responsible for building and leading the Arista EOS+ Extensibility Engineering team where he focused on applying DevOps methodologies to enhancing network operations. Prior to that, he held senior network engineering and operations roles at various organizations including Cisco. You can follow him on twitter at @privateip.

Eric McLeroy is a Senior Solutions Architect for Ansible by Red Hat focused on networking use cases. Eric has over 10 years in networking in large scale environments working with a large variety of systems from routers, switches, load balancers, etc. He holds multiple industry certifications and Continue reading

4 resources to find free Cisco skills and certification labs

For network professionals looking to get the latest in training for new skills and certifications, there is no shortage of resources on the web, but how do you know which online offers are legitimate?+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Cisco certifications target business professionals eyeing software roles +One way is to go straight to Cisco. The company has a broad array of training tools available for a variety of different topics and price points, ranging from free to thousands of dollars.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

4 resources to find free Cisco skills and certification labs

For network professionals looking to get the latest in training for new skills and certifications, there is no shortage of resources on the web, but how do you know which online offers are legitimate?+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Cisco certifications target business professionals eyeing software roles +One way is to go straight to Cisco. The company has a broad array of training tools available for a variety of different topics and price points, ranging from free to thousands of dollars.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Future Internet I Want for Me, Myself and AI

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to bring immense opportunities, but it also poses challenges.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is dominating the R&D agenda of the leading Internet industry. The Silicon Valley and other startup hubs are buzzing about artificial intelligence and the issue has come at the top of policymakers’ agenda including the G20, the ITU, and the OECD, where leaders gathered this week in Paris. 

Constance Bommelaer de Leusse

The 40 hour work week

Before 1900 the average American worker worked more than 60 hours a week. A standard schedule was ten-hour days, six days a week. The only structural limits to working were lighting and religion. You stopped working when it was too dark to see or to go to church. It was exhausting. It was often fatal. —Collaborative Fund

The 40 hour work week is foremost a result of the physical limits of the human body—but we often fail to take into account the mental limits, as well. Why was working for more than 40 hours a week on a railroad dangerous? It was not just because people were physically tired, but also because they were mentally tired. The resulting discussion among coders has been rampant and widespread (see, for instance, here).

First, the focus on time and the length of the work week may be a little misdirected. We are still a world focused on physical presence as a proxy for accomplishing work. I know a lot of companies prefer to have people in the office—ironically, this is a big deal with most of the companies in the world that aim to bring networks, and network based services, to the masses. Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Real world challenges between us and the Internet of Things

Many a blog line has been penned on the rich topic of the Internet of Things (IoT) but not much has been written about the real world challenges between our today and the many promises of the IoT tomorrow. Technology considerations can easily blind us “techies” to more mundane realities but, when you work as deeply in the Smart City space as I do, it is difficult to avoid them. In my opinion, the technology challenges surrounding the IoT are relatively small compared to the real world challenges that are perhaps not so obvious.Some say the IoT is now, but I don’t believe that! I believe we are on a journey, and the trajectory of every vertical industry to this destination will be carved somewhat uniquely and at its own necessary pace. Healthcare is often touted as a darling of the IoT, but the privacy, security and regulatory issues here might never be adequately solved in a way that will allow this sensitive data to be leveraged up significantly into any wider value creating ecosystem. The automotive and intelligent transportation verticals, on the other hand, look more promising to me in terms of fast tracking their way to the Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Top 5 InfoSec concerns for 2017

Cloudbleed, WannaCry, ransomware, hackers. Each and every day, it seems, the tech community wakes up to news of another attack on data security and privacy. As IT professionals, we spend our days working to the best of our knowledge and ability to keep company information secure. Some days, however, when news of new attacks hit, it can feel like we’ll never get ahead. As soon as we learn one method of protection, the hackers have invented a new workaround.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here