Follow-up: Load Balancers and Session Stickiness
My Why Do We Need Session Stickiness in Load Balancing blog post generated numerous interesting comments and questions, so I decided to repost them and provide slightly longer answers to some of the questions.
Warning: long wall of text ahead.
Read more ...Automate When You Can, Program When You Must
I’ve had a general thought I’ve wanted to write about for quite some time now and after just seeing Matt Oswalt’s latest post Learn Programming or Perish(?), the thought finally makes it to paper so to speak in this post. The thought I want to expand on is something I say quite a bit as I talk about network automation. It is automate when you can, program when you must.
After reading Matt’s post, I’ll re-phrase to automate when you can, script when you must specifically targeting network engineers (note: even though this is what I mean, the word script makes it a bit clearer). This is a twist on the network industry’s old saying of switch when you can, route when you must.
Automate When You Can
Automate when you can is saying use some form of tooling when you can to do network automation. Why re-invent the wheel when you don’t have to? I’m a little biased these days, but this means using some form of extensible tooling, preferably open source, that does automation. Some of my favorites right now are Red Hat’s Ansible and Extreme’s StackStorm. However, this could just as well be other open Continue reading
Automate When You Can, Program When You Must
I’ve had a general thought I’ve wanted to write about for quite some time now and after just seeing Matt Oswalt’s latest post Learn Programming or Perish(?), the thought finally makes it to paper so to speak in this post. The thought I want to expand on is something I say quite a bit as I talk about network automation. It is automate when you can, program when you must.
After reading Matt’s post, I’ll re-phrase to automate when you can, script when you must specifically targeting network engineers (note: even though this is what I mean, the word script makes it a bit clearer). This is a twist on the network industry’s old saying of switch when you can, route when you must.
Automate When You Can
Automate when you can is saying use some form of tooling when you can to do network automation. Why re-invent the wheel when you don’t have to? I’m a little biased these days, but this means using some form of extensible tooling, preferably open source, that does automation. Some of my favorites right now are Red Hat’s Ansible and Extreme’s StackStorm. However, this could just as well be other open Continue reading
News at Last: It’s Extreme
We have news at last: Extreme Networks is acquiring Brocade’s Data Center Networking business. This includes the SLX, VDX and MLXe routing and switching product lines, Network Visibility and Analytics products, and most importantly, my team: StackStorm.
Extreme Networks has been around a long time – they were founded in 1996, the same year as Foundry, which was acquired by Brocade in 2008, and became my business unit. They’ve had ups and downs over the years, but business is going well right now. Their share price is up, and they have been on an acquisition spree recently, acquiring Zebra Wireless, and 3 weeks ago announcing their intention to acquire Avaya Networking.
This gives them all the pieces to provide end-to-end IP networking solutions, and gives them scale to compete.
The deal is expected to close 60 days after Broadcom completes its acquisition of Brocade, which is scheduled to happen by July 30. Until then we will continue to operate as separate businesses. We don’t know exactly what it will mean for my team, but given that network automation was explicitly mentioned in investor call, we should find a good home.
The legal nature of the company means that it Continue reading
News at Last: It’s Extreme
We have news at last: Extreme Networks is acquiring Brocade’s Data Center Networking business. This includes the SLX, VDX and MLXe routing and switching product lines, Network Visibility and Analytics products, and most importantly, my team: StackStorm.
Extreme Networks has been around a long time - they were founded in 1996, the same year as Foundry, which was acquired by Brocade in 2008, and became my business unit. They’ve had ups and downs over the years, but business is going well right now. Their share price is up, and they have been on an acquisition spree recently, acquiring Zebra Wireless, and 3 weeks ago announcing their intention to acquire Avaya Networking.
This gives them all the pieces to provide end-to-end IP networking solutions, and gives them scale to compete.
The deal is expected to close 60 days after Broadcom completes its acquisition of Brocade, which is scheduled to happen by July 30. Until then we will continue to operate as separate businesses. We don’t know exactly what it will mean for my team, but given that network automation was explicitly mentioned in investor call, we should find a good home.
The legal nature of the company means that it Continue reading
5 ways you can lower data center TCO
To build an affordably scalable data center network, we believe that disaggregation with Cumulus Linux is the ideal networking solution (for obvious reasons). If you haven’t made the jump to open networking, we recommend you read our total cost of ownership (TCO) report, which covers how our customers saved up to 60% by making the switch. For the rest of you that have already come to the light (we prefer calling it the green), we’ve put together a few tips for optimizing your data center network for increased efficiency and lower data center TCO.
- Optimize your cables and optics
The cost of optics varies greatly. If you’re running high-cost optics, we recommend doing your research and seeing if there is a lower-cost option that will suit your needs. As switches become denser, the optics and cables can actually cost more than the switches themselves — especially with proprietary, locked-in options from traditional vendors. Most traditional vendors source their optics from third-party manufacturers and then add a premium. When open optics are sourced directly from ODMs, you can reduce the cost of cables and optics by 50% to 70%. - Automate like a boss
Most organizations are doing some form of Continue reading
Fibre Channel of Things (FCoT)
The “Internet of Things” is well underway. There are of course the hilarious bad examples of the technology (follow @internetofshit for some choice picks), but there are many valid ways that IoT infrastructure can be extremely useful. With the networked compute we can crank out for literally pennies and the data they can relay to process, IoT is here to stay.
Hacking a dishwasher is the new hacking a gibson
But there’s one thing that these dishwashers, cars, refrigerators, Alexa’s, etc., all lack: Access to decent storage.
The storage on many IoT devices is either terrible or nonexistent. Unreliable flash storage or no storage at all. That’s why the Fibre Channel T19 working group created a standard for FCoT (Fibre Channel of Things). This gives small devices access to real storage, powered by arrays not cheap and unreliable local flash storage.
The FCoT suite is a combination of VXSAN and FCIP. VXSAN provides the multi-tenancy and scale to fibre channel networks, and FCIP gives access to the VXSANs from a variety of FCaaS providers over the inferior IP networks (why Continue reading
Cloudflare Apps: Develop Features for Everyone
CC-BY 2.5 image by Hans Braxmeier
Cloudflare’s mission is to help build a faster and more secure Internet for everyone, but sometimes sites often lack the accessibility features critical to allowing all Internet users to enjoy their content and perspective. Cloudflare Apps, which power the add-ons featured here, can allow developers to enhance any website. Get notified for the developer preview >>
The team at Cloudflare is excited to announce the release of two performance-enhancing features that makes the Internet more usable for two underrepresented demographics on the Internet: cats and Australians.
Feline Mode
The modern internet is full of content which challenges our perspectives. Often though, we are not interested in being challenged, we are interested in cats. To use the internet, to be a member of this incredible cultural fabric, is to find the most feline part of yourself. A love of sleeping, of curling up on a soft pile of destroyed clothing, a love of distracting and bothering others. Often though, websites just fail to recognize this critical part of our identity.
Australia Mode
We believe access to the internet is a basic human right. It’s not enough to just be able to access it Continue reading