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Category Archives for "Networking"

[Overlay Networking] Part 3 – The Underlay

We finally arrive at the physical topology that all of the stuff I discussed in the previous posts is built upon. “Underlay” is a term that is starting to catch on - this describes the infrastructure that all of the overlay networks ride on top of, and I’ll be using it to describe this physical infrastructure in this post. Keep in mind the term is used no matter how our physical infrastructure is laid out - there’s quite a few different ways to build this thing.

NFD6 Vendor Preview: Aruba Networks

I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t really know that much about Aruba Networks. They’re most widely known for their work in the wireless area and that’s an area of technology I have yet to play with. As someone who is admittedly wireless-green, I’m eager to get schooled. While they may be new to me, they are heavily involved with the Tech Field Day community, especially at Wireless Field Day events.

[Overlay Networking] Part 3 – The Underlay

We finally arrive at the physical topology that all of the stuff I discussed in the previous posts is built upon. “Underlay” is a term that is starting to catch on - this describes the infrastructure that all of the overlay networks ride on top of, and I’ll be using it to describe this physical infrastructure in this post. Keep in mind the term is used no matter how our physical infrastructure is laid out - there’s quite a few different ways to build this thing.

NFD6 Vendor Preview: Big Switch

Big Switch will be making their first appearance at Network Field Day 6 next week, and I’m pretty excited to hear their session. This isn’t their first appearance at a Tech Field Day event, however. They first appeared at the OpenFlow Symposium back in 2011. I re-watched that video and realized that they were talking about network virtualization a long time ago. They even made the statement that they viewed SDN “like VMware but for networking” - something we’re hearing a lot of these days.

NFD6 Vendor Preview: Plexxi

Plexxi was first involved with Network Field Day about 5 months ago at Network Field Day 5. There, they demo’d their very unique approach to networking. You won’t hear about Plexxi without hearing about their WDM-based optical network design. You may even hear it referred to unofficially as Layer 1 SDN - and that’s a pretty apt description. Plexxi uses special From a logical perspective (kind of semi-logical and semi-physical) I think it’s great.

[Overlay Networking] Part 1 – The Basics

Wow. Lots of talk regarding overlay networking, both last week, and now this week. No doubt largely caused by the VMware NSX announcement last week. This post is an attempt on my part to clarify some fundamental ideas regarding overlay networking for my own benefit, but hopefully it helps you too. After all, we’re all learning. I’ll also be referring a LOT to some community content from blogs and twitter, because there’s a lot of great opinions out there.

[Overlay Networking] Part 2 – VTEPs and Software

In the previous post, we discussed the role of the overlay network, and the virtual switches they connect to. In this post, we’re going to talk about a few additional components. The Role of the Hardware VTEP There’s been a lot of talk about VTEP, and how virtually every networking vendor but Cisco is part of this elaborate ecosystem of vendors that contribute to the angelic glory that is NSX.

[Overlay Networking] Part 2 – VTEPs and Software

In the previous post, we discussed the role of the overlay network, and the virtual switches they connect to. In this post, we’re going to talk about a few additional components. The Role of the Hardware VTEP There’s been a lot of talk about VTEP, and how virtually every networking vendor but Cisco is part of this elaborate ecosystem of vendors that contribute to the angelic glory that is NSX.

[Overlay Networking] Part 1 – The Basics

Wow. Lots of talk regarding overlay networking, both last week, and now this week. No doubt largely caused by the VMware NSX announcement last week. This post is an attempt on my part to clarify some fundamental ideas regarding overlay networking for my own benefit, but hopefully it helps you too. After all, we’re all learning. I’ll also be referring a LOT to some community content from blogs and twitter, because there’s a lot of great opinions out there.

[Overlay Networking] Part 2 – VTEPs and Software

In the previous post, we discussed the role of the overlay network, and the virtual switches they connect to. In this post, we’re going to talk about a few additional components. The Role of the Hardware VTEP There’s been a lot of talk about VTEP, and how virtually every networking vendor but Cisco is part of this elaborate ecosystem of vendors that contribute to the angelic glory that is NSX.

[Overlay Networking] Part 1 – The Basics

Wow. Lots of talk regarding overlay networking, both last week, and now this week. No doubt largely caused by the VMware NSX announcement last week. This post is an attempt on my part to clarify some fundamental ideas regarding overlay networking for my own benefit, but hopefully it helps you too. After all, we’re all learning. I’ll also be referring a LOT to some community content from blogs and twitter, because there’s a lot of great opinions out there.

NFD6 Vendor Preview: Plexxi

Plexxi was first involved with Network Field Day about 5 months ago at Network Field Day 5. There, they demo’d their very unique approach to networking. You won’t hear about Plexxi without hearing about their WDM-based optical network design. You may even hear it referred to unofficially as Layer 1 SDN - and that’s a pretty apt description. Plexxi uses special From a logical perspective (kind of semi-logical and semi-physical) I think it’s great.

Forum Going Away – But New Things Are Coming

Roughly a year ago, we built forum.packetpushers.net. This was a forum site built on vBulletin. The idea was to give the community another place to exchange ideas, share information, and help each other with challenges. After considering the matter for a couple of months, Greg and I are going to shut the site down. For […]

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Ethan Banks

Ethan Banks, CCIE #20655, has been managing networks for higher ed, government, financials and high tech since 1995. Ethan co-hosts the Packet Pushers Podcast, which has seen over 2M downloads and reaches over 10K listeners. With whatever time is left, Ethan writes for fun & profit, studies for certifications, and enjoys science fiction. @ecbanks

The post Forum Going Away – But New Things Are Coming appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

Masterclass – Tcpdump – Interpreting Output

This Masterclass article series aims to provide in-depth technical information on the installation, usage and operation of the classic and supremely popular tcpdump network traffic analysis program including alternatives, running tcpdump as a process, building expressions, understanding output and more. I’ve covered the Basics, Parameters and filter Expressions previously; last up in the series is […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

The post Masterclass – Tcpdump – Interpreting Output appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

Making an E1 circuit on a Nortel TN4XE

Lovely user interface this isn’t.  Here’s the command to make an E1 circuit on a Nortel TN4XE where the E1 card is in slot 13.  (The first character should be a tilde rather than a hyphen):

~C N C S6-1-J1-K111&S8-1-J1-K111 S13-1

 

S6 and S8 are the slots where the aggregate cards are.  J1 says to use the first VC4.  K111 tells it to use the first VC3, the first TUG2 and the first VC12.

Within an STM-4 there are four STM-1s which equate roughly to VC4s.  Within each VC4 are three VC3s. Within each VC3 are 7 x TUG2s.  Within each TUG2 are 3 x VC12. 

Confusing…


IT’s Not Just About Technology

There’s a lot of great blogs and resources that get really deep into specific areas of tech. While it may sound really strange, this site is decidedly not one of them. The focus of The Tech Interview is quite different. Instead of focusing on the bits and bytes of technology, we look at the un-tech […]

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Paul Stewart

Paul is a Network and Security Engineer, Trainer and Blogger who enjoys understanding how things really work. With nearly 15 years of experience in the technology industry, Paul has helped many organizations build, maintain and secure their networks and systems. Paul also writes technical content at PacketU.

The post IT’s Not Just About Technology appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Paul Stewart.

Announcing Labkeeper

It's been nearly a year since I had to take the community lab offline to relocate my home, and I still get frequent emails asking when it will be returned. Sadly, my plan to host it with my current employer didn't pan out, and I'm still searching for a suitable host in the Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina area. (If you might be able to give the lab a good physical home, please let me know!)

I also get a lot of emails asking if I can share the scheduling application I used to make the lab available. In short, no, I can't. Not because I don't want to or because it's secret, but simply because that code was written specifically for the packetlife.net site and is not in the least bit portable. But these requests got me thinking: A lot of people obviously would like to be able to share their labs, they just need a platform. Maybe I could rewrite and improve upon the scheduling application to spin it off as its own service.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have caught one or two references to a new project recently. Indeed, this is exactly Continue reading

Virtual Networking and the Concept of Abstraction

There’s a lot of talk about “network abstraction” lately in circles where it wasn’t discussed before - all thanks to our friends at Vmware and the announcement of NSX at VMworld. For around the past two years I’ve been doing my best to stay involved in the SDN conversation - while it’s still really new technology, it’s fun to debate about and great to help define the next era of networking.

Virtual Networking and the Concept of Abstraction

There’s a lot of talk about “network abstraction” lately in circles where it wasn’t discussed before - all thanks to our friends at Vmware and the announcement of NSX at VMworld. For around the past two years I’ve been doing my best to stay involved in the SDN conversation - while it’s still really new technology, it’s fun to debate about and great to help define the next era of networking.

Show 160 – Palo Alto Networks and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Next-Gen Firewalls – Sponsored

Palo Alto Networks are big fans of the show and they are excited to geek out about next-generation firewalls in this podcast. What you’ll hear about on this show is the unique technologies that help you deliver visibility, control and safe application enablement of applications in your network. This show was specifically planned to have zero […]

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Greg Ferro

Greg Ferro is a Network Engineer/Architect, mostly focussed on Data Centre, Security Infrastructure, and recently Virtualization. He has over 20 years in IT, in wide range of employers working as a freelance consultant including Finance, Service Providers and Online Companies. He is CCIE#6920 and has a few ideas about the world, but not enough to really count.

He is a host on the Packet Pushers Podcast, blogger at EtherealMind.com and on Twitter @etherealmind and Google Plus.

The post Show 160 – Palo Alto Networks and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Next-Gen Firewalls – Sponsored appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Greg Ferro.