Not All OSPF Inter-area Traffic Traverses Interfaces In Area 0
Everyone knows that OSPF is a link state protocol. Those that study also discover that OSPF behaves like distance vector between areas as Type-1- and Type-2 LSAs are not flooded between areas, but rather summarized in Type-3 LSAs. This means that OSPF is a logical star, or hub with spokes, where Area 0 is the backbone and all other areas must connect to Area 0. This is shown below:
With this topology, since all the areas only connect to the backbone area, traffic between areas must traverse the backbone:
We learn about this behavior in literature where there is a very straight forward topology where each ABR is only attached to one area beyond the backbone. Such a topology is shown below:
In such a topology, traffic between RT04 and RT05 has to traverse the backbone. This is shown below:
However, what if you have a topology which is not as clear cut? Where an ABR attaches to multiple areas? This is what we will explore in this post. We’ll be using the topology below:
In this topology, RT02 and RT03 are ABRs. RT02 is attached to both Area 1 and Area 2 in addition to the backbone, while RT03 Continue reading
PP028: Can SecOps and NetOps Work Together?
IT tends to divide itself by job function and technological specialization, especially as technology gets more complex. However, each IT domain is part of a larger system, and these systems require coordination and cooperation to operate effectively. On today’s Packet Protector we look at how and why Security Operations (SecOps) and Network Operations (NetOps) should... Read more »VMware Wants To Redefine Private Cloud With VCF 9
We all had been wondering what VMware would look like when it became part of Broadcom’s massive universe following the semiconductor giant’s $69 billion acquisition of the virtualization juggernaut. …
VMware Wants To Redefine Private Cloud With VCF 9 was written by Jeffrey Burt at The Next Platform.
HS081: What’s Your Strategic Plan for AI Infrastructure?
AI seems to be changing everything, including your IT infrastructure. Do you have a strategic plan for your AI infrastructure? Today we discuss the merits and challenges of cloud computing, on-premises solutions, hybrid models, and edge computing along with the importance of low latency for real-time AI applications and the potential of edge computing in... Read more »
IBM Shows Off Next-Gen AI Acceleration, On Chip DPU For Big Iron
Big Blue might be a little late to the AI acceleration game, but it has a captive audience in its System z mainframe and Power Systems servers. …
IBM Shows Off Next-Gen AI Acceleration, On Chip DPU For Big Iron was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.
Nvidia Rolls Out Blueprints For The Next Wave Of Generative AI
Hardware is always the star of Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference, and this year we got previews of “Blackwell” datacenter GPUs, the cornerstone of a 2025 platform that includes “Grace” CPUs, the NVLink Switch 5 chip, the Bluefield-3 DPU, and other components, all of which Nvidia is talking about again this week at the Hot Chips 2024 conference. …
Nvidia Rolls Out Blueprints For The Next Wave Of Generative AI was written by Jeffrey Burt at The Next Platform.
Get Your Data House In Order To Unlock Your Generative AI Strategy
COMMISSIONED Organizations must consider many things before deploying generative AI services, from choosing models and tech stacks to selecting relevant use cases. …
Get Your Data House In Order To Unlock Your Generative AI Strategy was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.
Multivendor EVPN Just Works
Shipping netlab release 1.9.0 included running 36 hours of integration tests, including fifteen VXLAN/EVPN tests covering:
- Bridging multiple VLANs
- Asymmetric IRB, symmetric IRB, central routing, and running OSPF within an IRB VRF.
- Layer-3 only VPN, including routing protocols (OSPF and BGP) between PE-router and CE-routers
- All designs evangelized by the vendors: IBGP+OSPF, EBGP-only (including reusing BGP AS number on leaves), EBGP over the interface (unnumbered) BGP sessions, IBGP-over-EBGP, and EBGP-over-EBGP.
All tests included one or two devices under test and one or more FRR containers1 running EVPN/VXLAN with the devices under test. The results were phenomenal; apart from a few exceptions, everything Just Worked™️.
HN746: Going Deep on OSPF Route Filtering
On today’s episode we delve into OSPF filtering. That is, how to filter routes from a device’s routing table in an OSPF environment. This is a tricky business, because OSPF requires an identical database on every device in an OSPF area. That means you can’t stop announcing a route from one OSPF router because you... Read more »NB492: AMD Spends Big For Engineering Talent; FCC Cracks Down on AI-Faked Robocalls
Take a Network Break! A US appeals court will let a privacy lawsuit against Google go forward, striking telecom workers are a reminder to test your resiliency planning, and AMD spends nearly $5 billion to acquire systems engineering talent from ZT Systems. Juniper Networks offers deep discounts and other enticements to get network engineers to... Read more »Bechtolsheim Outlines Scaling XPU Performance By 100X By 2028
Effects are multiplicative, not additive, when it comes to increasing compute engine performance. …
Bechtolsheim Outlines Scaling XPU Performance By 100X By 2028 was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.
Tech Bytes: Why It’s Time To Say Goodbye To NFS (Sponsored)
Today on the Tech Bytes podcast we talk cloud storage. More specifically, we dive into why it’s time for NFS to sail off into the sunset, particularly for cloud datasets. Our guest is Tom Lyon, an industry legend who has delivered a talk entitled “NFS Must Die.” We talk with Tom about the strengths and weaknesses of NFS, the... Read more »August Rule 11 Academy Update
I’ve been working on new material over at Rule 11 Academy. This month’s posts are:
- BGP Route Reflector Lab
- The Clos Fabric (history)
- The Default Free Zone
- Network Addresses
- BGP Policy Entrance Selection (2)
- Interview Rubric Sample
- BGP Policy Entrance Select (1)
- Interviewing Background
This brings us up to a total of 39 lessons. Each lesson should be about 15 minutes, so about 10 hours of material so far. The trial membership will take you through the end of the year. After the first of the year, the trial membership will last 2 months.
Repost: The Benefits of SRv6
I love bashing SRv6, so it’s only fair to post a (technical) counterview, this time coming as a comment from Henk Smit.
There are several benefits of SRv6 that I’ve heard of.
Network CI/CD Pipeline – What’s the Point?
Hi all, welcome to the 'Network CI/CD' blog series. To kick things off, let's ask the question, "Why do we even need a CI/CD pipeline for networks?" Instead of diving straight into technical definitions or showing you how to build a CI/CD pipeline, which might make you lose interest, we’ll focus on the reasons behind it. Why should network teams even consider implementing CI/CD?
In this post, we’ll talk about the benefits and the problems it solves, so you can see why it's worth learning. Let's get to it.
💡
Throughout this blog post, I’ll use a simple scenario of configuring VLANs. I chose VLANs because it’s something everyone is familiar with, and it’s easy to understand. I could have gone for something more complicated, like BGP or OSPF, but I don’t want to sidetrack our main focus - understanding Network CI/CD pipeline.
Making Network Changes - The Traditional Way
Even though I call it the “traditional way,” most of us (myself included) still make changes via the CLI. So, let’s imagine you and two colleagues are managing a campus network with 10 access switches. One of your tasks is to configure VLANs on all of Continue reading
This AI Network Has No Spine – And That’s A Good Thing
When you are designing applications that run across the scale of an entire datacenter and that are comprised of hundreds to thousands of microservices running on countless individual servers and that have to be called within a matter of microseconds to give the illusion of a monolithic application, building fully connected, high bi-section bandwidth Clos networks is a must. …
This AI Network Has No Spine – And That’s A Good Thing was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.
When Nvidia Says Hot Chips, It Means Hot Platforms
Nvidia hit a rare patch of bad news earlier this month when reports started circulating claiming that the company’s much-anticipated “Blackwell” GPU accelerators could be delayed by as much as three months due to design flaws. …
When Nvidia Says Hot Chips, It Means Hot Platforms was written by Jeffrey Burt at The Next Platform.
Hedge 240: Build or Buy?
Many network operators think the idea of building rather than buying is something that’s out of reach–but is it? Join Steve Dodd, Eyvonne, Tom, and Russ as we discuss the positive and negative aspects of build versus buy, what operators get wrong, and what operators don’t often expect.