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Packet Fabric on Software Gone Wild

Imagine a service provider that allows you to provision 100GE point-to-point circuit between any two of their POPs through a web site and delivers in seconds (assuming you’ve already solved the physical connectivity problem). That’s the whole idea of SDN, right? Only not so many providers got there yet.

EVPN Based Data Center Interconnect- Juniper Design Options and Config Guide

1       Data Center Inter-Connect (DCI)

DCI was always a challenge in days of VPLS and other vendor specific layer 2 extension technologies. Main challenge was how and where to integrate layer 2 and layer 3 e.g VPLS does offer layer 2 extension between 2 DCs but main challenge was where to configure layer 3 gateways and how to maintain ARP entry for gateway inside a Virtual Machine (VM) if VM moves from once DC to another DC.

EVPN gives answer to all those questions as we can create MAC-VRF along with Integrated Routing and Bridging (IRB) interface for a VLAN and that IRB interface can also be referred under standard L3 VRF if L3 extension is required between DCs. Thus, EVPN allows to combines L2 and L3 at L3 VTEP layer. Furthermore, we can configure same “virtual-gateway” on all L3 VTEPs for a VLAN. This scenario will allow a VM to maintain the ARP entry for the gateways if it moves from one DC to another DC.

1.1       Option 1 

In each Data Center “Collapsed IP CLOS” is recommended to be configured if DCI Option 1 is selected for Layer 2 extension between the DCs.  Continue reading

Dell Technologies’ Hyperconverged Systems Saw Triple-Digit Growth in Q1

The company will introduce a Virtustream addition of its enterprise hybrid cloud this year.

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

Zenoss and Cisco Build NFV Infrastructure Using OpenStack

The NFVI is targeted to service providers.

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

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

Worth Reading: Connecting Nepal

In 1997, we finally got the Internet in Nepal. Unfortunately, it was only available in the capital, Kathmandu, which is very far from my village of Nangi. But almost immediately, I started thinking of ways we could get Nangi online. I was already familiar with the Internet from studying in the United States, and I had a lot of ideas about how being online could improve life in Nangi. —The Internet Society

The post Worth Reading: Connecting Nepal appeared first on rule 11 reader.

The Future Internet I Want for Me, Myself and AI

Cisco: DDoS Attacks Grew 172% in 2016, Expect 3.1M by 2021

The peak attack size increased 60 percent year-over-year.

Shippable Server Looks to Unify DevOps Work into ‘Assembly Lines’

The server product includes Docker tooling and integrates with all Docker registries.

AWS’ Greengrass Makes Edge Computing Possible for IoT Devices

About a dozen partners have already committed to integrating Greengrass into their platforms.

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

The Composable Systems Wave Is Rising

Hardware is, by its very nature, physical and therefore, unlike software or virtual hardware and software routines encoded by FPGAs, it is the one thing that cannot be easily changed. The dream of composable systems, which we have discussed in the past, is something that has been swirling around in the heads of system architects for more than a decade, and we are without question getting closer to realizing the dream of making the components of systems and the clusters that are created from them programmable like software.

The hyperscalers, of course, have been on the bleeding edge of …

The Composable Systems Wave Is Rising was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

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

Cumulus Steps Into Performance Monitoring with NetQ Launch

This is Cumulus’ first major announcement centered around performance monitoring.