SDN and Network Automation: Splitting Hairs?

At the recent Network Field Day 11, there were several discussions at the Cisco offices after the Cisco folks left the room. One of these discussions, led by Terry Slattery, was centered around SDN, and I think it’s worth a listen/watch (only about 20 minutes):

In this video, I made the argument that SDN should be limited to a very specific definition, which eliminates the management plane from the conversation entirely (around 5:40).

I am in full agreement that the term SDN, or “software-defined __ “ is at this point totally meaningless. It means so many things to so many different people, and predictably, this conversation ended with just as much confusion about SDN as when we started. So, to try to “define” SDN seems pointless, and smells of hair-splitting, but I do this for a very specific reason.

Splitting Hairs

To me, SDN and network automation are two totally different things, yet they almost always get lumped together in conversations. Normally I wouldn’t try to remedy this, but since one of these things is a practical thing to do for many organizations, I want to offer up a different way of thinking about this.

First off, you Continue reading

BGP Design Case Study

Below BGP design case study is taken from the Orhan Ergun’s CCDE Practical Workbook.In the new version of the workbook there are more than 50 case studies are shared for many technologies. If you are in the network design field or want to learn about it,don’t miss the book. Scenario : Network A is a customer […]

The post BGP Design Case Study appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

BGP Design Case Study

Below BGP design case study is taken from the Orhan Ergun’s CCDE Practical Workbook.In the new version of the workbook there are more than 50 case studies are shared for many technologies. If you are in the network design field or want to learn about it,don’t miss the book. Scenario : Network A is a customer […]

The post BGP Design Case Study appeared first on Orhanergun.

Put a password on your webcam or end up featured on Shodan’s vulnerable cam feed

Don't you hate it when people want to kill the messenger instead of address the problems highlighted in the message?This time the messenger is Shodan, as the IoT search engine added a new section featuring vulnerable webcams. Ars Technica reported, "The feed includes images of marijuana plantations, back rooms of banks, children, kitchens, living rooms, garages, front gardens, back gardens, ski slopes, swimming pools, colleges and schools, laboratories, and cash register cameras in retail stores."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Put a password on your webcam or end up featured on Shodan’s vulnerable cam feed

Don’t you hate it when people want to kill the messenger instead of address the problems highlighted in the message?This time the messenger is Shodan as the IoT search engine added a new section featuring vulnerable webcams. Ars Technica reported, “The feed includes images of marijuana plantations, back rooms of banks, children, kitchens, living rooms, garages, front gardens, back gardens, ski slopes, swimming pools, colleges and schools, laboratories, and cash register cameras in retail stores.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fragmentation

One of the more difficult design exercises in packet switched network architectures is that of the design of packet fragmentation. In this article I’d like to examine IP packet fragmentation in detail and look at the design choices made by IP version 4, and then compare that with the design choices made by IP version 6.

Gopaddle Meetup Bangalore – CI, CD Presentation

Following link captures the slides on CI, CD with Docker, Jenkins and Tutum that I presented at GoPaddle meetup, Bangalore on January 23, 2015. You can find more details on the meetup here. In this presentation, I cover the following: Overview of Continuous Integration(CI), Continuous deployment(CD) Tutum Overview Jenkins with Docker Integration CI, CD Use cases … Continue reading Gopaddle Meetup Bangalore – CI, CD Presentation

CI, CD with Docker, Jenkins and Tutum

In this blog, I will give an overview of Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) and cover few CI, CD Use cases with Docker, Jenkins and Tutum. Docker provides Container runtime and tools around Containers to create a Container platform. Jenkins is a CI/CD application to build, test and deploy applications. Tutum is a SaaS … Continue reading CI, CD with Docker, Jenkins and Tutum

Syncing IOS Clock from Cellular Provider

I recently had a request to enable time synchronization from a Cellular provider to a 3G model of the Cisco 819. Looking through several documentation sources, I found an example of EEM policy utilizing GPS data in this manner.

LTE GPS Antenna Guide Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR G2) and Connected Grid Router

After looking at the TCL script outlined in the above document, I thought it would be an easy modification to achieve this result with the cellular network data. After fighting with the script and EEM policy for a couple of hours, I stepped back and looked at the options for creating an EEM Applet. My goal was to achieve similar results but utilizing the time provided by the cellular carrier. This article outlines my process and the final configuration.

The source of the data that I wanted to use was derived from the show cell 0 network command.

CiscoRTR#show cell 0 network
Current Service = 1xEV-DO (Rev A) and 1xRTT
Current Roaming Status(1xRTT) = HOME, (HDR) = HOME
Current Idle Digital Mode = HDR
Current System Identifier (SID) = DDDD
Current Network Identifier (NID) = DDD
Current Call Setup Mode = Mobile IP only
Serving Base Station Longitude =  Continue reading

Pop Up Tech Talks: Denise Fishburne

Earlier today I saw a tweet that @PopUpTechTalks had uploaded their interview of me up to their YouTube Channel.  I was super stoked!  :)  Just had to share it with y’all!

SolidFire’s Amy Lewis speaks with Cisco’s Denise Fishburne aka Fish about embracing your inner network detective at Cisco Live 2015. Filmed June, 2015 in San Diego.

Click on the pic below to see watch the interview.

popuptechtalk

Dell OS10 SDN router demo


In this video from Dell's Network Field Day 11 (#NFD11) presentation,  Madhu Santhanam demonstrates an interesting use case for the new OS10 switch operating system that was introduced at the event.
The core of OS10 is an unmodified Linux kernel with an application development environment for Control Plane Services (CPS). These APIs allow software running on the switch: native linux applications, third party applications, and native OS10 applications to run on the core OS10 operating system.
The FIB Optimization application consists of three components: an sFlow agent to provide network visibility, Quagga for BGP routing, and the Selective Route Push agent which provides a REST API for selectively populating the hardware routing tables in the switch ASIC. The FIB Optimization application allows an inexpensive data center switch to replace a much more expensive high capacity Internet router.
In this use case, the data center is connected to a single transit provider and multiple additional peer networks. Initially all traffic is sent via a default route to the transit provider. The full Internet routing table consists of nearly 600,000 prefixes - far too many to fit in the switch hardware forwarding tables which in typical low cost switches can only handle Continue reading