Git for network engineers

What is Git?

git-logo

Git is a source control manager (SCM), also known as revision control. It manages changes to documents, computer programs and large websites. Arbitrarily it can manage versioning for collections of information.

Why is it important to network engineering? Well, currently we stick the config files in a directory and forget about them. Version control can be very regimented with commit comments and other markers, which helps to identify information. More importantly, as we move towards DevOps with open arms, we have to think about managing what we do in different ways. Just because something has been done a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s good to continue with that modus operandi.

Fear not – just because something is hidden away in a repository, doesn’t mean you can’t diff files etc.

Also you don’t have to have just local git repositories, you can have them on remote servers as well as the likes of github.com.

Before we start, be warned that this is a very simple example. You can use this for managing all sorts of configurations like core routers, firewall access-list entries, hell, even change control data. Be mindful of what you push and commit!!! Ensure that Continue reading

OCP Summit 2015: Open Networking as the Norm

Open Networking Thrives at the 2015 OCP Summit

A few weeks ago I passed my 2 year work anniversary at Cumulus Networks. In this short amount of time we’ve helped change the networking industry as a whole. This statement may seem a bit bold, but I feel it’s justified and we’ve all earned it. I’ll attempt to back this up with a few anecdotes collected along the journey — the men and women of Cumulus Networks, along with our great partners and customers, deserve the credit here.

When I was first hired, our on-boarding process was a bit … unconventional to say the least. The first week included JR (our CEO and cofounder) taking a headshot photo for the website (at that time it was just a Brady Bunch collage of pictures, not much else) and being issued a switch for “jailbreaking.” Now jailbreaking is a bit of an extreme term, but in these dark days before open networking, the software and hardware for networks were tightly coupled together. Items such as debugging headers, a soldering iron, and even a bit of swearing were all part of the installation process on a fresh hardware platform. Fast forward to today, Continue reading

Cisco VIRL Exclude From Launch

One of the few pet-peeves with Cisco’s VIRL has been waiting for a bunch of things to start, when I just needed a couple from that simulation. Not sure if this is a new update though it’s detailed...

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Group fighting ‘Net censorship in China presses on despite DDoS attack

After facing a DDoS attack, an activist group isn’t backing down in its attempts to end China’s Internet censorship.“I think that we are more confident than we were before that our successful execution of our strategy is going to lead us to achieve our mission,” said the group via email on Tuesday.GreatFire.org suffered a distributed denial of service attack last month that threatened to cripple its activities. The anonymous group, which is based out of China, believes the country’s government was behind the attack.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Aerohive targets education with 802.11ac access point release

Aerohive Networks today announced the availability of the AP130, the company’s latest wireless access point to target educational institutions.The AP130 is a 2x2, 2-stream access point designed to use existing Power over Ethernet infrastructure and to run HiveManager NG, Aerohive’s cloud-based network management platform. HiveManager is generally thought to be one of the company’s key advantages in the wireless marketplace, as it removes the need for a traditional network controller.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Ruckus first to roll out enterprise 802.11ac Wave 2 AP | First Look: Microsoft’s new Spartan browser for Windows 10 +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco Live US 2015 – Session Schedule

This is my current schedule for the Cisco Live US 2015 event.

Most are related to my CCDE studies and a few are with technologies and products that im interested in in general.

Monday:
08:00 – 09:30 BRKSAN-2101 FCoE for small and mid size enterprises.
10:00 – 12:00 BRKCRS-2031 Enterprise Campus Design: Multilayer Architectures and Design Principles
13:00 – 15:00 BRKARC-2001 Cisco ASR1000 Series routers: System and Solution Architectures
15:30 – 17:00 GENKEY-1001 Cisco Vision Keynote

Tuesday:
08:00 – 09:30 BRKRST-2124 Introduction to Segment Routing
13:00 – 15:00 BRKSPG-2210 Designing Service Provider Access Networks
15:30 – 17:00 BRKDCT-2049 Overlay Transport Virtualization

Wednesday:
09:00 – 12:00 CCDE Written Exam
13:00 – 15:00 BRKRST-3363 Routed Fast Convergence
15:30 – 17:00 BRKRST-2338 ISIS Deployment in Modern Networks

Thursday:
08:00 – 09:30 BRKMPL-2333 E-VPN & PBB-EVPN: the Next Generation of MPLS-based L2VPN
10:00 – 12:00 BRKRST-2311 IPv6 Planning, Deployment and Troubleshooting
13:00 – 14:30 BRKRST-2044 Enterprise Multihomed Internet Edge Architectures
15:00 – 16:00 GENKEY-1004 Guest Closing Keynote: Mike Rowe

Cant wait :)

Apple, as Watch rollout looms, emphasizes online ordering

Apple is looking to eliminate the long lines that form outside its retail stores on product launch days.“The days of waiting in line and crossing fingers for a product are over for our customers,” according to a memo from Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of retail and online stores, that was obtained by Business Insider.The memo instructs Apple’s retail employees to encourage customers interested in either the Apple Watch or new MacBook to order the products online instead of from the stores.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

That’s Using Your Embrane

BrainInABox

Cisco announced their intent to acquire Embrane last week. Since they did it on April 1st, there was an initial thought that it might be a prank. But given that Cisco doesn’t really do April Fools jokes, it was quickly determined to be the real deal. More importantly, the Embrane acquistion plugs a very important hole in ACI that I have been worried about for a while.

Everybody Play Nice

Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is a great idea that works on the principle that Cisco can get multiple disparate systems to work together to “program” the underlying network to rapidly deploy applications and create policies that allow systems to be provisioned and reconfigured with a minimum of effort.

That’s a great idea in theory. And if you’re only working with Cisco gear it’s any easy thing to pull off. Provided you can easily integrate the ASA operating system with IOS and NX-OS. That’s not an easy chore and all those business units work for the same company. Can you imagine how hard it would be to integrate with an external third party? Even one that is friendly to Cisco? What about a company that only implements the bare minimum functionality Continue reading

Juniper, VMware ride into OpenDaylight sunset

Juniper Networks and VMware have downgraded their participation in the OpenDaylight Project, an effort develop an open source SDN framework. Both are now Silver members with much lower financial and personnel commitments.Juniper was a founding, top tier Platinum member, committing $500,000 and 10 staffers to the project. VMware was a Gold member, committing $250,000 and three engineers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Forget SDN and NFV: It’s all about LSO

Do you know SDN? Do you follow NFV? What about OSS? Those are yesterday's acronyms. The new buzzword is LSO, and it's going to be huge not only for carriers and other service providers, but also for enterprise customers.Lifecycle Service Orchestration is a catchphrase that embraces the range of activities performed by a telco or other communications service provider. An LSO platform would handle everything from provisioning the customer order to controlling the delivery of the service to gathering metrics and ensuring guaranteed performance levels to remediating fault to providing usage reports to offering analytics to customers.That's a lot to unpack, but the bottom line is that LSO is going to be big. According to the Service Provider Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) Overview and Market Forecast report published by the Rayno Report in March 2015, LSO will be a $2.75 billion market by 2019 and will combine technologies found today in Operation Support Systems, Software Defined Networks, and Network Functions Virtualization.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Forget SDN and NFV: It’s all about LSO

Do you know SDN? Do you follow NFV? What about OSS? Those are yesterday's acronyms. The new buzzword is LSO, and it's going to be huge not only for carriers and other service providers, but also for enterprise customers.Lifecycle Service Orchestration is a catchphrase that embraces the range of activities performed by a telco or other communications service provider. An LSO platform would handle everything from provisioning the customer order to controlling the delivery of the service to gathering metrics and ensuring guaranteed performance levels to remediating fault to providing usage reports to offering analytics to customers.That's a lot to unpack, but the bottom line is that LSO is going to be big. According to the Service Provider Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) Overview and Market Forecast report published by the Rayno Report in March 2015, LSO will be a $2.75 billion market by 2019 and will combine technologies found today in Operation Support Systems, Software Defined Networks, and Network Functions Virtualization.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPexpert’s Newest “CCIE Wall of Fame” Additions 4/17/2015

Please join us in congratulating the following iPexpert client’s who have passed their CCIE lab!

This Week’s CCIE Success Stories

  • Stephan Luscher, CCIE #48074 (Data Center)
  • Adrian McCaskill, CCIE #48071 (Wireless)
  • James Cusco, CCIE #47758 (Data Center)
  • Vishal Arora, CCIE #48027 (Wireless)
  • Anton Stepkin, CCIE #48002 (Data Center)
  • George Milad Elhamy, CCIE #45875 (Collaboration)
  • Philip Pretorius, CCIE #48079 (Data Center)

This Week’s CCIE Testimonials

Vishal Arora, CCIE #48027
“I have passed my CCIE-Wireless track and my CCIE# 48027. I would like to thanks to entire iPexpert family specially Jeff Rensink for their support. I have used expertise study material of iPexpert and that has helped me a lot in passing this prestigious exam.”

We Want to Hear From You!

Have you passed your CCIE lab exam and used any of iPexpert’s self-study products, or attended a CCIE Bootcamp? If so, we’d like to add you to our CCIE Wall of Fame!

IDG Contributor Network: A better way to store solar power for data centers

As any data center operator will tell you, data centers use large amounts of power. In fact, one data center can use enough energy to power 180,000 homes.What with the costs and the eco-issues with fossil fuels, there's a race on to try to find better ways of powering these cathedrals to digital life.Many heavy data center users are looking to place their centers near sources of renewable power, for example. Facebook has opened one in Sweden that's near a hydro-electric plant.Solar is also pretty good, and wind-power turbines are another alternative power source attracting knee-jerk exuberance, despite their disadvantages, like uneven supply.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Researchers show that IoT devices are not designed with security in mind

In the latest blow to Internet of Things (IoT) security, an analysis of smart home devices has found flaws that could give attackers access to sensitive data or allow them to control door locks and sensors.The research was performed by a team from application security firm Veracode for six up-to-date devices acquired in December and found serious issues in five of them. The tested devices were the Chamberlain MyQ Garage, the Chamberlain MyQ Internet Gateway, the SmartThings Hub, the Ubi from Unified Computer Intelligence Corporation, the Wink Hub and the Wink Relay.All of these devices enable remote control and monitoring over the Internet of various home automation devices and sensors, including door locks, interior switches and power outlets. Most of them connect to cloud-based services and users can interact with them through Web portals or smartphone applications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Zen of Sailing Through IT Projects

For those of you who have worked in large companies, it’s common territory to be stuck riding waves on a ship without a sail. Said ship also has its anchor out, but the deck hands have forgot about that and the captain never logged it. The anchor is being dragged around due to the ship bobbing up and down on the waves, dragging a number of artifacts along at the same time and giving some image of movement. Sometimes the ship and crew head in the right direction but no one really knows what that is due to the ever whirring compass from a dodgy purchase and blocked views of the stars due to persistent clouds.

Fear not, this isn’t a terribly written nautical blog or a write up of a lost ship; it’s a description of a large-scale enterprise IT project.

Boating

This one particularly made me laugh. A lot of projects feel like this!

Waterfalls

In software development, there are numerous approaches to projects. A well known one is the waterfall method. It starts at the top follows a sequential path through the various phases. This methodology is unconsciously followed in enterprise projects through initiation, discovery, design, deployment and Continue reading

Wireshark tid-bit: Use the command line

Many of us are familiar with the GUI version of Wireshark, but believe it or not but there are also a slew of other command line based utilities that enhance Wireshark and also aid us in capturing and analyzing data. Let’s take a quick look at some of these tools. tshark – This is pretty […]
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