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Fabric visibility with Arista EOS

A leaf and spine fabric is challenging to monitor. The fabric spreads traffic across all the switches and links in order to maximize bandwidth. Unlike traditional hierarchical network designs, where a small number of links can be monitored to provide visibility, a leaf and spine network has no special links or switches where running CLI commands or attaching a probe would provide visibility. Even if it were possible to attach probes, the effective bandwidth of a leaf and spine network can be as high as a Petabit/second, well beyond the capabilities of current generation monitoring tools.

The 2 minute video provides an overview of some of the performance challenges with leaf and spine fabrics and demonstrates Fabric View - a monitoring solution that leverages industry standard sFlow instrumentation in commodity data center switches to provide real-time visibility into fabric performance.

Fabric View is free to try, just register at http://www.myinmon.com/ and request an evaluation. The software requires an accurate network topology in order to characterize performance and this article will describe how to obtain the topology from a fabric of Arista Networks switches.

Arista EOS™ includes the eAPI JSON-RPC service for programmatic monitoring and control. The article Arista Continue reading

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Untangle Scrutinized : Deep Dive into Untangle’s Features

This article is a followup to : Setting Up Untangle NGFW in a GNS3 Environment. In this one we take a deep dive into Untangle’s

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NFD9 Prep: SD-WAN

Software Defined WAN, or SD-WAN, looks to be a theme of Network Field Day 9, with presenters such as CloudGenix and VeloCloud showing us their offerings. At first glance, SD-WAN sounds pretty compelling. Who wouldn’t want to slash their WAN OpEx? How do these solutions work, and do they have legs? I’m hoping to find out.

What’s SD-WAN all about?

SD-WAN is about applying concepts of SDN to WAN networks. The goals are to increase flexibility and reduce WAN costs. This can be achieved through transport independence, dynamic path management, and better config management.

Historically we used private WAN circuits – leased lines, MPLS, etc. These had great SLAs, but the monthly costs were huge. The bandwidth was low, but guaranteed. Now that many places have access to high-speed Internet tails, it’s a lot harder to justify that cost. It’s very tempting to run IPSec VPNs across Internet links instead.

Those consumer Continue reading

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Device Alias on Cisco MDS

It is definitely not convenient to configure a zone or any CFS application using WWpN. 20:ab:3d:2c:4f:89:fa:ab is not very human readable and it is definitely not efficient to keep traces of the WWpN in your MDS configuration. Device-alias is a proprietary feature created by Cisco to make your life much easier. It will map an […]

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Creating a Network Community for the Network’s New Operational Models

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iPexpert’s Newest “CCIE Wall of Fame” Additions 1/23/2015

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

This Week’s CCIE Success Stories

• James Gusman, CCIE #46507 (Data Center)
• Diego de Oliveira, CCIE #46343 (Wireless)
• Mohammed Basuliman, CCIE #24626 (Collaboration)
• Amit Singh, CCIE #19799  (Data Center)

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!

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Confessions of technical interviewer

A technical interviewer, or technically an interviewer. I was interviewed quite a few times since I set of to join the networking crowd, 12 years ago. I also had opportunity to sit on the opposite side, and interviewed people on multiple occasions. Some of my fondest memories of working for my current employer are connected […]

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The post Confessions of technical interviewer appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Marcin Latosiewicz.

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Layer 3 Etherchannel in GNS3

I am getting conflicting opinions on whether or not a user can emulate L3 Etherchannel in GNS3.   Based on my research in this blog:

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Introducing the Plexxi Pulse Partner Summit

More exciting things happening at Plexxi’s offices this week. Wednesday marked a company milestone for Plexxi as we hosted the kick-off for our new partner program, the Plexxi Pulse Partner Summit.  The day-long event covered the fast-growing networking market, scale-out applications and new architectural requirements of the 3rd Platform IT era.

Attendees saw presentations from Plexxi’s executive team, including CEO Rich Napolitano; SVP of Sales and Support Tim Lieto; Founder and EVP of Products / CTO Dave Husak; and myself. We were also honored to have Cloudera’s Big Data Evangelist Amy O’Connor present to our attendees.

“The 3rd Platform Era of IT represents a huge opportunity for the channel to do something different and to change the cost of doing business for their customers.”

- Rich Napolitano, CEO of Plexxi

Participants from around the country attended including channel partners, systems integrators, technology partners and distributors.

The post Introducing the Plexxi Pulse Partner Summit appeared first on Plexxi.

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Do you really need Network Training ?

Certification is cool, opens the door to new companies, positions , maybe to the better roles,you can proud that you have CCIE, JNCIE and so on. Cisco , Juniper , HP, every major companies have certification program and network training is a big business. We all know that ! Have you ever asked yourself, Do […]

The post Do you really need Network Training ? appeared first on Network Design and Architecture.

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Network Virtualization at VMware Partner Exchange 2015

VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) is your one-stop shop when it comes to learning about network virtualization and the technology extends VMware’s vision of the software-defined data center. At this year’s event, we are offering both an executive track and a technical track to help partners build their businesses and advance their knowledge, as you take customers on the path to Virtualizing the Network.

If you are a partner that is new to network virtualization, we have a program/learning path where you can send two people to PEX and to achieve their network virtualization competency by attending the 3-Day NSX Install, Configure and Manage Boot Camp prior to the start of the conference. Participants can then attend the free instructor-led VSP-NV and VTSP-NV boot camps during the conference.

If you are a partner that has already achieved your network virtualization competency, and you want advanced VMware NSX technical training, there will be eight advanced technical breakout sessions throughout the conference. The advanced technical breakout sessions cover everything from “Operational Best Practices for VMware NSX” to “NSX Security Deep Dive. Logon to PEX and build your own schedule using Schedule Builder.

Knowing the technical ins and out of VMware NSX and network Continue reading

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Network Programmability 101: Q&A Time

In the last video from the Network Programmability webinar Matt Oswalt answered numerous questions from the audience.

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Destination Based NAT

Here is the scenario: There is a public server on the internet that you have requested access to. The “admins” that control the server agree to allow a single public IP from your entity/company to access the server. The issue arises due to the fact that you “luckily” have more than 1 Public IP at […]

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The post Destination Based NAT appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Korey Rebello.

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Show 222 – Introducing The OpenClos Project

Doug Hanks and Moloy Chatterjee join Packet Pushers host Ethan Banks to discuss the OpenClos project. What is OpenClos? OpenClos is open-source software written in Python that helps stand up a leaf-spine data center. Why? Standing up a DC is a fussy business – lots of cabling, IP addressing schemes, and routing protocol configuration to […]

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The post Show 222 – Introducing The OpenClos Project appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

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Creating a Network Community for the Network’s New Operational Models

The way in which networks are configured, deployed, and managed is changing. The network industry is in a shift from managing devices box by box via the CLI to having more centralized ways to manage and deploy devices. While the CLI isn’t going away anytime soon, we can look at the two operational models that are gaining traction within the network community.

SDN Controllers

SDN controllers do two major things that increase operational efficiencies. They offer a central point of management and visibility for the network team, but also offer a single point of integration for 3rd party systems – these systems could be anything from cloud management platform, monitoring or automation systems, to native business applications. Note: even when there are controllers being used by a human, there is risk. There is the risk of clicking the wrong button, forgetting the order of operations of which buttons needs to be clicked, etc. This doesn’t go away. Change control windows still have risk.

DevOps for Networking

We’ve also seen an increased amount of focus on the intersection of DevOps and networking. I’m really referring to DevOps automation tools and the network. For example, Puppet announced $40M in funding in June Continue reading

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Agile development: Adopt gradually or dive in?

When the Agile Manifesto was introduced almost 15 years ago, it proposed a radical methodology change as an alternative to traditional project management. With agile, project requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration in development cycles that break tasks into small increments. While this methodology helps businesses manage unpredictability, it also requires those businesses to adopt a different mindset in order to be successful.

Agile is designed to drive collaboration, transparency, and quality within product and software development lifecycles, but it isn’t always the right answer for every organization. In fact, the signers of the Manifesto will tell you that, while there is value in examining what agile is, there is just as much value in examining what it is not.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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Debunking SSD Myths

 By now everyone is aware of the performance leap offered by solid-state drives (SSDs) compared to hard disk drives (HDDs), but some SSD myths persist. It’s time to separate fact from fiction.

Myth 1: SSDs are prohibitively expensive

An SSD can cost more than its HDD equivalent when you look simply at the price tag for a given capacity. However, cost savings can be seen when you look at the amount of real-world performance each of your dollars buys. For example, one SSD can do the work of about 40 HDDs, but that SSD doesn’t cost 40 times as much. In fact, an SSD costs less when you consider the work it accomplishes.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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Data center, cloud, SDN driving Ethernet switch market to $25B

The Layer 2-3 Ethernet switch market is expected to exceed $25 billion in 2019, a compounded annual growth of over 2% from 2014, according to Dell’Oro Group.Data center switching will drive most of the growth in the market.  Data center switching growth will be driven exclusively by the cloud, with the enterprise market declining slowly, towards the end of the decade, Dell’Oro expects. MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Will enhanced servers do away with the need for switches?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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Viptela brings Software-Defined WANs to the enterprise

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  In April 2014, Zeus Kerravala wrote in Network World that the software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) is now a business imperative. He cites several reasons why the time is right for companies to reconsider their WAN architecture.First of all, cloud and mobile computing, as well as applications such as video and voice over the network, are creating vastly different traffic patterns than the old style of client/server computing. Next, business agility is the enterprise mantra today, but traditional WAN architectures are too inflexible to enable the much-needed application agility. And last but not least, the complexity of the WAN makes it increasingly difficult to make even small changes in a reasonable timeframe.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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Poster: How To Make a Single Pane of Glass

A Poster for your desk on building a "single pane of glass" network management system.

The post Poster: How To Make a Single Pane of Glass appeared first on EtherealMind.