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You can’t put the future on hold

Greg Ferro recently participated in an “Ask Me Anything” thread on Reddit. In that thread, user “1DumbQuestion” made this comment:

Last, never finished my CCIE because of what I perceive will happen with SDN in the next coming years.

I’ve seen similar comments from others over the last couple of years. This concerns me because it seems that people are saying “There’s too much change going on here, and I don’t know how it will all work out. So I’ll just do nothing.”

Don’t be one of those people.

You should take a hard look at your career, and try to understand where the industry is going. If you think that CCIE study is not the best use of your time, that’s fine. But you should make a conscious choice about that. Crucially, you must decide where else to invest your time and energy.

If you firmly believe that networking will change dramatically over the next few years, then take active steps to prepare yourself. Think about your current skills, and where you have gaps. Maybe you need to learn more about Linux. Maybe it’s configuration management, or Python scripting. Put your time into Continue reading

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CCIE RS study planning, books, notes

Study planning Books, workbooks, videos, software, rack rental tokens, laptop hardware and software have all been purchased; it’s time to get this party started. So, what’s the plan? The urge to dive right into the sexy labs and save the boring planning stuff for later was strong. More than once I had to channel my […]

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The post CCIE RS study planning, books, notes appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by quingenerd.

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Network Automation Training

If you are a frequent reader of my blog, you know that last year I left my job to do something that I was intrinsically motivated to do. Unfortunately, because of this, I haven’t been able to write as much as I normally would. I do hope that changes. But, time is money now – literally. My time has been spent driving business, negotiating, writing Scopes of Work, building a website, managing finances, and producing quality work for customers, and I hope all of that continues.

Up until this point, I’ve been focused on providing services to end user customers. Today, I’m happy to say that I’ve officially launched the first, of hopefully many, training courses. This one is focused on foundational skills as it pertains to network automation. More detail can be found here.

Training and Education are paramount for technology adoption and hopefully courses like this can play a small part with empowering network engineers to not only expand their skill set, but realize the value that could be had by these skills for their own organizations and employers.

As always, I’m open to comments and feedback below or through the contact page.

Thanks,
Jason

Twitter: @jedelman8

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Griffin 20 pumps up the digital volume

I’ve tried several speaker systems with my iMac and they have ranged from abysmal through to very good but most lack that audiophile quality. Not so the Griffin 20. The Twenty is a digital audio amplifier with a 20 watt per channel output and you can switch the input from its S/PDIF optical port to Bluetooth streaming. It's got traditional speaker connectors (for either speaker wires or cables terminated with banana plugs) and there’s an RCA socket to connect a subwoofer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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Bacony goodness + math + 3D printing = an inedible endless Bacon Möbius strip

If you take a strip of bacon and twist one end through 180 degrees then join the two ends you get a piece of bacon with only one side, a Bacon Möbius strip. Cool. But if you want such a thing to adorn your desk (and who wouldn't?) then being made of real bacon would be, to say the least, a bad idea. So,  to memorialize this mathematical and culinary wonder, why not print a look-alike on a 3D printer? Why not indeed?

This exactly is what a designer with the handle "joabaldwin" created using the Shapeways 3D printing service.

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

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Apple Watch pre-orders to begin at 12:01 Pacific Time on April 10

Apple on Friday afternoon updated its Apple Watch page with more precise details regarding Apple Watch pre-orders. According to Apple's website, pre-orders for Apple's highly anticipated wearable will begin at 12:01 AM Pacific Time  on Friday, April 10. Of course, this doesn't bode well for prospective buyers on the East Coast who will have to wait up until 3:01 AM in order to get their orders in.The latest reports from the rumor mill suggests that the Apple Watch will not be available to walk-in shoppers. Which is to say, if you want to get your hands (or wrist, as it were) on an Apple Watch, you absolutely must pre-order the device or make a reservation to check one out in-store. Presumably, walk-in sales will eventually be possible once supply is properly calibrated to match demand.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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My CLUS 2015 Schedule for San Diego

With roughly two months to go before Cisco Live starts, here is my preliminary schedule for San Diego.

I have two CCDE sessions booked to help me prepare for the CCDE exam. I have the written scheduled on wednesday and we’ll see how that goes.

I have a pretty strong focus on DC because I want to learn more in that area and that should also help me prepare for the CCDE.

I have the Routed Fast Convergence because it’s a good session and Denise Fishburne is an amazing instructor and person.

Are you going? Do you have any sessions in common? Please say hi if we meet in San Diego.

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What’s In My Bag (Hint: not much)

Recently @BobMcCouch posted a photo of the contents of his bags. He’s got a lot of gear, including a hammer, and a dent-puller. He assures us that it’s for lifting tiles, but I’m not so sure. Sounds to me like he’s worried about a few dings in the supermarket carpark.

It all sounded a bit scary. I want to provide a different perspective, that of someone who tries to minimise what they carry. I don’t want young engineers to think that they have to build up a huge toolbox, and the physical strength to lug it around. You might choose to do that, but it’s not the only path.

The Bag Itself

My general rules for a laptop bag are that it should be as small as I can get away with, and it should not look too much like a laptop bag. So pretty much anything from Targus is inappropriate.

Today I use the “ Continue reading

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Power up, baby! Cyntur JumpStart Mini: A monster backup battery in a tiny package

The market for portable battery packs to keep your digital life going on the road has become a huge business over the last couple of years and I just got my hands on one of the more versatile and powerful products in this market: The Cyntur JumperPack mini. This is a small (6.0” by 3.3” by 1.3”), weatherproof device that weighs just 0.9 pounds but despite its diminutive size contains a whopping 12,000 mAh lithium-ion battery, enough to jumpstart an eight-cylinder engine. Not only that but it's powerful enough, the company claims, to jumpstart 25 engines in a row (a problem I hope to never have).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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Network Break 34 – Fixed

Excerpt: Coffee, virtual doughnuts and networking. A perfect combination.

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The post Network Break 34 – Fixed appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Greg Ferro.

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IPv6 is 20 years old

An interesting message appeared on v6ops mailing list a few days ago: the first interconnect between independent IPv6 implementations was established 20 years ago. No wonder some youngsters who don't know any better treat this venerable protocol like a modem and ignore it in favor of IPv4 ;)

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Network Break 34

Excerpt: Coffee, virtual doughnuts and networking. A perfect combination.

Author information

The post Network Break 34 appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Greg Ferro.

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VIRL and CML- L2 connectivity Usecase

This is a continuation of my VIRL, CML blog series. VIRL/CML overview is covered here. In this blog, I will cover L2 connectivity usecase. L3 support has been present in VIRL for quite some time, L2 support was added recently in VIRL. I used the IOSvL2 experimental image for this usecase. Official L2 image is … Continue reading VIRL and CML- L2 connectivity Usecase →

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Connecting VIRL, CML networks to outside world

This is a continuation of my VIRL, CML blog series. VIRL/CML overview is covered here. It will be good to connect VIRL, CML networks to outside world. Following are some use cases. If management interface of VIRL routers are accessible from outside machines, we can run management application in the client machine and connect directly … Continue reading Connecting VIRL, CML networks to outside world →

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VIRL Simulation – L3 connectivity Usecase

This is a continuation of my VIRL, CML blog series. VIRL/CML overview is covered here. Here, we will create a L3 IGP network running OSPF. I have used IOS nodes for all routers, we can use XR and NXOS routers as well. I didnt do it because the VM images are bigger for XR and … Continue reading VIRL Simulation – L3 connectivity Usecase →

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VIRL and CML – Installation

This blog is part of my VIRL and CML series. VIRL/CML overview is covered here. In this blog, I will cover the installation steps and how to get started with the first simulation. I have tried 2 approaches to install CML and 1 approach to install VIRL. Since I work at Cisco, I did not … Continue reading VIRL and CML – Installation →

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VIRL and CML – Overview

CML(Cisco Modeling lab) and VIRL(Virtual Internet and Routing lab) are Network modeling platforms from Cisco. I have been trying this out for the last 2 weeks and I am very impressed by what it can do. I feel that the potential for this platform is so huge that it will create a fundamental impact in the … Continue reading VIRL and CML – Overview →

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US gains in mobile patents as IBM passes Samsung

The U.S. widened its lead in mobile patents last year and IBM took the top spot in new patents granted in that space, according to a report this week that analyzed data from both the U.S. and Europe.While the number of mobile patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) jumped by 17 percent between 2013 and 2014, the total fell by 4 percent at the European Patent Office (EPO), according to Chetan Sharma Consulting. The U.S. continued to gain on Europe as the place where mobile inventions are devised, a trend driven by software development in Silicon Valley and Americans’ heavy use of mobile data, the report said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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The .onion address

A draft RFC for Tor's .onion address is finally being written. This is a proper thing. Like the old days of the Internet, people just did things, then documented them later. Tor's .onion addresses have been in use for quite a while (I just setup another one yesterday). It's time that we documented this for the rest of the community, to forestall problems like somebody registering .onion as a DNS TLD.

One quibble I have with the document is section 2.1, which says:

1. Users: human users are expected to recognize .onion names as having different security properties, and also being only available through software that is aware of onion addresses.

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SDxCentral Weekly News Roundup — April 3, 2015

Did you miss out on all the SDx news this week? Never fear, we're here to tell you what new market research says, and why Meru is saying "Adios, Aruba."