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.

NB: I’ve lumped CloudGenix & VeloCloud together under the heading of SD-WAN. I’m not saying that they are the same though – I don’t yet have enough information about them to fully understand the similarities and differences. I’m sure I’ll know more in a couple of weeks!

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

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 […]

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 Continue reading

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!

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 […]

Author information

Marcin Latosiewicz

Marcin Latosiewicz

Network engineer, CCIE #25784.
Technical Services Engineer at Cisco. TAC engineer.
FlexPod wizard, Vblock charmer.
@mlatosie on twitter.

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

Introducing the Plexxi Pulse Partner Summit

RN

AO

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.

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.

PEX Image

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

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 […]

Author information

Korey Rebello

Korey Rebello

Korey is a Network Engineer and Military veteran with over 8 years of experience in the IT industry. Currently holds the following certifications; CCNP R&S, JNCIA, and CCNA Security. He is interested in advancing his network knowledge and teaching others. Currently works as a Network Engineer and is responsible for day to day operations as well as network design and implementation.
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The post Destination Based NAT appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Korey Rebello.

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 […]

Author information

Ethan Banks

Co-host at Packet Pushers

Ethan Banks, CCIE #20655, has been managing networks for higher ed, government, financials and high tech since 1995. Ethan co-hosts the Packet Pushers Podcast, which has seen over 3M downloads and reaches over 10K listeners. With whatever time is left, Ethan writes for fun & profit, studies for certifications, and enjoys science fiction. @ecbanks
TwitterGoogle+LinkedIn

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first place to tackle SDN? In the WAN

Disruptive innovation in infrastructure is on the rise, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Software Defined Networking movement. But while much of the SDN discussion has focused on the data center, the better initial use case might be in the wide area network. One advocate of that approach is Michael Elmore, IT Senior Director of the Enterprise Network Engineering Infrastructure Group at Cigna, a global health service company headquartered in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Michael is also on the board of Open Network Users Group (ONUG). Network World Editor in Chief John Dix asked Elmore to participate in an email-based Q&A to explore the promise of Software Defined WANS. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

OpenGear at Interop – Introducing the CM7100

opengear
During my all too brief visit to Interop in New York last year, I did a quick tour of the expo hall to see if there were any interesting products around. I followed Greg Ferro’s suggestion which, to paraphrase, is to seek out the booths around the edge of the show in preference to the huge booths in the middle of the floor, because the small booths around the outside are more likely to be the startups with interesting products.

Towards the end of my “small booth” tour, I bumped into some familiar faces at the Opengear booth. I first heard of OpenGear at Networking Field Day 4 where they impressed me with the flexibility of their console server products, though to call the products “console servers” rather understates some of the product capabilities which can include RPS control, TTL I/O, GPS and 3G cellular capabilities. If you haven’t seen these products before I would encourage you to look at some of my other posts about OpenGear.

OpenGear CM7100

New for OpenGear at Interop was their CM7100 Console Server.

CM7100-2-DAC-front

There’s not a lot going on on the front panel of the device, but as you’d probably expect, the back panel Continue reading

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