It Works and It Should Be Better

You say, “It works – don’t fix it.” I hear, “It works – don’t touch it.” I’m also thinking that if you don’t touch it, then it’s never upgraded or changed. Is a static, unchanged network the best you can do to support your business ? Are you happy with just doing more of the same […]

Author information

Greg Ferro

Greg Ferro is a Network Engineer/Architect, mostly focussed on Data Centre, Security Infrastructure, and recently Virtualization. He has over 20 years in IT, in wide range of employers working as a freelance consultant including Finance, Service Providers and Online Companies. He is CCIE#6920 and has a few ideas about the world, but not enough to really count.

He is a host on the Packet Pushers Podcast, blogger at EtherealMind.com and on Twitter @etherealmind and Google Plus.

The post It Works and It Should Be Better appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Greg Ferro.

What can you learn in 5 minutes a day !

I  believe in minimalism and what small focused actions can make for a person and small steps is what Juniper learning bytes is all about. Learning bytes is an online learning resource launched last year by Juniper education services organization as a free service. The nice thing about the learning bytes is that they are focused, [...] No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Your Job Hunt is YOUR Responsibility

Earlier this week, I read the article below. This article took a strong stance that a recruiter works for the employer, not those seeking employment. I think there are some valid points made. However, my views are a little less extreme than that of the author. NEWSFLASH: A Recruiter is Not a Job Finder!. Frankly, […]

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Paul Stewart

Paul is a Network and Security Engineer, Trainer and Blogger who enjoys understanding how things really work. With nearly 15 years of experience in the technology industry, Paul has helped many organizations build, maintain and secure their networks and systems. Paul also writes technical content at PacketU.

The post Your Job Hunt is YOUR Responsibility appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Paul Stewart.

FusionIO Acquires Nexgen

For anyone keeping tabs on the storage industry these days, you might have noticed the news today regarding FusionIO’s acquisition of Nexgen - one of a myriad of storage startups that have cropped up in the past few years to address the ever-changing needs of the data center industry. After looking through some of the articles that were published today, I think we all understand the financial details behind the transaction.

FusionIO Acquires Nexgen

For anyone keeping tabs on the storage industry these days, you might have noticed the news today regarding FusionIO’s acquisition of Nexgen - one of a myriad of storage startups that have cropped up in the past few years to address the ever-changing needs of the data center industry. After looking through some of the articles that were published today, I think we all understand the financial details behind the transaction.

Notes On AAA

Enabling aaa new model means the switch will try and match all login attempts using a aaa method.

First, define the TACACS or RADIUS server using:

tacacs-server host <IP-address> <optional key value>

There are some other values you can use, but I’ve never had to use these.

Now, give your authentication method a name:

aaa group server tacacs+ <method-name>
 server <IP-address>

Call the method for authenttication

aaa authentication login default group <method-name> group <fallback method name if configured> local

You should now be good to go!


DHCP client testing tool

DHCP is vastly growing in service provider networks for broadband subscribers, I had the chance to work lately with a some of these setups. The protocol is really easy to configure for broadband and provide many benefits.  It has lower overhead compared to PPPOE and it is much more suitable for Multicast services. For those [...] No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Programming 101 for Network Engineers – Preparation

Okay, let’s say you’re convinced you need to learn to programme and you don’t want to be left behind. The earlier you start, the more you can pick up (and the sooner you’ll become consciously competent) at a pace that suits you. Hopefully, you’ll be able to blend this into your schedule with whatever else you […]

Author information

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books and is a regular contributor at DevCentral.

The post Programming 101 for Network Engineers – Preparation appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.

Playing with event-scripts

Last week, I worked on 2 small projects in 11.4 Junos. I should: - Find a way to automatically disable a physical link when LACP "flapped" too many times during a given time. - Find a way to automatically disable a physical link when too many CRC errors...

Playing with event-scripts

Last week, I worked on 2 small projects in 11.4 Junos. I should: - Find a way to automatically disable a physical link when LACP "flapped" too many times during a given time. - Find a way to automatically disable a physical link when too many CRC errors...

DCI Series: Overlay Transport Virtualization

This is the third article in my series on Data Center Interconnection (DCI). In the first (Why is there a “Wrong Way” to Interconnect Data Centers?) I wrote about the risks associated with DCI when the method chosen is to stretch Layer 2 domains between the data centers. In the second article (DCI: Why is Stretched Layer 2 Needed?) I wrote about why the need exists for stretching Layer 2 domains between sites and also touched on why it's such a common element in many DCI strategies.

Routing iSCSI Traffic

This post was initiated by a side conversation I had about iSCSI. From time to time I’m required to implement an iSCSI-based solution, and this is not the first time I’ve heard the question: “So why can’t I route iSCSI traffic?” Most folks with any knowledge of storage protocols will have at some point picked up this informal best practice idea; some will vehemently defend this idea as the word of $deity and shun all those who contradict this truth.

Routing iSCSI Traffic

This post was initiated by a side conversation I had about iSCSI. From time to time I’m required to implement an iSCSI-based solution, and this is not the first time I’ve heard the question: “So why can’t I route iSCSI traffic?” Most folks with any knowledge of storage protocols will have at some point picked up this informal best practice idea; some will vehemently defend this idea as the word of $deity and shun all those who contradict this truth.

Arduino: Using my MelodyUtils library for R2-D2 style chirps

As part of a small robotics project I've been working on this weekend (affectionately called CoBe1, there will be a follow up blog on that soon) I decided to give by robot some personality in the form a a voice, and uploaded some of my code to GitHub.

While Arduino is capable of playing music and sounds from an SD Card I wanted something a little more authentic… something similar to R2-D2's chirps from Star Wars. I had a mini 8Ohm speaker lying around and following the tutorials here it was easy to get it hooked up to my Arduino Uno and start making sounds. By adjusting the default melody and timings I got part way to achieving my R2-D2 style attitude, but notes on their own just didn't cut it. What I needed was some articulations. I got coding and whipped up a library that makes it easy to use glissando and tremolo. Want to give it a try? Grab the code on GitHub Here's a simple example sketch:

#include <pitches.h>;

void setup()
{
MelodyUtils mel(8);
mel.Glis(NOTE_C3, NOTE_C4, 5);
delay(1000);
mel.Trem(NOTE_C3,  Continue reading

Multi-Vendor OSPF Cost Calculations

While on my current kick with virtual routing, I stumbled across an interesting concept regarding OSPF, and the flexibility that vendors have in determining the best path through an OSPF network. The following topology is what I’ve been staring at for the last few days Pretty simple, right? There’s a single network (192.168.123.0/24) down inside each virtual host where the VMs are to sit. Each host has a router on it (one Cisco CSR 1000v and the other Vyatta Core 6.

Multi-Vendor OSPF Cost Calculations

While on my current kick with virtual routing, I stumbled across an interesting concept regarding OSPF, and the flexibility that vendors have in determining the best path through an OSPF network. The following topology is what I’ve been staring at for the last few days Pretty simple, right? There’s a single network (192.168.123.0/24) down inside each virtual host where the VMs are to sit. Each host has a router on it (one Cisco CSR 1000v and the other Vyatta Core 6.

HP Route Preference (Administrative Distance)

When building networks leveraging a variety of products you need to consider interoperability and configuration consistency. When leveraging HP A-Series switches in a Cisco environment considerations need to be made in regards to administrative distance (Cisco's term) or route preference (HP's term). In order to ensure that you maintain consistent behavior it is recommended that you modify one or the other and make them consistent with each other. I would recommend following Cisco's administrative preference instead of HP's route preference.

HP's default route preference



Cisco's default administrative distance


Don't get caught with unexpected routing behaviors. Have fun!