Maybe MU-MIMO Matters

As 802.11ac becomes more widely deployed in environments I find myself looking to the next wave and the promise it brings.  802.11ac Wave 1 for me really isn’t that groundbreaking.  It’s an incremental improvement on 802.11n.  Wave 1 really only serves to wake up the manufacturers to the fact that 5 GHz radios are needed on devices now.  The real interesting stuff comes in Wave 2.  Wider channels, more spatial streams, and a host of other improvements are on the way.  But the most important one for me is MU-MIMO.

Me Mi Mo Mum

Multi-user Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) is a huge upgrade over the MIMO specification in 802.11n.  MIMO allowed access points to multiplex signals on different channels into one data stream.  It accomplished this via Spatial Division Multiplexing (SDM).  This means that more antennas on an access point are a very good thing.  It increases the throughput above and beyond what could be accomplished with just a single antenna.  But it does have a drawback.

Single-user MIMO can only talk to one client at a time.  All the work necessary to multiplex those data streams require the full attention of a single access point for Continue reading

Thwarting BGP Route Hijacking with SDN as a Catalyst

Thwarting BGP Route Hijacking with SDN as a Catalyst

Following up on my last post about the security vulnerabilities in BGP, the IETF has taken two efforts to fix them. Back in 1995, the Routing Policy System Working Group was formed (I have chaired this working group, and many in the community, including folks from service providers and address registry operators, contributed). We have standardized a language called Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL[ref]), and a security model (RP-SEC [ref]).

Network operators, both service providers and enterprises, would register their authorized routes (by chain of trust starting from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority), and the neighbor ASs they pass these routes to. Given the state of the art in 1994, the security credentials (authentication as well as authorization) would be checked at the time of registration. We then wrote a tool that read these validated policy specifications and generated router configurations that would be immune to these kinds of attacks. Unfortunately, RPSL adoption has been low (more on this later).

IETF recently took another effort in its Secure Inter-Domain Routing Working Group (SIDR). The technology developed there can check the security credentials in-band Continue reading

The Accumulated IGP Metric Attribute for BGP

VMworld 2014 Networking and Security Session Guide

At last year’s show, we introduced you to VMware NSX, and presented a vision for how network virtualization will fundamentally change data center networking. We focused a lot on what NSX is, what it does, and why you should start planning to virtualize your network.

This year, we’re still focused on the basics. We have a lot of content that will help those of you who are new to network virtualization and NSX start to establish a base. But of course, we have a whole year of selling NSX under our belt. And we want to share that experience with you in a VMworld program that will take you, and NSX, to the next level.

Security and network micro-segmentation?  We’ve got it covered.  Customer deployment stories? You bet. Partners with real GA solutions, solving real-world problems? They are on the agenda.

Take a pass through the list below, and then check out the schedule builder on VMworld.com to organize your week.

We think the #NSXninjas will be out in full force at VMworld. Are you one?  We hope so!

Monday August 25^, 2014

Networking Sessions

Balanced Buffer Design for Mission-Critical Cloud Networks

Leading customers and researchers in cloud and data center networking have been promoting the importance of understanding the impact of TCP/IP flow and congestion control, speed mismatch and adequate buffering for many decades. The problem space has not changed during this time, but the increase in the rates of speed by 100X and in storage capacity by 1000X have aggravated the problem of reliable performance under load for data intensive content and for storage applications, in particular. One Arista fan summed it up best by saying:

“Basically the numbers have changed by order of magnitude, but the problem is the same!”

Poor performance and inadequate buffering in a demanding network is a painful reminder that buffering, flow control, and congestion management must be properly designed. TCP/IP was not inherently built for rate-fairness, and packets are intentionally dropped (yes, only window fairness is possible). Yet the effect of these drops can be multiplicative given major speed mismatches of 10-100X inside the data center. In the past, QoS and rate metering were adequate. However, at multi-gigabit and terabit speeds and particularly as more storage moves from Fiber Channel (with buffer credits) to Ethernet, packet loss gets more acute.

Benefits of Balanced Continue reading

The Canadian Bitcoin Hijack

A few days ago researchers at Dell SecureWorks published the details of an attacker repeatedly hijacking BGP prefixes for numerous large providers such as Amazon, OVH, Digital Ocean, LeaseWeb, Alibaba and more. The goal of the operation was to intercept data between Bitcoin miners and Bitcoin mining pools. They estimated that $83,000 was made with this attack in just four months. The original post has many of details which we won’t repeat here, instead will take a closer look at  the BGP details of this specific attack.

Attack details
Our friends at Dell SecureWorks decided not to name the network from which the hijacks originated. As a result we won’t name the exact Autonomous System either, instead we will suffice by saying that the originator of this hijack is a network operating in Eastern Canada.

Initial experiment
BGPmon detected the first hijack by this Canadian Autonomous System on October 8th 2013. For about 14 minutes a more specific /24 prefix for a Palestinian network was hijacked. Looking at geographical scope of the announcements and the probes that saw this route, we believe that in this case the route was only announced over the Toronto Internet Exchange.

Bitcoin hijack
On Feb Continue reading

Let’s Connect at VMworld 2014

Downloads

Here is a repository of Wi-Fi related documents and resources that WLAN administrators will find useful.

If you have a Wi-Fi related document, tool, or resource that you would like included on this list, please contact me for inclusion! My contact info is listed on the right column of this website.

Revolution Wi-Fi Downloads:

Designing WLANs for Capacity

35 presentation slides, PDF format.

This presentation covers an approach and methodology to integrating WLAN capacity planning into the WLAN design process to allow network engineers to effectively meet growing capacity demands by clients on wireless networks. It defines what capacity means for a WLAN, what factors determine capacity, provides an approach to designing for capacity, and where capacity planning should be integrated into the overall WLAN design process.

Effective capacity planning is required for all WLANs, not just high-density environments.

This information was presented at the WLAN Professionals Conference (2014).

You can also

watch the presentation video

and download the

capacity planning worksheets

to help calculate capacity needs, which helps simplify the process and step the user through each step.

Wi-Fi SSID Overhead Calculator

Excel Spreadsheet format.

This tool allows WLAN administrators to assess the network performance impact that multiple SSIDs Continue reading

SSID Overhead Calculator

Wi-Fi SSID Overhead Calculator

1. Beacon Data Rate - beacon frames are sent at the lowest Basic / Mandatory data rate configured on the WLAN. Beacons must be sent at a "legacy" data rate, meaning only 802.11a/b/g rates. Select the beacon data rate from the drop-down menu within the tool.
   
2. Beacon Frame Size - beacon frames can vary in size based on the version of the 802.11 standard implemented (802. Continue reading

Show 200 – State of the Pushers

With 2.5 Million downloads over 4 years and more 250 shows, Greg and Ethan talk honestly and openly about the future of Packet Pushers, the increasing impact on our personal lives and the choices we face in the months ahead. What few people understand is that producing the Packet Pushers podcasts takes a lot of […]

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.

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The post Show 200 – State of the Pushers appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Greg Ferro.

Security policies on vSwitch/dvSwitch

Segment Routing on IOS-XR

What is Metadata and Why Should I Care?

VMware NSX Customer Story: Colt Decreases Data Center Networking Complexity

Adoption of network virtualization and SDN technologies from VMware and Arista Networks simplifies cloud infrastructure and enables automation to reduce timescales of cloud and network service provisioning

Offering the largest enterprise-class cloud footprint in Europe, Colt, an established leader in delivering integrated network, data center, voice and IT services, has implemented software-  defined networking [SDN] and network virtualization to simplify how its managed IT and cloud-based networking environment is deployed, managed and scaled throughout its data centers.

Following an extensive review, Colt selected Arista to provide high speed 10 and 40 gigabit Ethernet cloud-centric switches as an underlay network fabric and VMware NSX™ network virtualization to deliver a fully decoupled software network overlay.

SDN paves the way for automated cloud service delivery

The shift to SDN will provide a flexible, scalable, efficient and cost effective way to support the delivery of Colt’s managed IT services, including cloud based services. This makes Colt one of the first service providers in Europe to adopt SDN in a production environment to remove  automate cloud service delivery.

As a result of deploying a new network architecture based on Arista and VMware networking technologies, the time for Colt to add, change or modify services will Continue reading

Using LISP for IPv6 tunnelling.

In this post I would like to show how its possible to use a fairly new protocol, LISP, to interconnect IPv6 islands over an IPv4 backbone/core network.

LISP stands for Locator ID Seperation Protocol. As the name suggest, its actually meant to decouple location from identity. This means it can be used for such cool things as mobility, being VM’s or a mobile data connection.

However another aspect of using LISP involves its tunneling mechanism. This is what I will be using in my example to provide the IPv6 islands the ability to communicate over the IPv4-only backbone.

There is alot of terminology involved with LISP, but i will only use some of them here for clarity. If you want to know more about LISP, a good place to start is http://lisp.cisco.com.

The topology i will be using is a modified version of one presented in a Cisco Live presentation called “BRKRST-3046 – Advanced LISP – Whats in it for me?”. I encourage you to view this as well for more information.

Here is the topology:

Some background information about the setup. Both Site 1 and Site 2 are using EIGRP as the IGP. Both IPv4 and Continue reading

VMworld sessions up for viewing. It’s free to!

HP NNMi 10.00 Released

HP NNMi version 10.0 has been released. This is a good release, with many usability enhancements. I’m pleased to see continued development, as the future nirvana of all-powerful software defined networks hasn’t quite arrived yet. For now, we still have to manage our networks the old-fashioned way: SNMP is still alive & kicking.

NNMi – Background

HP NNMi is a spiritual descendant of HP OpenView, one of the first network monitoring tools. Between versions 6 and 7, HP completely re-wrote the NNM code, and now we have NNMi. The core product performs network discovery and fault monitoring. Add-on components (iSPIs) offer performance monitoring, NetFlow analysis, IP SLA monitoring, etc. A sister-product (HP Network Automation) is used for network configuration management. The add-on components were all separately licensed, but HP now bundles products together.

Historically NNMi has focused on underlying network monitoring capabilities, and less on the user interface. This meant that almost anything was technically possible, but the visual experience was underwhelming. The integration between core product and add-on components was limited.

The last major release was 9.20, in June 2012. There have been minor enhancements and fixes since, but the last patch was in September 2013. We’ve been due for Continue reading

Network Dictionary – Default Free Zone

Define "Default Free Zone" or DFZ Routing

The post Network Dictionary – Default Free Zone appeared first on EtherealMind.

Why logging is so important? VSS example.

Example: Why switch in VSS mode crashed? Few weeks ago there was a great podcast about logging (show 192). Recently I came with great example about how important logging is. If there is only one thing that I could pick up from the podcast it would be following statement “log as much as you can, […]

Author information

Michał Janowski

I was happy to finish light studies with a specialization active turism :). Than moved to IT world and participated in postgraduate studies which relied upon CCNA exploration course. After that I got my first job in IT as a software tester in Nokia Siemens Networks where I was responsible for verification of code running on radio equipment (3g, LTE). Now, as a Cisco TAC enginner I am helping cutomers resolving problems in their networks. I belong to unit responsible for Catalyst switches, so forgive me as most of my posts would be influenced by the technology I know the best.

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The post Why logging is so important? VSS example. appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Michał Janowski.

What is Service Chaining?

This post is in response to a comment on one of my previous posts on using MPLS in the Data Center. Service chaining has been getting a lot of press — and I’m encountering it a lot in the customers I’m talking to. What’s the big deal? To understand service chaining, let’s look at a […]

Author information

Russ White

Principle Engineer at Ericsson

Russ White is a Network Architect who's scribbled a basket of books, penned a plethora of patents, written a raft of RFCs, taught a trencher of classes, and done a lot of other stuff you either already know about, or don't really care about. You want numbers and letters? Okay: CCIE 2635, CCDE 2007:001, CCAr, BSIT, MSIT (Network Design & Architecture, Capella University), MACM (Biblical Literature, Shepherds Theological Seminary). Russ is a Principal Engineer in the IPOS Team at Ericsson, where he works on lots of different stuff, serves on the Routing Area Directorate at the IETF, and is a cochair of the Internet Society Advisory Council. Russ will be speaking in November at the Ericsson Technology Day. he recently published The Art of Network Architecture, is currently working on a new book in the area Continue reading