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Switching to Linux for… Switches?

Like many folks out there, I’m following the rise of “whitebox switching”, and am interested to see if (and where) it takes off. There’s many players out there who are trying to pitch disassociating the software from the hardware, and quite a few hardware manufacturers that are offering various hardware platforms on which to run […]

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The post Switching to Linux for… Switches? appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Will Dennis.

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Podcast Planning – Got A Great Network Down Story?

Greg and I want to record a “Nightmare Before Christmas” podcast, where folks come on and tell us their most grisly, horrifying network down story. The idea is a relaxed show chatting around the holiday fire, telling war stories, and being glad it’s all over now. So…got a good story? Want to come on a […]

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The post Podcast Planning – Got A Great Network Down Story? appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

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Show 172 – Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security In The Data Center – Sponsored

It’s an exciting time to be a networking geek, with the introduction of new technologies like network virtualization and established vendors like Cisco jumping into the SDN market. But, what about network security? What happens when you move from traditional data center architectures to virtualization, cloud and SDN environments? Palo Alto Networks builds a next-generation […]

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The post Show 172 – Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security In The Data Center – Sponsored appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

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F5 drops LAB VE price to $95

During a recent F5 purchase I wanted to get some more F5 lab virtual edition appliances. At my company we have had two and it has been invaluable for testing new configs and training junior engineers in a safe environment that could be trashed and restored at will. At the time we ordered the lab […]

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The post F5 drops LAB VE price to $95 appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Eric Flores.

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Default CoS Value in Netapp Cluster Mode

I was troubleshooting an MTU related issue for NFS connectivity in a Flexpod (Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus, and Netapp storage with VMware vSphere, running the Nexus 1000v). Regular-sized frames were making it through, but not jumbo frames. I ensured the endpoints were set up correctly, then moved inwards….in my experience, the problem is usually there. The original design basically included the use of CoS tag 2 for all NFS traffic, so that it could be honored throughout the network, and given jumbo frames treatment.

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Default CoS Value in Netapp Cluster Mode

I was troubleshooting an MTU related issue for NFS connectivity in a Flexpod (Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus, and Netapp storage with VMware vSphere, running the Nexus 1000v). Regular-sized frames were making it through, but not jumbo frames. I ensured the endpoints were set up correctly, then moved inwards….in my experience, the problem is usually there. The original design basically included the use of CoS tag 2 for all NFS traffic, so that it could be honored throughout the network, and given jumbo frames treatment.

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Superman, Immortal, Janitor

"What's the difference between Solutions Architect and Technical Leader?"

Someone asked me that question last week. We all know the answer: none. It's just a damn title. Title doesn't matter. It never does. Batman once said: it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you.


In my current organization, that focuses on consulting services, there is a distinction between Solutions Architect and Technical Leader role in career path for technical person. (Himawan, but you said there is no such thing as career path? Well, let's save the debate for some other time).

As seen in below figure, Network Consulting Engineers (NCE) make progress from level I to level IV, and this is the point where he/she can make decision: either to stick as NCE then becomes Technical Leader someday, or to move to become Solutions Architect. He/she can actually move to any other position across the organization like pre-sales consultant or project manager or business development manager or even accountant! But let's keep the discussion between the path of Technical Leader and Solutions Architect.


So what's the difference between the two then?

Both must have excellent soft skills: communicate effectively, above average presentation skills, team Continue reading

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MITM and Routing Security

If the motivation behind the effort behind securing BGP was to allow any BGP speaker to distinguish between routing updates that contained “genuine” routing information and routing updates that contained contrived or false information, then these two reports point out that we’ve fallen short of that target. What’s gone wrong? Why are certain forms of routing Man-In-The-Middle attacks all but undetectable for the RPKI-enabled BGPSEC framework?

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The Impact of Software Defined X on a Networking organization

Introduction We’re in one of the most exciting times in data networking.  While I’m sure we’re all sick of vendors co-opting technologies in their infancy, there is a lot of good work going on to change the fundamentals of moving data (I shudder to call this a paradigm shift; I’ll save that term for life […]

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On Link in IPv6

As an avid reader of RFCs and RFC drafts, I’m always running across little bits of knowledge I either already knew and forgot (I forget a lot of things), or things I didn’t know and wouldn’t have expected. RFC5942, published way back in 2010 (a long time in network engineering terms), discusses a topic I […]

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How Does QoS Work?

This sponsored blog post was written by Clark Zoeller, CCIE #13760, Sales Engineer with ActionPacked Networks. Quality of Service (QoS) is a suite of technologies used to manage bandwidth usage as data crosses computer networks. Its most common use is for protection of real-time and high priority data applications. QoS technologies, or tools, each have […]

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The post How Does QoS Work? appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Sponsored Blog Posts.

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Configuring SNMPv3 On NX-OS

We’re currently trying to allow a client to perform an operation using SNMP set commands on a Cisco NX-OS switch (namely a 5548).

It’s possible using SNMPv2c and community strings, but this does not generate a log message, making it completely unaccountable. SNMPv3 seems to have the answer. According to the documentation, it provides:

• Integrity
• Encryption
• Authentication

I’ve tested using a set operation to change a MIB using the following command:

snmpset -v 3 -u test -l authpriv -a MD5 -A Testpass01 -x DES -X Testpass01 hostname system.sysLocation.0 s TESTLOCATION

Which works fine.

However, the problem arises when trying to back off the authentication of the SNMP operation to TACACS/RADIUS. My interpretation of the documentation suggests this is possible. My Cisco SE has not denied it either. However, I reckon some changes need to be made to the authentication server. According to what I’ve read:

You can use the VSA cisco-av-pair on AAA servers to specify user role mapping for the Nexus 5000 Series switch using this format:

shell:roles="roleA roleB ..."

If you do not specify the role option in the cisco-av-pair attribute, the default user role is network-operator.

You can also specify your SNMPv3 authentication and privacy Continue reading

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IPv6 at the OECD – A Public Policy Perspective on IPv6

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD, is a widely referenced and respected source of objective economic data and comparative studies of national economies and economic performance. The organization has a very impressive track record of high quality research and a justified reputation of excellence in its publications, even with its evident preference for advocating economic reform through open markets and their associated competitive rigors. OECD activities in the past have proved to be instrumental in facilitating change in governmental approaches to common issues that have broad economic and social dimensions. So how does IPv6 fit into this picture of OECD activities?

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Converging Skillsets With Technology

I saw this Engineers Unplugged video today and was reminded of a viewpoint I’ve been slowly developing over the last two years or so: Essentially the discussion is about convergence technologies like FCoE, where we rid ourselves of a completely separate network, and converge FC storage traffic onto our standard Ethernet network. With this technology shift, how does this impact the administration of the technology? Do the teams have to converge as well?

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Converging Skillsets With Technology

I saw this Engineers Unplugged video today and was reminded of a viewpoint I’ve been slowly developing over the last two years or so: Essentially the discussion is about convergence technologies like FCoE, where we rid ourselves of a completely separate network, and converge FC storage traffic onto our standard Ethernet network. With this technology shift, how does this impact the administration of the technology? Do the teams have to converge as well?

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Hardware – Clock and Data Recovery

Clock and data recovery is an essential physical-layer function of modern switch and router hardware. Digging deep into the electronics of a router may not be your thing, but clock recovery is a fundamental building block for other network hardware … Continue reading →

The post Hardware – Clock and Data Recovery appeared first on The Network Sherpa.

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IOS and NX-OS Platform Identifiers

I was preparing a presentation the other day about the high level differences between IOS, IOS-XE and NX-OS and one of the things I included in the presentation was the various platform and branch identifiers that’s used in each OS. It’s just a bit of trivia that I thought would be interesting and might come in handy one day. I’m posting the information I collected below so everyone can reference it.

IOS

For IOS, you can see the platform identifier in the filename and the “show version” output. If we take an example version string, 15.1(2)SG2, and break it down, here’s what each digit in the string signifies:

15	.1	(2)	SG	2
Major release number	Minor release number	New feature release number	Branch/train/platform identifier	Maintenance rebuild number

The branch/platform identifier can also be seen in the IOS filename:

cat4500e-entservicesk9-mz.151-2.SG2.bin

Here’s a summary of the branch identifiers in IOS 15:

• M/T – 800 Series ISR, ISRg2 (1900, 2900, 3900), Connected Grid Router 2000
• S – 7600 Series Router, ME 3600X, ME 3800X
• GC – 5900 Series Embedded Router
• SE – Catalyst 2960, 3560, 3750, IE 3000 Switches
• SG – Catalyst 4500E (Sup 6E and earlier)
• Continue reading

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Show 171 – Cisco FabricPath Deep Dive Part 2

Cisco FabricPath is a TRILL-based layer 2 forwarding technology that can take the place of spanning-tree. Allowing a fully-meshed layer 2 network to forward traffic across all links, FabricPath helps customers to make the most of their expensive 10GbE and 40GbE interconnects. In this show, Jamie Caesar, Colby Glass, and Ed Diaz discuss real-world FabricPath […]

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The post Show 171 – Cisco FabricPath Deep Dive Part 2 appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

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IOS and NX-OS Platform Identifiers

I was preparing a presentation the other day about the high level differences between IOS, IOS-XE and NX-OS and one of the things I included in the presentation was the various platform and branch identifiers that's used in each OS. It's just a bit of trivia that I thought would be interesting and might come in handy one day. I'm posting the information I collected below so everyone can reference it.

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Installing Pyenv on Mac OSX

When I’m writing code, I’m usually in OSX. When I want to try things out, or check for compatibility between certain versions of Python, it’s handy to have them all accessible… enter Pyenv. Pyenv is based on Rbenv, which for you non-Rubyists is a tools that allows you to set up Ruby environments that are scoped either globally, per-shell or per-folder!