[Virtual Routing] Part 2 – FHRP Issues in VMware vSphere

I was working on a topology for another post regarding interoperability between the recently released Cisco Cloud Services Router (CSR 1000v) and Vyatta when I ran into an issue regarding vSphere network security policies and First Hop Redundancy Procotols (FHRP) such as VRRP. This post will serve as a precursor to that overall post, but I want to point out a key configuration piece when performing redundant gateways with a FHRP like VRRP.

[Virtual Routing] Part 2 – FHRP Issues in VMware vSphere

I was working on a topology for another post regarding interoperability between the recently released Cisco Cloud Services Router (CSR 1000v) and Vyatta when I ran into an issue regarding vSphere network security policies and First Hop Redundancy Procotols (FHRP) such as VRRP. This post will serve as a precursor to that overall post, but I want to point out a key configuration piece when performing redundant gateways with a FHRP like VRRP.

[Virtual Routing] Part 2 – FHRP Issues in VMware vSphere

I was working on a topology for another post regarding interoperability between the recently released Cisco Cloud Services Router (CSR 1000v) and Vyatta when I ran into an issue regarding vSphere network security policies and First Hop Redundancy Procotols (FHRP) such as VRRP. This post will serve as a precursor to that overall post, but I want to point out a key configuration piece when performing redundant gateways with a FHRP like VRRP.

Cisco Nexus – Port “Inactive” Status

Quick notes on the “inactive” port status seen on the Cisco Nexus platform, which was perplexing the first time I ran into it. This isn’t a new status, existing on a variety of Cisco platforms for a long time now. As it happens, I’ve just not seen it that often historically. In dealing with the […]

Author information

Ethan Banks

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

The post Cisco Nexus – Port “Inactive” Status appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

Packet Design Appoints Matt Sherrod as Vice President of Product Management

Company Snags Network Management Expert and Industry Veteran

SANTA CLARA, CA — April 16, 2013 — Packet Design, the leading provider of IP network route analytics software, announced today that it has hired Matt Sherrod as Vice President of Product Management. Sherrod will lead product strategy, product design and integrated partner solutions to expand the Packet Design product portfolio and deliver a best-in-class customer experience.

Sherrod has more than 25 years of networking experience. He joins Packet Design from CA Technologies where, as the Vice President of Product Management, he defined product direction and strategy for the company’s infrastructure management solutions. Over the last 10 years he has held a number of field and management positions at CA Technologies and NetQoS. Prior to joining NetQoS, Matt worked as Director of Communications for a Fortune 100 global enterprise, applying leading edge technologies to improve application delivery.

“Matt Sherrod has a deep understanding of customer needs coupled with years of experience in defining and delivering innovative network performance management products to address them,” said Scott Sherwood, CEO of Packet Design. “He is uniquely qualified to lead Packet Design’s product strategy and ensure we provide world-class management solutions for complex service provider and Continue reading

[Virtual Routing] Part 1 – CSR 1000v First Glance

As some of you have heard, the Cisco Cloud Services Router (CSR) 1000v has recently been released for download, and I quite literally pounced on it when I first heard the word. For those that haven’t heard, the CSR 1000v is essentially Cisco’s answer to the problem that has existed in datacenters for a while - that the current multi-tenancy mechanisms, especially overlays like VXLAN and yes, even NVGRE, are just not cutting it for everyone.

[Virtual Routing] Part 1 – CSR 1000v First Glance

As some of you have heard, the Cisco Cloud Services Router (CSR) 1000v has recently been released for download, and I quite literally pounced on it when I first heard the word. For those that haven’t heard, the CSR 1000v is essentially Cisco’s answer to the problem that has existed in datacenters for a while - that the current multi-tenancy mechanisms, especially overlays like VXLAN and yes, even NVGRE, are just not cutting it for everyone.

[Virtual Routing] Part 1 – CSR 1000v First Glance

As some of you have heard, the Cisco Cloud Services Router (CSR) 1000v has recently been released for download, and I quite literally pounced on it when I first heard the word. For those that haven’t heard, the CSR 1000v is essentially Cisco’s answer to the problem that has existed in datacenters for a while - that the current multi-tenancy mechanisms, especially overlays like VXLAN and yes, even NVGRE, are just not cutting it for everyone.

The Route to Null0 is OK

Back to the basics today. I have seen this pop up a few times and wanted to offer some clarification on what seems to be a cloudy issue for CCNP (and some CCIE) candidates. I’ve seen quite a few times now where engineers see a route to Null0 in a Cisco router and assume instantly that the router is “black holing” traffic.   Sometimes, a route to Null0 is inserted into the routing table when performing summarization with nearly every routing protocol in common use today.

KIClet: SDN – Pick Your Poison

I keep having to remind myself that SDN is more about solving a policy problem than a transport problem. This is why the answer to the question “Will SDN solve all of our networking problems?” is always NO. Truth be told, SDN has been around for a while (see SNMP, Perl, Netconf) in various forms, but it’s receiving a lot of attention right now because the mechanisms are starting to mature and frankly, the networking industry hasn’t really seen a lot of groundbreaking innovations lately.

KIClet: SDN – Pick Your Poison

I keep having to remind myself that SDN is more about solving a policy problem than a transport problem. This is why the answer to the question “Will SDN solve all of our networking problems?” is always NO. Truth be told, SDN has been around for a while (see SNMP, Perl, Netconf) in various forms, but it’s receiving a lot of attention right now because the mechanisms are starting to mature and frankly, the networking industry hasn’t really seen a lot of groundbreaking innovations lately.

KIClet: SDN – Pick Your Poison

I keep having to remind myself that SDN is more about solving a policy problem than a transport problem. This is why the answer to the question “Will SDN solve all of our networking problems?” is always NO. Truth be told, SDN has been around for a while (see SNMP, Perl, Netconf) in various forms, but it’s receiving a lot of attention right now because the mechanisms are starting to mature and frankly, the networking industry hasn’t really seen a lot of groundbreaking innovations lately.

The Route to Null0 is OK

Back to the basics today. I have seen this pop up a few times and wanted to offer some clarification on what seems to be a cloudy issue for CCNP (and some CCIE) candidates. I’ve seen quite a few times now where engineers see a route to Null0 in a Cisco router and assume instantly that the router is “black holing” traffic.   Sometimes, a route to Null0 is inserted into the routing table when performing summarization with nearly every routing protocol in common use today.

Fighting Stale Documentation

In my continuing series on the decidedly boring, I would like to discuss the subtle, yet paralyzing, evil of stale documentation. In my experience, stale documentation can be useful or it can be disastrous, depending on how much is wrong. Personally, when I see more than a couple of tiny mistakes in a diagram, spreadsheet, […]

Author information

Keith Tokash

Keith Tokash

Keith Tokash, CCIE (R&S) #21236, began his career in 1999, and has spent the last decade running around large content and small ISP networks. He spends his spare time with his newborn son, on the mat at the local Jiu-Jitsu gym, and trying to keep his fat yap shut.

The post Fighting Stale Documentation appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Keith Tokash.

My Problem

Do you know what my problem is?
250 million people in Indonesia, and there are only about 160 CCIEs.

I'm not saying the whole population must become CCIE or must learn about computer networking. But think about how many networks are there in Indonesia:
We have 7 mobile operators.
We have more than 100 Internet Service Providers.
We have one mobile operator with more than 100 million subscribers.
And there are only less than 200 individuals who have reached the expert skill level in IP network technology.

There are many expatriates who currently work in my country. We don't need to replace them all with Indonesian professionals. But at least we need to make sure Indonesians have the same level of skill set, and they are given the same opportunity to compete.

I'm thinking that the solution is not to make every network engineer to become CCIE. It has to go beyond that. The solution must transform Indonesia's next generations, young professionals and students, to become globally competitive professionals. To become professionals who possess the complete package from social network, technical skill and soft skill, and extensive experiences.

So they can compete in global market. So they can move around Continue reading

CCIE Security v4 Reading List – Update From The Program Manager

Because of my personal interest in the CCIE Security program (at least the written exam the next time I’m up for CCIE recert), I asked Nat Timms if there was an updated CCIE reading list. This list was recommended to me by Nat in her role as CCIE Security program manager; a big thanks to […]

Author information

Ethan Banks

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

The post CCIE Security v4 Reading List – Update From The Program Manager appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

Building a Ghetto WAN Emulation Network

I wanted a way to do some controlled tests of WAN acceleration products, using a production network. You can buy or rent commercial WAN emulators, but for my purposes it seemed like an improvised solution would suffice. I had a couple of Cisco 2800 routers, a switch, and an ESXi box in my lab that I could press into service, so I built a test network that looks like this:


R1 acts like the WAN router at a branch site. It has a QoS policy with a "shape average" statement on its "WAN" interface to change the bandwidth to whatever we want to test.

R2 simply NATs the test traffic onto an IP address in the production network, since I didn't feel like configuring a new production subnet just for the test.

The ESXi box is where the fun part lives: I created two vSwitches and connected one physical NIC to each. I then spun up a simple Ubuntu 12.04 VM with eth0 and eth1 connected to each of the two vSwitches, giving me a separate network connected to each Cisco router. I then enabled routing on the Linux VM and created the appropriate static routes to enable the Continue reading