IPv6 Deployment Practices and Recommendations

Communications technologies are evolving rapidly. This pace of evolution, while slowed somewhat by economic circumstances, still moves forward at a dramatic pace. This is indicative to the fact that while the ‘bubble’ of the 1990’s is past, society and business as a whole has arrived to the point where communications technologies and their evolution are a requirement for proper and timely interaction with the human environment.

This has profound impact on a number of foundations upon which the premise of these technologies rest. One of the key issues is that of the Internet Protocol, commonly referred to simply as ‘IP’. The current widely accepted version of IP is version 4. The protocol, referred to as IPv4 has served as the foundation to the current Internet since its practical inception in the public arena. As the success of the Internet attests, IPv4 has performed its job well and has provided the evolutionary scope to adapt over the twenty years that has transpired. Like all technologies though IPv4 is reaching the point where further evolution will become difficult and cumbersome if not impossible. As a result, IPv6 was created as a next generation evolution to the IP protocol to address these issues.

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Storage as a Service – Clouds of Data

Storage as a Service (SaaS) – How in the world do you?

There is a very good reason why cloud storage has so much hype. It simply makes sense. It has an array of attractive use case models. It has a wide range of potential scope and purpose making it as flexible as the meaning of the bits stored. But most importantly, it has a good business model that has attracted some major names into the market sector.

If you read the blog posts and articles, most will say that Cloud Storage will never be accepted due to the lack of security & accountability. The end result is that many CISO’s & CIO’s have decided that it is just too difficult to prove due diligence for compliance. As a result, they have not widely embraced the cloud model. Now while this is correct, it is not totally true. As a matter of fact most folks are actually using Cloud Storage within their environment. They just don’t equate it as such. This article is intended to provide some insight into the use models of SaaS as well as some of the technical and business considerations that need to be made in Continue reading

Arista 7500: the Fastest and Greenest 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch

We are witnessing a major shift from traditional enterprise data centers to much larger warehouse-scale cloud data centers. This is driven by the economics of scale and the benefits of cloud computing, and is happening for both for public and private clouds.

These large data centers need a much higher performance networks that bears little resemblance with traditional enterprise networks. A cloud data center network needs to interconnect many thousands of servers with predictable bandwidth and low-latency.

Our original goal was a switch that could connect 10,000 servers with a simple, 2-stage network, that would deliver predictable Gigabit performance for each server, and do this at a price point that is compatible with web and cloud business models. Just to be clear, such a network requires 10 Terabits/second throughput (10,000 x 1 Gbps), active-active load-sharing redundancy to avoid any single point of failure, and the ability to run 24×7 since there are no maintenance windows in the cloud world.

I am very pleased with the product that resulted from this development, the Arista 7500 data center switch. It turned out really great, even better than we originally anticipated.

The Arista 7500 switch is the highest throughput 10G Ethernet switch in Continue reading

Ticket #11

Please follow the instructions found here about how to use the lab file. ...For more mini labs, have a look at the mini labs page. Also have a look at the complete troubleshooting workbook.

Its not a goodbye. Leaving Oracle but not Solaris!!

This is probably one of the most difficult entries I have ever written. I have decided to leave my job at Oracle. Don’t have a forward destination yet but I intend to take some time thinking about it before I take the next step. I am leaving Oracle but I will still be involved with Solaris and OpenSolaris in some form or the other. Having spent 14 years writing million+ lines of code and architecting some of the most complex subsystems, I don’t intend to just walk away.

The last 2-3 days have been a very emotional journey for me. I thought I was a very strong willed person but it was amazing how many times I came close to tears when so many people stopped by. All I can say is that I am so grateful that the community feels that I had done something useful (both personally and professionally) for Solaris. The journey has been nothing but wonderful and I will surely miss everyone. But I have learned one thing in last several years – to not say goodbye ever because our paths will cross again!!

Best of luck to everyone in the Solaris community who help it Continue reading

Troubleshooting challenge lab solutions

We hope that you not only enjoyed the lab, but also learned TS techniques and advance R&S topics. ...Remember that practicing TS, not only good for the TS section, but it also a great tool for sharpening your advance R&S config skills. ...Please stay tuned to this blog for more TS mini labs and other TS/R&S related topic.

The TS challenge has ended

I hope that you have enjoyed the lab, and most important also learned in the process about TS and advance R&S topics. If you want to dive deeper into CCIE R&S troubleshooting and advanaced CCIE R&S topics, you are welcomed to have a look at the TS workbook. In the following days I’ll publish the list of winners and the solutions.

TS Challenge is on

The following routes are sent from BB4 to R1: 24.24.24.24 /32, 24.24.24.1 /32, 24.24.24.2 /32 and 24.24.24.3 /32 R1 is configured with the following policy for routes coming from BB4: • R1 should be configured such that R5 does NOT advertise network 24.24.24.2 /32 to R6 • R1 should filter network 24.24.24.1 /32 However, R5 does NOT see network 24.24.24.24 /32 and network 24.24.24.3 /32 that should have come from BB4.

Ticket #10

Please follow the instructions found here about how to use the lab file. ...R6 was configured to summarize R3's Lo30,Lo31,Lo32 and Lo33, so R4 would see only one summarized route for them. ...Fix the problem while, making sure R6 sees all R3's routes.

Infiniband and it’s unique potential for Storage and Business Continuity

It’s one of those technologies that many have only had cursory awareness of. It is certainly not a ‘mainstream’ technology in comparison to IP, Ethernet or even Fibre Channel. Those who have awareness of it know Infiniband as a high performance compute clustering technology that is typically used for very short interconnects within the Data Center. While this is true, it’s uses and capacity have been expanded into many areas that were once thought to be out of its realm. In addition, many of the distance limitations that have prevented it’s expanded use are being extended. In some instances to rather amazing distances that rival the more Internet oriented networking technologies. This article will look closely at this networking technology from both historical and evolutionary perspectives. We will also look at some of the unique solutions that are offered by its use.

Not your mother’s Infiniband

The InfiniBand (IB) specification defines the methods & architecture of the interconnect that establishes the interconnection of the I/O subsystems of next generation of servers, otherwise known as compute clustering. The architecture is based on a serial, switched fabric that currently defines link bandwidths between 2.5 and 120 Gbits/sec. It effectively resolves the Continue reading

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