In this blog post, I will explain some of the Multicast basics that most of us look for. MPLS Multicast and many other Multicast Design, Troubleshooting, and Multicast Deployment topics are explained in the different blog posts on the website. Also, this post will cover the many fundamental Multicast frequently asked questions briefly. For a more detailed explanation of the particular topic, you can check our other blog posts on the website.
Before we start, please note that if you are looking for IP and MPLS Multicast video course, you can click here.
There are many reasons in the real life for Multicast, but mostly we are seeing it in the financial networks, stock exchange, Large Campus Networks for IP Surveillance, and IPTV Multicast purposes.
When it comes to the deployment details, although we will cover them in separate blog posts, in IPTV, Source Specific Multicast, in Financial Networks, Bidirectional Multicast is used.
Also, using Multicasting provides resource optimization, which means, less bandwidth, less source, and receiver CPU and Memory usage it can provide.
There are many Multicast Protocols for Multicast to work in the Networks but when it Continue reading
BGP Local Preference is a BGP attribute that is used for Outbound path manipulation in today’s Computer Networks. Path manipulation is known as BGP Traffic Engineering as well and the Local Preference attribute is the most common technique for it in real networks. In this blog post I will be explaining the use case, comparison with other outbound path manipulation techniques, and how the BGP Local Preference attribute works we will understand.
First of all, we should know that it is not a Cisco specific attribute, it is a standard attribute, which is used in other vendor equipment as well. Vendor interoperability works without issue.
Because a picture is worth a thousand words, let’s have a look at the below topology to understand how it works.

In the above topology, AS65000 has two paths to AS1.
Prefixes from AS1 are learned via two paths but AS65000 wants to use the left path as a Primary Path and the right path as a backup path.
The reason in real-life people wants to use their links as primary and backup this way is usually a cost. One of the links might be expensive and another can be cheaper, and they may want Continue reading
A few weeks ago, we recorded a webinar on deploying IPv6 for WISPs and FISPs. As IPv6 adoption continues to climb, developing an IPv6 strategy for design, deployment and system integration is an important step before subscribers begin asking for IPv6.


Webinar: click here
Slides: click here

There may not be as much structured data in the world as there is unstructured data, but one could easily argue that the structured data – mostly purchasing transactions and other kinds of historical data data stored in systems of record – is at least of equal value. …
Revving Up Relational Databases For Scorching Native AI Performance was written by Jeffrey Burt at The Next Platform.
Paid Feature Over the last several years, the limiting factors to large-scale AI/ML were first hardware capabilities, followed by the scalability of complex software frameworks. …
Liquid Cooling Is The Next Key To Future AI Growth was written by David Gordon at The Next Platform.
We’re delighted to report that GigaOm, a global provider of technology industry insights and analysis, has placed VMware in the leader ring in the GigaOm Radar Report for Cloud Networking 2022. In the leader ring, VMware is placed in the Platform Play and Maturity quadrant. This is a testament to the robustness of VMware’s cloud networking solution and its leading position in the cloud networking space. Click here to download the complete report.
Noting VMware’s broad portfolio of networking solutions, which covers the entire network stack and includes native network features for observability, micro-segmentation, and beyond, GigaOm says that VMware is in a leading position to help enterprises with complex networking requirements “modernize and optimize their infrastructure.”
The report evaluates 11 vendors that provide tools or platforms to help build and operate cloud networks. They include major enterprises like VMware, as well as several smaller companies.
GigaOm assessed the vendors on a variety of criteria, including:
VMware received a triple-plus score – the highest evaluation possible – for most of the categories given above.
One of the core components of Ansible is inventories. In its most basic form, an inventory provides host information to Ansible so it can trigger the tasks on the right host or system. In most environments, the static inventory is sufficient for the Ansible control node to work from, however as we expand our use of automation, we need to transition to more effective methods of gathering ever-changing environment details.
This is where the use of a dynamic inventory is beneficial. This allows the platform to gather information for the inventory from environments that are not static sources. A prime example of this is using a dynamic inventory plugin to gather inventory information from a cloud provider or hypervisor, enabling you to keep an inventory up to date with instance details.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the biggest public cloud providers used around the world. Organizations use their Elastic Compute Cloud services (EC2) for their workflows, however managing an inventory for your instances running on AWS would typically have to be done manually, which is problematic and time consuming. Using the AWS Identity and Access Management interface (IAM), we are able to get programmatic access to the AWS Continue reading
Johna believes that API management is part of IT operations. Greg doesn't understand the question and so we set off in search of answers.
The post HS018 API Management is a Configuration Problem appeared first on Packet Pushers.
A reader sent me the following intriguing question:
I’m trying to understand the ARP behavior with SVI interface configured with anycast gateways of leaf switches, and with distributed anycast gateways configured across the leaf nodes in VXLAN scenario.
Without going into too many details, the core dilemma is: will the ARP request get flooded, and will we get multiple ARP replies. As always, the correct answer is “it depends” 🤷♂️
A reader sent me the following intriguing question:
I’m trying to understand the ARP behavior with SVI interface configured with anycast gateways of leaf switches, and with distributed anycast gateways configured across the leaf nodes in VXLAN scenario.
Without going into too many details, the core dilemma is: will the ARP request get flooded, and will we get multiple ARP replies. As always, the correct answer is “it depends” 🤷♂️
Remember when only a couple of variations of processors were available for servers in any given generation of server CPUs? …
The Mass Customization Wave Is Starting For Servers was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.