The Local - World’s Fastest Internet Connection ‘Used to Dry Laundry’
March 31, 2008 by Greg Ferro · Leave a Comment
Magnificent. Really. A 40GB Internet connection, a fortune in state of art network gear and the quote is:
“She mostly used it to dry her laundry,” he told The Local.
“It was a big bit of gear and it got pretty warm.”
Moral of the Story: Never forget that the mainstream is very different from you.
The Local - World’s fastest internet connection ‘used to dry laundry’: “World’s fastest internet connection ‘used to dry laundry’”
Blue Coat ProxySG VIP and Cisco Switches Need Multicast Enabled
March 30, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 2 Comments
You have a pair of shiny new ProxySG boxen that you want to setup in active / standby for high availability. You configure it up and everything seems to work, and then it doesn’t, or other equipment on the same network experiences random problems.
What you are having is a Multicast problem with your Ethernet switches, most likely your Cisco switches, that has the problem. How to understand and solve the problem after the jump.
Network Dictionary - Windows
March 28, 2008 by Greg Ferro · Leave a Comment
1. shortened form for Microsoft Windows of any version since 1994 or so.
2. Really describes the customer experiences of wanting to throw the computer out the window after using it for some time. Similar in use as ‘to google’, thus ‘i want to use Windows’.
3. The source of most pain for network engineers due to ancient and inefficient networking protocols. Now recognized as so bad that specialist technologies are available to address the inherent problems of the software see WAAS or Application Acceleration.
4. something used to throw firewalls out of (or through) in times of need.
The Five Hottest Skills for Your Networking Career - Network World
March 28, 2008 by Greg Ferro · Leave a Comment
The five hottest skills for your networking career - Network World: “Cliff Samuels Jr: What are the five top hottest Cisco skills to learn today to stay ahead of the curve in a networking career? Is it VOIP, IPV6…
Neil_Anderson: I would say the absolute top five are: security, mobility, unified communications/VoIP, video over IP, and application acceleration.”
My viewpoint
If you accept the above comment (and I do not completely agree) then what I see is that Layer 7 skills that are in demand. All of the these technologies mean that not only must you have skills in traditional or core networking, but you must be literate in technologies such as operating systems, protocol mechanics, applicaton configuration, service delivery. Plus you need to communicate with business folks to be successful at Layer 7 service delivery.
Layer 7 is valuable because you have more and / or wider skills than anyone else not because it is inherently magical. Routing and switching is a fundamental skillset, not the end of the road. Its up to you to choose your path.
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Fixing the Unfairness of TCP Congestion Control | George Ou | ZDNet.Com
March 24, 2008 by Greg Ferro · Leave a Comment
You MUST READ the excellent piece of technical journalism. Includes real diagrams and accurate technology on fixing TCP flow control now that the VJ fix isn’t working. Also relates to the Net Neutrality debate.
Fixing the unfairness of TCP congestion control | George Ou | ZDNet.com
Bob Briscoe is now the person I would like most to meet and have beer with. Look at the papers he has published. These are worth studying if you are CCIE or a candidate.
Network Dictionary - Ohnosecond
March 23, 2008 by Greg Ferro · Leave a Comment
An ohnosecond is that fractional subjective time slice in which you realize that you have pressed the wrong key and taken the entire network down.
Coming Soon: The Cisco Blade Server? - GigaOM
March 23, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 3 Comments
Coming Soon: The Cisco Blade Server? - GigaOM: “”
I am not only one who thinks that the Nexus 7000 is a footprint to scare off competitors. Scroll down to the part
“While many in the industry saw this announcement as playing catch-up to the likes of Force10 in the data center switching market”
Network Access Control Looking Like a Flub
March 21, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 5 Comments
While I am no expert on NAC I am deeply unimpressed by the whole technology. It looks like a whole bunch of trouble that is guaranteed to keep you up all night.
I see today that Lockdown Networks couldn’t get funding and are going out of business. This suggests to me that you should not go anywhere near NAC.
Why Didn’t Nortel Do Better ? Cisco Wasn’t Always the Top Dog.
March 21, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 2 Comments
In response to Omar Sultan at Cisco on ‘Why you want this switch ?’ . In my view, Cisco IOS was buggy,slow and the hardware product was a poor design, but Nortel got the usability and technical support very wrong. Customers chose Cisco anyway because the Cisco TAC made the problems not seem so bad.
Network Dictionary - RITA - Reliable Internetworking Troubleshooting Agent
March 20, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 1 Comment
Reliable Internetworking Troubleshooting Agent RFC 2321
Key Facts
Firstly you should consult the RFC for background.
You don’t hit something with RITA, you ‘wang’ it.
Wanging your computer or router may not necssarily fix it, but you will feel better
Wanging management or co-workers is not generally a good idea (TM)
Where Are All the Features for Nexus ? Or Is It Just Me ?
March 20, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 2 Comments
I wrote this in response to Omar Sultan at Cisco on ‘Why you want this switch ?
I was looking the NX-OS feature navigator today and NX-OS looks (currently) like a substantially feature-free platform - check out the NX-OS Feature Navigator and consider what is not listed here.
A couple of other things that strike me as odd:
- NX-OS has a primary marketing message that is based on technologies that do not yet exist (FCoE) or technology that only a few companies care much about (10GB Ethernet), or intangible elements like their new switching fabric
- Waxing lyrically about your ‘lights out sub-system’ smacks of desperation because there are not any other features to talk about.
- NX-OS remains an unknown.
- I still believe that NX-OS has been released to put a footprint in the space and slow down venture capital investments. You never know, they might have produced a product that could eat Cisco’s lunch.
Omar and Doug have a role in promoting the Nexus 7000. Lets make sure that we don’t go overboard with the markitecture. I would appreciate if they could quiet down the marketing so I can get some work done here. If another person comes up to me and asks whether I have seen the Nexus 7000 I am going to hit them with RITA.
As a long time veteran of many product releases, market announcements, platform announcements I remain deeply cynical. In some movie, a pretending person once said, “show me the money”. That’s what I want.
Postscript
I wrote more about the Nexus 7000 in a previous posting considering whether it is suitable for use today or tomorrow.
RFC 1925 - the Twelve Networking Truths
March 19, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 2 Comments
Every network engineer should read this RFC, and understand what it means. Possibly, should be required reading for all CCNA candidates.
Abstract
This memo documents the fundamental truths of networking for the<Internet community. This memo does not specify a standard, except in the sense that all standards must implicitly follow the fundamental truths.
Network Dictionary - Markitecture
March 19, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 2 Comments
Network Dictionary - markitecture
1 - Markitecture describes the attempts of marketing borgs to give us suggestions on how to implement a given technology. The basic idea is that you are too stupid to understand the technology so you need some marketing collateral to show you how its done.
Describing My Job to ‘Normal People’
March 17, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 4 Comments
I went to dinner with a group of guys on the weekend. (Yeah, I know, I am actually sort of normal sometimes). In one of those awkward moments, I had to describe what I did, I am wondering what you tell people that you do ? Read more
Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE) Software Version 2.1.0 Ships
March 14, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 1 Comment
I notice that Cisco has released 2.1.0 for the Cisco ACE today. A quick read of the release notes show lots of fun goodies packed inside. These features are starting to ‘catch up’ with the F5.
I have installed the ANM 1.2 management platform in the last couple of weeks and will post a review soon.
Erasing or Clearing the Config on Your Netscreen Firewall
March 13, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 1 Comment
A short note on how to erase the configuration in your Netscreen firewall. Mainly so I can find it next time….
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IOS CLI: Show Run Linenum
March 12, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 1 Comment
You probably know this one already, but I have been typing “wr t” for a long time and never stopped to look. Puts a line number at the side of the config so you can say to the person on the other end of the phone, see line 10……….
r2#sh run linenum
Building configuration…Current configuration : 3057 bytes
1 : !
2 : upgrade fpd auto
3 : version 12.4
4 : service nagle
5 : no service pad
6 : service tcp-keepalives-in
7 : service tcp-keepalives-out
8 : service timestamps debug datetime msec localtime show-timezone
9 : service timestamps log datetime msec localtime show-timezone
10 : service password-encryption
11 : service sequence-numbers
12 : !
13 : hostname r2
14 : !
15 : boot-start-marker
16 : boot-end-marker
17 : !
They think of everything these days. I suspect that cheap and large flash in your routers means that useful commands are now possible. I must start looking for them more often.
Debugging ScreenOS on Juniper Netscreen
March 11, 2008 by Greg Ferro · Leave a Comment
Debugging on the Netscreen wasn’t all the obvious to me. Because I don’t always work on Netscreens here is a note to myself to remember how to do it.
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