My EtherealMind» Musing

Watch Out Cisco. Huawei’s Coming!

Greg Ferro — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:54:13 +0000

In this Gigaom.com piece, Stacey talks about the arrival of Huawei in America. When Huawei arrived in Europe about three/four years ago, Cisco lost a LOT of business especially when BT and other carriers changed their standard purchase to include Huawei on the approved list. Huawei had a rocky start with widely known hardware failures [...]

My Networking Beliefs

Greg Ferro — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:51:54 +0000

Someone wrote me and asked "Greg, What do you believe is the future of Networking". Here is my (mostly) humorous response.

Musing:Cloud Data, Ownership and Government Sponsored Data Theft

Greg Ferro — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:50:45 +0000

Pondering on data ownership, and whether governements could legally steal data from offshore organisations

Ethernet Jumbo Frames, Full Duplex and Why Jumbo Frames Are 9000 Bytes)

Greg Ferro — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 16:14:26 +0000

I've been doing some research into Ethernet and the use of Jumbo frames for some content I've been writing and come across something interesting. The documents state that Jumbo frames can only be used on Full Duplex Ethernet connections.

What Are 10 Gigabit Ultra Short Reach (USR) Optics ?

Greg Ferro — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:36:06 +0000

A couple of weeks back I posted this article comparing pricing and features on Cisco Fabric Ethernet Transceivers as a low cost option compared to 10GbaseSR SFP+ optics in when building 10GbE networks - Cisco Nexus 5000 / 2000 Pricing Bundles and Fabric Extension Transceivers (FETs) vs 10GbaseSR SFPs.

Musing: Difference Between Success and Not Failing

Greg Ferro — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 15:13:57 +0000

roject scopes means that the smallest possible money is spent to achieve the least acceptable outcome. That is, the scope of the project is defined as the smallest possible work to achieve the goal.The goal is often researched, analysed, and reviewed until it is reduced to as small as it can be. That is, the "least acceptable" goal for the business.

Network Evolution and Hierarchy of Needs

Greg Ferro — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 10:34:15 +0000

I've often pondered the stages of Network Deployment and Integration within companies - how they progress from the one stage of network complexity to the next. And if you work at enough different organisations you realise that they all companies operate in similar ways, and have similar adoption of Networking. From an IT infrastructure perspective, most organisations use the same basic service models. In a sense, networking provides the human equivalent of the nervous system which allows the myriad corporate organs to communicate, signal and co-operate. This, of course, leads to consideration of the psychological perception of Networking. In a recent blog, Alvaro Retana from HP (co-author of a number of outstanding textbooks including Cisco Press with Russ White and some others that are not vendor specific and Cisco CCAr/CCDE etc) wrote a blog post that is similar to something in my "to finish" list where he takes the Maslows Hierarchy of Needs and adapts it to how Networks are part of the corporate Hierarchy of Needs.

Musing: Targeted Recruitment Means Bows and Boobs

Greg Ferro — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 18:10:25 +0000

In my ongoing project to laugh heartily at marketing people but especially Cisco marketing people, I give you the Cisco Strategic Recruitment Solution. Check out the picture on this brochure. That's right. Nothing says "Strategic Recruitment" like the picture of a young woman, in a skimpy top, boobs to the front, and pulling an arrow on a bow.

Musing: How Many 10Gigabit Ethernet Ports Do You Really Need ?

Greg Ferro — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:11:53 +0000

I was doing a Data Centre Design recently and did some numbers around the numbers of 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports that need to be deployed. I got a bit of a realisation shock.

Windows Tools Aren’t Worth Selling.

Greg Ferro — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:30:10 +0000

I was working with a PR person who asked me about some software tools. They wanted to know why I didn't consider these tools anymore.

Nokia and Microsoft Announce Partnership – Observations

Greg Ferro — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:41:29 +0000

So Nokia and Microsoft have joined to make phones. Some Observations.

Spanning Tree, Three States & Why Committees Can Suck

Greg Ferro — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:49:23 +0000

Have you ever wondered why there are three states in the 802.1d Spanning Tree Standard ?

Humour: Men vs Women Described as Machine

Greg Ferro — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:34:30 +0000

Image summarising the administration of Men vs Women

So You Want to Use a 3750-X as a Router?

John McManus — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:04:47 +0000

Easy peasy lemon squeezy This seems a straightforward question! Just load up with advanced IP services license, install the license file and reboot the switch and you should be good to go. Well that’s what I thought until recently when I done the very steps above and on the surface seemed okay but I wanted [...]

Perception Is Reality, Design, and Hacking the Presentation

Greg Ferro — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:02:06 +0000

Looking closely at how your 'design' your responses to information request so that you can get better outcomes in problem situations at work.

Corny Network Engineer Jokes – Updated 20101121-1459

Greg Ferro — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 12:12:49 +0000

I've been collecting corny network engineer jokes that have occasionally erupted on Twitter from time to time. Here they are.

Network Zen – Standardisation

Greg Ferro — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:49:33 +0000

The Network Zen Student learns about Standardisation

Internet – Not to Scale

Greg Ferro — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:58:14 +0000

People always forget that the Internet is REALLY REALLY big.

EtherealMind’s iPad Home Screen

Greg Ferro — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:36:11 +0000

People have asked what applications I'm using on my iPad.

IBM Buys Blade Networks – Cisco Keeps Its Buddy ?

Greg Ferro — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:11:29 +0000

IBM buys Blade Networks IBM has ìrun for the stackî as customers ask for end to end guarantees for servers and networking in the data center. With Cisco and HP playing the FUD card and telling customers that only a single vendor solution can guarantee the next generation of blade servers and networks, IBM has [...]

VMware “vFabric” And the Potential Impact on Data Centre Network Design

Greg Ferro — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:50:05 +0000

If the VMware vFabric speculation is true, then the service focussed data centre designs just got very, very, interesting.

Teach a Man to Fish – On Learning to Learn and Certification

Greg Ferro — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:34:48 +0000

Musing on "learning something" as opposed to "learning to learn something". I believe this is a vital part of understanding certification.

Musing: On Permananent and Ephemeral Knowledge and Exam Study

Greg Ferro — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:45:38 +0000

Like many tech-workers, we need to ingest vast quantities of knowledge to get started in our jobs. Without that knowledge, there is no working in our business. What is unique, however, is that we continue to ingest knowledge for the remainder of our careers - often consuming large portions of our personal time and energy. Worse we even get tested on it by sitting formal examinations. How can we manage this process to be more effective ?

Musing: On Using the Word Cisco or CCIE in Your Blog Title

Greg Ferro — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 12:54:42 +0000

Recently ciscoblog.com got a takedown notice from Cisco lawyers and then acted all offended when asked to handover the name. What, you didn't see it coming ?

If I Can’t Fix It, I’ll Break It. And That’s OK, It Needed Fixing Anyway.

Greg Ferro — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:30:13 +0000

When explaining outage risks in a change review, I often need to grit my teeth and say quietly to myself.....