Network design, architecture, thinking, working. Tech.
In this post, I’m looking at network designs with ECMP cores using TRILL or SPB, I’m realising that STP is equally improved in terms of risk and performance by reducing the STP domain size which leads to better stability, reduced risk and impact mitigation
A lot of people have talked extensively about OpenFlow making significant changes to the networking business. In particular, many writers have focussed on the possibility that OpenFlow enables a choice of using low cost network equipment instead of the expensive networking equipment that we use today.
Well, that’s highly unlikely.
Just watched this video on the ASA-CX. Only one thing made my heart leap with joy. NO JAVA.
Cisco is known for shipping products early to deliver new features quickly. But this leads to a reputation for buggy code which has customers report bugs (and Cisco fixing them). This means that you should never buy a newly released Cisco product unless you are willing to take this risk. This post looks a my process for analysing this risk and then selecting an IOS version by performing a bug scrub. In this case, I’ve been asked whether the Cisco C3750-X switches are ready for live deployment.
Juniper QFabric is a new approach to Ethernet Switch Fabrics. When it was announced last year,it was noted that the underlying physical design is a completely different approach to building Switch Fabrics. Here I’m taking a loosely research based approach to understand how Juniper QFabric is different from all other approaches to the problem, and also a look at some of the challenges ahead.
I’ve always wondered whether the Open Networking Foundation is the correct caretaker of the standards process for Software Defined Networking. Recently, we’ve seen some questioning of the direction of those standards on OpenFlow, and, now that we are beginning to understand the concepts of controllers, Software Defined Networking these are good questions to ask. it shows [...]
Had a few conversations, and some articles, where comparisons are being made between Embrane and Nicira and wanted to point out that there are few similarities between these companies.
Short Answer is “It depends, but usually yes.” Long answer follows with a discussion of launch power, receiver sensitivity, and cable losses.
I’m responding to Brad Hedlund’s post “On optimizing traffic for network virtualization” where he seems to missed a key point. It’s about cost of ownership in terms of ability to troubleshoot.
Embrane uses concepts of IP Flows to scale virtual appliances. Embrane does this by managing IP flows and then directing to other appliances, in effect creating what I would call a two tier load balancing.
