28 August 2010

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

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

On the Difference Twinax and Cat6 UTP 10 Gigabit Ethernet

There are two types of copper cabling for 10GbE. What’s the basic difference between them ?

Bisectional Bandwidth. And Why L2MP and Trill/RBridges Is Important ?

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Greg Ferro looks at Bisectional Bandwidth as a design technique in the data centre and why the impact of Layer 2 Multi-Pathing is a vital part of Data Centre Network Design.

F5 LTM and Tcp Timouts

One of the dangers of being from a pure cisco background is assumption. You treat all devices as if they have the same defaults as ‘normal’ Cisco devices. I think I’m pretty good at avoiding this, but it gets us all sometimes. As we all know, when you run long lived TCP connections through application [...]

Blessay: Autonegotiation on Ethernet – It Works, It Should Be Mandatory!

EVERYONE – Autosensing on ethernet works just fine, and all manufacturers recommend using autosensing. Why aren’t you !

Lets look at how it works and why you should be using it.

Interesting Switch Designs for Data Centre Racks From Juniper

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I was reviewing the Juniper Virtual Chassis Technology and there are some very interesting designs possible with their specific stacking technology.

Blessay: On Stackable / Fixed vs Chassis / Modular Ethernet Switches

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The debate on Stackable vs Chassis based switches has a long and proud pedigree. Here is my addition to the debate.

The Ten Networking Commandments

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If you run a Network team using these as a basis for business planning and operational excellence then you won’t go wrong.

Is EEM Ready for the Big Time ?

Can I use Embedded Event Manager as a tool for High Availability networking ?

Cisco Releasing Spam RFCs? And Discovery on IETF Informational RFCs

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Why is M Foschiano from Cisco releasing Informational RFC’s to no real purpose ? Is this RFC Spam or some evil marketing plot ?

Notes on Cisco Catalyst 6500 Architecture. (Or What Does 720 in Supervisor 720 Mean ?)

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What does the ’720′ in the Supervisor 720 stand for ? Or, what do you need to know about Cisco C6500 switch architecture.

Can You Learn Anything From Google or Facebook Data Centers ?

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Google and Facebook have been puffing themselves up about how clever they are at solving technical problems. Is it just cheap marketing, and is there actually anything that Enterprise computing can learn from what they have shared ?

Blessay: Lessons to Be Learned From Nortel’s Death Throes

A couple of days ago I explained how cynicism and regret are valuable thinking processes for a Network Designer. The long foreseen failure and subsequent breakup of Nortel presents a opportunity to look back with regret and learn cynical lessons for the future.

FCoE Isn’t a Replacement for Infiniband, It’s a Cheaper Copy That Customers Will Buy

There is some misconception by many in the storage industry that FCoE is some type of replacement for Infiniband. My view is that FCoE is cheaper, dumber but MARKETABLE alternative.

What the Letters on 802.1 Ethernet Standards Stand For

A recent post from a member of the IEEE standard finally tells us something useful instead of keeping everything a secret.

Rant:Why Is the IEEE All About Secrecy ?

I’m not happy that IEEE hides much of the meeting and discussions that progress the standards that affect all of us. Why does it have to be a secret ?

Mibi Mega Kibi Kilo – Decimal and Binary Prefixes

A megabit can be 1,000,000 bits or 1,048,576 bits depending on whether you using decimal or binary definitions. Standards have been defined to help – are you using the mibibyte and kibibyte in your documentation ?

Cisco IOS Order of Operation – Updated, Again

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I often need to refer to the IOS order of operation when I start stacking multiple functions in an IOS configuration.