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.

Network Dictionary — Straw Man Review

Define “Straw Man Review”

Interesting Switch Designs for Data Centre Racks From Juniper

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

The Harbinger of Death for PABX and IP Telephony

Unlimited voice/​text/​data plans in the UK sig­nal the end of Legacy and IP Telephony mar­ket as we know it.

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

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

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

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

Rant: Which of These 10GB Adapters Is Not the Same ?

Look at the these net­work adapters. One for Server, and one for a Cisco fire­wall. One costs five times more than the other. Can you pick which one ?

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

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

DDOS — a Problem Bigger Than You Can Ever Be

Taking data from the Arbor Networks DDOS report for 2009 and apply­ing it to real life makes for some ugly choices.

Blessay:Cloud Computing Not “Essential Service”, More Like “Public Transport”

I believe that Cloud Computing is unlikely to become Essential Service, but will be more like Public Transport — cheap, mass mar­ket, lim­ited func­tion and “accept­able” for some.

Key Change for Cisco IOS 15 — Feature Licensing and How We Work.

Welcome to IOS 15, Feature licens­ing and com­plic­ated main­ten­ance procedures.…

Can You Learn Anything From Google or Facebook Data Centers ?

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 ?

Is This the Year of 10 Gigabit Ethernet in the LAN ?

A num­ber of switch vendors have announced (and they are cer­tainly hop­ing) that 10Gb Ethernet is the THING for 2010. Really ?

Blessay: FCoE Is JUST a Transition Technology

Chris Evans believes that “FCoE” will rule the world. Hah. I believe it’s just a trans­ition tech­no­logy that drags Storage out of it’s closed, pro­pri­et­ary mind­set into the open col­lab­or­at­ive world. Data Networks can eas­ily adapt.

Cisco, EMC, VMware — Living Together Isn’t the Same as Married

A bunch of CEO’s prom­ising to play ‘nice’ with each oth­ers toys is not a con­vin­cing mar­ket­ing exer­cise. Cisco and EMC/​VMware need to merge to get big enough to com­pete with HP /​ IBM.

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.

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