24th May 2012

Sponsored: Brocade Virtual Symposium – Storage Convergence

Continuing the series from the Brocade Virtual Symposium. In a special video session that was sponsored by Brocade, we got Chip Copper in the room with Stephen Foskett to talk about storage convergence.

Over the last few years, I’ve been very critical of Ethernet storage protocols like [FCoE](http://etherealmind.com/tag/fcoe/) and the fact that storage protocols are unlikely to work well. There are few times here where Chip was able to give me answers and a different viewpoint that gave me a different take on the solutions.

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Does SDN Represent the Evolution of Network Management ? Yes but No It Doesn’t

1090755_sulpher_springs_yellowstone_park.jpg

SDN/OpenFlow is about Network Management, at least, in part. But the rich tools for software control dont’ exist. I also think don’t think that todays management _platforms_ (such as Tivoli, OpenView and BMC) are suitable for network orchestration in the future.

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Tech Notes: Juniper QFabric – A Perspective on Scaling Up

qfabric-depth-3.jpg

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.

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Comparing Embrane and Nicira Is Pointless – They Are Different

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.

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Predicting What Will Not Be Big in 2012

I’ve been working on making some predictions about 2012 and networking. I like to do this in the year of 2012 (not 2011 like everyone else) and I like to go further than anyone else and predict what WILL NOT be big in 2012.

This post is copyright of Thropos Ltd ©2008-2011 at Etherealmind.com - contact | email: greg.ferro@packetpushers.net - twitter: @etherealmind | All rights reserved

Using Underscores, Hyphens or CamelCase in Naming Standards

I’ve been considering a small but vital problem in naming conventions in Networking. Namely, the use of underscores and hyphens in object names and devices. It’s a hot topic for argument when the time comes for corporate standards (and when Network Engineers have beverages in a public house). Now, I figure that there are three possible grammar options for making names – hyphens, underscore and CamelCase.

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Responding: On Optimizing Traffic for Network Virtualization

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.

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Scaling Virtual Appliances With Embrane

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.

This post is copyright of Thropos Ltd ©2008-2011 at Etherealmind.com - contact | email: greg.ferro@packetpushers.net - twitter: @etherealmind | All rights reserved

Should I Use BFD in My Network ?

Wherein I consider using BFD in Network Designs.

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Switch Fabrics: Fabric Arbitration and Buffers

In the article, “What Is the Definition of a Switch Fabric ?” on Switch Fabrics I looked at how a Crossbar switching fabric allow for concurrent circuit forwarding and how this is used to build a fabric. In most cases, frames would be received and forwarded from an input to an output, as show in [...]

This post is copyright of Thropos Ltd ©2008-2011 at Etherealmind.com - contact | email: greg.ferro@packetpushers.net - twitter: @etherealmind | All rights reserved