Blessay: On Stackable / Fixed vs Chassis / Modular Ethernet Switches
February 27, 2010 by Greg Ferro · 16 Comments
The debate on Stackable vs Chassis based switches has a long and proud pedigree. Here is my addition to the debate.
Nerdgasm: OmniGraffle on the iPad [the Omni Mouth:iPad or Bust!]
January 30, 2010 by Greg Ferro · 2 Comments
Omni Group announces their intention to develop OmniGraffle for the Apple iPad
Is This the Year of 10 Gigabit Ethernet in the LAN ?
January 6, 2010 by Greg Ferro · 6 Comments
A number of switch vendors have announced (and they are certainly hoping) that 10Gb Ethernet is the THING for 2010. Really ?
Cynicism and Regret Are Powerful Design Tools
November 30, 2009 by Greg Ferro · 7 Comments
If there are two aspects of my personality that drive my design process, its Cynicism and Regret. Let me tell you that bitter tales of disappointment, let downs and failure that make for better designs.
Cisco, EMC, VMware — Living Together Isn’t the Same as Married
November 4, 2009 by Greg Ferro · 2 Comments
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
November 3, 2009 by Greg Ferro · Leave a Comment
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 ?
October 23, 2009 by Greg Ferro · Leave a Comment
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 ?
Blessay:VTP Version 3.0 — Is VTP Making a Comeback ?
August 10, 2009 by Greg Ferro · 8 Comments
VTP Version 3.0 — Is VTP making a comeback ?
I found this document at Cisco.com today about VTPv3. What ? VTPv3 ? I had to dig into that.
Blessay: Designing Enterprise DMZ and Multilayer Firewall Clusters
August 2, 2009 by Greg Ferro · 14 Comments
In modern Enterprise networks, you typically have many clusters of firewalls protecting assets in your network. Since we use two or more layers of firewalls, we can put our DMZ for intermediate security zones in different places in our network. Lets gather together the different options and consider the merits or not, and sometimes how they ‘self-build’.
Network Diagrams:Zones on a Diagram With Visio Shape Union
July 31, 2009 by Greg Ferro · 5 Comments
The post looks at using the Union of shapes in Visio to create unusal shaped objects. Especially useful when trying to draw zones to show the DMZ in dual layer firewall cluster.
Network Diagrams: Drawing Freehand Curves (and Then Fixing Them)
March 23, 2009 by Greg Ferro · 5 Comments
Continuing on with absurdly popular posts about making diagrams in Visio. Lets draw a line in freehand. It will be broken, because we aren’t artists so lets talk about how to fix it.
Network Diagrams: Drawing the Background Shape
March 6, 2009 by Greg Ferro · 9 Comments
This post looks at how to draw the background shape and shaping following my previous posts on drawing network diagrams.
What Does ‘Ethereal Mind’ Mean ?
January 29, 2009 by Greg Ferro · 1 Comment
What does Ethereal Mind mean ?
Design: Lack of Choice Improves Client Outcomes
September 8, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 1 Comment
One of the prime criteria for a design process is to search for and evaluate design choices. But research suggest that excessive choice actually produces negative outcomes, its hardwired into the human brain. Therefore a Network Designer needs to ensure that they are overriding their natural instinct.
Configuring Windows 2003 / XP SP2 to Use IOS NTP Server
June 10, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 5 Comments
In certain networks, it is difficult to get the time on your servers to be exactly the same as the NTP time on your network equipment. In this case, you want to force the Windows servers to use the same NTP Network time source as your routers and switches. But Microsoft Windows doesn’t understand NTP […]
Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE) — Introduction and Comparison With F5
January 25, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 13 Comments
My new interest of the moment is the Cisco Application Control Engine or ACE module. I have just received a pair of them and planning on starting the configuration in the next couple of days. So perhaps some discussion on the ACE is in order, and why I am considering using both F5 LTM AND the Cisco ACE in this network.

