Wherein I consider using BFD in Network Designs.
Switch Fabrics: Fabric Arbitration and Buffers
22nd August 2011 by 3 Comments
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 [...]
Cisco C6500 Service Modules – Not My Choice, Now.
19th June 2011 by 10 Comments
These all suggest that the time for planning and designing Service Modules is over. There are no suggestions that service modules for the Nexus 7000 will be developed that I can see. I can prognosticate that it would slow down the development of the core switch / route / performance functions, and it will be some years before those core capabilities is complete enough that service modules would become viable product development tasks — they might be in development, but not much chance of going into production. [^1]
Do I sound bitter about Service Modules ? A bit. I’ve had a number of hard to solve problems that lasted months before code fixes arrived. I’ve been fan of the NAM but the price is now far removed from it’s practical value. USD$30K List is way over priced for its capabilities and even with a 30% discount, you can buy a lot of network management systems that deliver much better functions and features for that price.
Which Network Topology?
2nd April 2011 by 14 Comments
Recently Iíve come across some interesting terms for variants of common network topologies, so I decided I’d try to list as many of them as I can for reference. Please suggest others to add.
Low Level Design – Think About the Next Step
18th March 2011 by Leave a Comment
A while back Greg wrote a great article about the “Rules of Design Documentation” http://etherealmind.com/rules-design-documentation-etherealmind/ these are really valuable rules when it comes to writing a design document and in my opinion is particularly relevant to a Low Level Design AKA Detailed Design Document. Ask yourself Before you can apply these rules of design you must [...]
So You Want to Use a 3750-X as a Router?
24th January 2011 by 8 Comments
Easy peasy lemon squeezy This seems a straightforward question! Just load up with advanced IP services license, install the license file and reboot the switch and you should be good to go. Well that’s what I thought until recently when I done the very steps above and on the surface seemed okay but I wanted [...]
Controller Based Networks for Data Centres
13th December 2010 by 11 Comments
The current technologies of data centre networks don’t address the fundamental scaling issues. You can’t scale to hundreds of independent switches, we need to have less control planes for more coherent functions. Here is my take on next wave of networking in the data centre beyond DCB and TRILL.
FCoE and Standards: This Is What Really Matters
24th August 2010 by 3 Comments
In the recent weeks, J. Michael Metz from Cisco entered a ****ing contest with my friend Greg and decided to prove that the FCoE standards are done.
Blessay: On Stackable / Fixed vs Chassis / Modular Ethernet Switches
27th February 2010 by 23 Comments
The debate on Stackable vs Chassis based switches has a long and proud pedigree. Here is my addition to the debate.
Is This the Year of 10 Gigabit Ethernet in the LAN ?
6th January 2010 by 6 Comments
A number of switch vendors have announced (and they are certainly hoping) that 10Gb Ethernet is the THING for 2010. Really ?
