DCB: How to Engineer your way out of a poor architecture decision!

I recently gave a presentation to the New Zealand Network Operators Group (NZNOG) 2011 conference on “Data Centre 3.0”. During my research over the last 8 months coupled with the fact checking I had been following up during the creation of the slides, I kept asking myself:

"Would we need all these protocols if we, as an industry, had made better technology implementation decisions?"

I understand the background and requirements for some of the different technology proposals, particularly Layer 2 Multi-path and the various Data Centre Bridging (DCB) QoS standards, but I cant help but feel that we are trying to bring features of the higher layer protocols down into Layer 2.

RADIUS "Auth-Type" Attribute

The Intro

One of the things I do regularly for my clients is to build LNS Infrastructure to take wholesale L2TP handoff. It is not uncommon to take these handoffs from several suppliers covering technologies such as DSL, Dialup ports, Wireless, 3G etc.

Wholesale pricing in Australia means that it is not unreasonable to take a wholesale L2TP handoff from an Aggregator company and to build your corporate WAN using wholesale DSL services. Often these networks are built for customers who’s primary business is not running networks, but rather delivering a service. I have an upcoming series of blog posts that will cover creating these services in more detail.

Exam Review: JNCIS-ENT (JN0-343)

As you may have heard, Juniper has been shaking up their certification program - and all I can say is “It’s for the better!”.

In an effort to consolidate the disparate certification tracks (which were previously product based), they have moved towards being more centered around the market segments (and by extension the careers of the engineers going for the certs).

The first change was migrating the M track to becoming the Service Provider track. This is actually the track that would have made the most sense for my 9 to 5 (also 5 - 9) job, but as usual I don’t like to follow convention.

Wireless Drinking Stories

I had a “peaceful” weekend pretending to study for my upcoming CCDA exam in a couple weeks. Trying to convince myself that I cared, I decided the best course of action was to watch a movie! Sounds reasonable, right? I’ve been working my way back through Kevin Smith’s movies over the last couple of nights, and decided “Chasing Amy” was the perfect way to concentrate on what needed to be done.

Shout out: Junos Firewall Filters by Robert Juric

In my previous blog post about Juniper Training, I discussed how Juniper Firewall Filters were quite interesting and new to me because I have been using SRX since I started with Juniper equipment 12 months ago.

Robert Juric (@robertjuric) has written two really good blog posts about this topic that provides a really good overview of the topic. Robert is currently studying for his JNCIA-EX exam and has written several articles about Junos configuration.

CCIE BootCamp World Tour!

Living in Australia, I have gotten used to hearing about “once in a lifetime opportunities” and expecting they will always be on the other side of the world. This is a nice way of protecting myself from the inevitable disappointment that follows… BUT NOT TODAY!

The news is out that Emmanuel Conde from CCIE Flyer has brought together two of the biggest names in CCIE training and taken the show on the road.  Narbik Kocharians and Scott Morris have joined together to create a 12 day tag team CCIE R&S Bootcamp. Details are on his website.

Exam Review - JNCIA-ER (JN0-342)

As a Network Janitor, I spend a lot of time mopping up other peoples mess!  When called in for a consulting job, it doesnt pay to be a vendor bigot. This is why we decided that staff at my company would need to get trained in the key vendors in the networking space. We identified our first 3 targets as Cisco, Juniper and HP. We then started working towards improving our partner levels with each of these vendors, and this is a process that is still underway.

Reflections on Juniper Training

If you follow my @networkjanitor twitter feed than you may know that I spent 3 days last week in training provided by Juniper and the local distributer Avnet.

In the old tradition of “free training for channel partners”, I signed up for “Junos Routing Essentials (JRE)” and “Junos for Security Platforms”. There was an “Introduction to Junos Software” course on the Monday that I sent one of my engineers along to, but I didnt attend personally. I have included below my review of the two courses.

CCIE Assault - Part 1

Im currently working on my plan of attack on the CCIE R&S and I need some advice. I finally finished my CCNP in June after years of putting it off (I first got my CCNA in 2001!), and now I am trying to determine the best course of action moving forward.

So far my plan is this:

1. Buy CCIE Written Certification Guide - Check!

2. Improve my Skills in QoS, BGP and MPLS - Sit each of the CCIP exams associated with these subjects as confirmation of understanding of the base knowledge.

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Packet Pushers - Making my commute educational!

During my research into the new world of storage network and all the wonders contained within, I stumbled across a really great podcast - The Packet Pushers Podcast!

I think the tagline of the series says it all for me “Where too MUCH networking is NEVER enough”.

Now I’m a network geek and this has provided something I have been looking for - A networking specific podcast, that is entertaining, informative, not specifically vendor biased. Sure there is a tendancy to be Cisco-centric when dealing with networking, but there is a line between discussing discussing networking at a technical depth and being a vendor bigot. This team has pulled that off quite well.